Satire / History about 30 minutes
Educate yourself: Do you know who Harriet Tubman was? I didn’t!
Mark Steel once again delivers a brilliant and highly amusing historical lecture. Can we clone this guy and send at least one to every school?
Satire / History about 30 minutes
Educate yourself: Do you know who Harriet Tubman was? I didn’t!
Mark Steel once again delivers a brilliant and highly amusing historical lecture. Can we clone this guy and send at least one to every school?
Can anyone please explain to me the pleasures of winter camping? The cold? The cold? Or the cold?
Terry Gilliam is one of my Gods! I love his unique vision, creativity and humour. It is sad that there are not more story tellers like him around.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but it is a colourful, unique and special story. Highly recommended to anyone who can cope with a story that is NOT meant for 14-year old kids.
I hate it when man or animals are way too sure of themselves. This Wombat knows he is way too cute …
Argumental is a great BBC TV Show based on the good old British tradition of the debate club.
I love the Economists dry humour and attitude. The cover is a brilliant idea! It goes all biblical on the new Book of Jobs, in reference to the really old one!
Once again Charlie Brooker dissects the News Business and shows us how all that crap is made (up).
All media education should be as brilliant and nasty like this.
The Green Movement – digging up dirt on the industrial lifestyle for 30 years …
The Green Movement started to flex it’s political muscles about 30 years ago here in Europe and became a serious power for change.
Alternative ideas have been around since the early 1960’s (like the Gaia hypothesis) and developed into a serious, but tiny political idea in the early 1970’s like the Club of Rome. 1968 saw worldwide student protests, but it took another ten years to transform these ideas and many splinter groups into a (more or less) coherent political movement called the Greens.
Strangely enough it was Germany, were the Green Movement had it’s first major impact – a country hardly known for revolutions and a big hunger for change.
The Green Party (Die Grünen) was the last big political Grassroots movement here in Germany (no, I don’t count the Re-Unification as such).
It was born out of a mixture of the strong peace movement (fuelled by the rage against stationing the Pershing II missiles in Germany), the 1968-Student-Protesters turned activists in the 1970’s and the new alternative green culture (who fought for example for years in huge battles against the Police to stop a new terminal for the airport in Frankfurt).
Damn Hippies … oh wait – these are real politicians and they actually achieved something.
Compared to traditional parties the Greens really cared about pollution, saving the planet and new global social ideas. They were the first to advance the ideas to protect nature as well as the consumers on the table and later into law.
The Greens were part of a bigger cultural change in Germany (and later worldwide) – that was quite different from the extreme Left (like the Baader-Meinhof-Group) and re-emerging Neo-Nazis from the right.
We are not the old mainstream – we are going to be the new green mainstream …
Even "normal" people saw the need to fight pollution and simply get better food for their families.
The 1970’s and 1980’s showed us that Science and it’s industrial application were far from perfect.
Scandals like Pesticides in Mother’s Milk and most of all Chernobyl disaster showed us that these dangers were real and could no longer be ignored.
The Green Movement also introduced new and not so new esoteric ideas and thinking to the mainstream.
Slowly, but surely things like crystals for improving your health, your very own homeopathic emergency kit or working with "energy" became acceptable even to "non-hippies".
Are there any crystals that can heal stupidity?
Suddenly "old & ancient" ideas made a big comeback – often with a huge commercial campaigns behind them. We saw an explosion of things like Yoga Studios, Feng Shui Consultants and Ayurveda Shampoos.
The Green movement had always a pagan and slightly naive and childish "connection to mother nature", but smart old fashioned and new alternative companies made huge amounts of money with the people’s desire to be "greener" and less "violent" to nature (and save some cute animals on the way).
The Media always loved Green Protests, because they sell and make everybody feel good.
Although the Green movement (often in cooperation with activists from groups like Green Peace) presented hard scientific facts to underline their arguments, the Green Mainstream also cultivated a new form of pseudo-religious Green Guilt or Doomsday panic.
Like the Catholic Church (and many other religious institutions) the Green Movement as well as Green Companies have exploited the Green Guilt and Fear for the Environment.
