Reasons to be glad you're not German.

[Dinner]

Exhibit A.

[Deity Dude]

Damn, I am half German.

[Lancer]

Your country is surrounded by hostile powers and your leaders are often paranoid thinking the must strike first before your enemy is ready. They are correct but either way you're screwed.

Property is expensive even though population is declining.

Your women prefer American soldiers. Particularly the black ones.

There isn't a warm winter beach in the whole place.

The pizza is crap and the system is metric so there are no 48" pizzas.

[Heraclitus]

Well, the system is metric everywhere except the US and Liberia.

[Heraclitus]

Sorry. Forgot about Burma.

[BeBMan]

You don't like good beer, panzers (every German is legally required to sponsor one), pumpernickel or bratwurst and sauerkraut.

You're from Austria and glad that nobody noticed Austria wasn't with the good guys in WWII.

You still like wearing a small moustache

[Harovan]

This is sung by Vader Abraham, and he is Dutch.

[Proteus_MST]

You own a website and don´t like the fact that lawyers can just come and demand lots of money from you, because for example you made a small mistake in your impressum (like forgetting a telephone number) or you used the foto from another website (maybe a foto of a cake that was made by another person (for example the owner of Marions Kochbuch) or because you (or someone in your guest book) mention a term that is protected by trademarkt rights in germany (for example "Ballermann Party" )

[Lancer]

Well that's not just a German problem and it's another reason why I live in the Philippines as much as I can. Just can't live free in the west anymore. It was better with the Vikings than the lawyers because at least with the Vikings you both had a weapon.

[Wernazuma III]

You're from Austria and glad that nobody noticed Austria wasn't with the good guys in WWII.

Don't listen to that Nazi propaganda.
If you want to learn more about Austria, please watch The Sound of Music and Sissi - everything else is irrelevant.

[Heraclitus]

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Lancer
Well that's not just a German problem and it's another reason why I live in the Philippines as much as I can. Just can't live free in the west anymore. It was better with the Vikings than the lawyers because at least with the Vikings you both had a weapon.

I always believed that germany was worse than other countries in this manner, because here the lawyer is paidf by the recipient of his cease and desist orders (and not by the person who hired him to protect its trademark rights) and the lawyer can send you a cease and desist order as soon as he spots the mistake you made.

So that in germany upon receiving such a cease and desist order you can either:
a) Sign the cease and desist order and pay the lawyer a charge for the work he had with writing this order (the charge you have to pay is dependand on the value of claim and normally ranges from 100 € to several thousand € [oh and I might add that it is the lawyer himself who determines the value of claim, so that, without problems, he can determine the value of claim to be 100.000 € just to get as much money from the recipient as possible])

or
b) fight the case before court and successfully concince the judges that the cease and desist order of the lawyer has no base.


I thought in all other countries it would be that:

1. The Lawyer has to informally write a note first to the webpage owner (for which he cannot demand any money from the recipient) and only could send a cease and desist order if the webpage owner doesn´t react to the letter/mail accordingly (for exampling by removing the stumbing block as soon as possible)

and/or

2. The Lawyer isn´t paid by the recipient of the cease and desist order but by the person who hired him for protecting his trademark rights.

(meaning that in those countries the system couldn´t be abused as much as in germany as a money milking machine for lawyers)

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Lancer
Well that's not just a German problem and it's another reason why I live in the Philippines as much as I can. Just can't live free in the west anymore. It was better with the Vikings than the lawyers because at least with the Vikings you both had a weapon.

[molly bloom]

David Hasselhoff and Lederhosen spring to mind.

Oh and pron with scheiss- nein danke.

But then I love Can, Propaganda, Fritz Lang, Kraftwerk, Lotte Lenya and Kurt Weill and Honigkuchen.

And sauerkraut with caramelised apples and pork sausage...

[Barnabas]

The only good thing about being german is not having to study german as a second language