Reputations?

Germans' reputations, aside from the part about most of them just not getting it in most social situations, is about generally being prudish: risk averse, socially conformist, servile to social instruction, and so on. It's a funny thing, because one of the common memes that they delight in jerking themselves off to is the prudishness of Americans.

So it's rather puzzling to find the German Parliament banning condom vending machines in the Bundestag.

Ein Parlamentsautomat, an dem sie normalerweise Zigaretten kauften, hatte plötzlich ein neues Produkt im Angebot: Kondome.

The amusingly backward and anachronistic part about it all is that while they are discouraging smoking wherever they can, they still sell cigs in vending machines in the Bundestag's wash rooms.

Mind you, not selling kapuchas, presevatifs, or party hats in the john might keep Parliamentarians' quasi-anonymous dogging to a minimum, but... cigs? In THIS day and age? Tut, tut. After all, I think that they're growing too old as a population in general to need the barrier method anyway.

With thanks to evil genius for the tip (as it were).

Elsewhere: Like sheltered zoo animals incubated in a artifice, Europeans are finally being reintroduced into the natural environment, where they are about as unlikely to propagate as they are now.

Europeans to be taught about failure and risk-taking

This is something the little dears need to be taught against their will. It must be tough to just walk off of the plantation.