How funny that these two stories should come across the wires on the same day.

First, on the homefront (of GamerAndy if not you), two of the most vocal and politically powerful critics of the game industry have finally removed their heads from their backsides and allowed oxygen to their brains.

According to GamePolitics.com, at 3 p.m. ET today, Sens. Hillary Rodham-Clinton and Joseph Lieberman will join with ESA president Doug Lowenstein and ESRB president Patricia Vance to launch a new informational campaign for parents. Their message: Read the ratings on your kids' video games.

This is a welcome moment of detente after both Rodham-Clinton and Lieberman have spent the last couple years blaming the video-game industry for everything from Columbine to West Nile virus.

But even as these two legislators are recovering from AssHat disease, the entire nation of Germany has started showing early signs it has caught the bug.

A hilarious rollick into the minds of insane Germans after the jump...

According to the Financial Times and reported by MSNBC, the German governement is looking to adopt leglislation that would fine developers of first-person shooters that inflict "cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters" and jail them for up to a year.

Yes, you read that right. Behind bars. For a year. For writing a first-person shooter -- in which you shoot someone or something "human-esque."

This comes after a 18-year-old Emsdetten man shot 11 people at a school and then killed himself. He played Counter Strike and was "a self-avowed internet nerd." And that, obviously is the reason why he shot people.

However, my "sources" tell me he also liked strudel. In fact, they tell me that he would walk around downtown Emsdetten with a silly grin on his face asking if somone would "make me some struuuuudel?" He would then yell, "I know nothink! I see nothink!"

And by "sources" I mean the little voices in my head, who have obviously been watching reruns of Hogan's Heroes.

But seriously, this AssHatted legislation comes at a very bad time for the German video-game market -- the third largest market in the world. Germany is the site of the world's third-largest video game show, the Leipzig Games Convention. How can developers of a FPS dare stick a toe in the country knowing that they could spend a year in prison?

In addition, it's not like there aren't any professional gamers from Germany. In fact, according to the Financial Times story, "German Counter Strike teams regularly rank in the top five positions of international tournament league tables."

But worst of all, if this legislation passes, Sony is pretty much phucked in Germany. Being that its two largest European release titles for the PS3 are FPSes and that it won't be hitting Europe's shores until March, that pretty much dries up the software market for its most ambitious gaming-hardware release in the third-largest gaming market.

So, boo on you, Germany. Hopefully you will recover from "the AssHat" sooner than we did.