The Mass Media also loves to exploit the Green Doomsday Fears.
One of the most overused images of green campaigns.
It’s easy to make fun of the Green Guilt and some of the stupider fringes of the Green Movement. Overall it was and still is a great political power that changed a lot!
Just walk in any Western Supermarket and you find many green / organic products that are usually way better than processed food.
Also environmental laws to protect nature have vastly improved in the last 30 years – thanks to the Green Movement and many crazy Green Campaigns. Conserving our Bio Diversity has become a mainstream agenda.
The Sunflower – symbol for Green Politics.
Globalization (and the protest against it) and Fair Trade are important topics thanks to the Green Movement (and no thanks to many so called Socialist Parties, who were slow to spot that "trend").
The whole topic of sustainable growth (LOHAS) is also born out of Green Ideas.
The Green Revolution has still a long way to go. There is still a lack of strong Green Parties in big countries like US or UK. Countries like China or Russia hardly care about Green Ideas, although they slowly adapt some measures to fight climate change.
Let’s see how much the Green Movement can achieve till 2030? The first 30 years were pretty impressive …
Click image for a closer look.
I only leave home with a portable heater these days!
Click image for a warmer touch.
This is exactly how I imaged people working in pathology. Does anyone know the brilliant photographer?
Political Debate – about 90 minutes
Finally Obama takes the fight to the enemy. It’s amazing how easily Obama deflated the GOP spin machine. But it was also impressive to see such a great Intellect at work.
Could Sarah Palin do the same?
But I wonder if normal Americans even noticed the event or watched it?
And one more thing: it shows that Presidents or Prime Ministers SHOULD DEBATE in Parliament and explain their policies to the opposition. That is real political discourse.
This is old Socialist Propaganda – but honestly not much has changed. You can add to the Clergy level modern Mass Media, Celebrities and Esoteric Consumerism.
And they should add some Politicians, Bankers and Billionaires who piss down the pyramids to visualize Ronald Reagan’s "trickle down economy".
Anything else missing?
We are currently reaching Peak Oil.
Less Oil means higher prices for Petrol and Fertilizers.
Expensive Petrol and Fertilizers will raise Food Prices and lower overall production.
Less Food means Starvation.
Starvation will reduces the amount of Humans.
Less Humans means less Industry and Farming.
Less Industry and Farming will reduce CO2 and Climate Change.
Global Grain stocks are already in decline and food prices have skyrocketed in recent years (especially for poor nations).
We are already on our way to solve climate change …
Reality has the nasty habit of crashing with advertising and turning it into a perverse new insight.
BBC about 30 min.
Once again Mr Brooker pleases Misanthropes like me by dissecting the madness of daily life and the media frenzy we all live in.
Some excellent insights into the Newsbusiness and the so called "narrative" that is behind the Group Think of large Broadcasters.
BBC Panorama: A Walk in the Park
Excellent report on what’s really going on in Israel. And how fanaticism makes the lives of ordinary people hell. While the Mainstream Media focuses on Al-Quaeda, they mostly miss the slow grinding and brutal realities in all the other spots (like this one in this report, but also the tyranny in Egypt, Libya and other countries in the region).
The electronic book is a wet dream for gadget makers and publishers alike. Since the dawn of the CD-ROM they have tried hard to give us the eBook as well as the eNewspaper.
Finally new technology like the Kindle seem to make that possible.
But I think the whole approach is wrong. You simply can’t simulate paper digitally – it’s physical attributes can’t be replicated on a screen.
You can only "advance" the concept and idea of reading and organizing a series of texts into a coherent bigger "story" (book) or collection of articles (newspaper).
We already have that new concept and you are using it right now: it’s called a browser.
People have disliked reading PDFs for years and prefer content in their browsers.
The only reason why they want shove eBooks and eNewspapers down our throats is that they want us to pay for it. We still connect to the concept of "books" and "newspapers" that we have to pay for it. Anything in a browser is supposed to be free.
Amazon wants us all to use a Kindle, so they can track and watch what we read.
Those eReaders are all about buying content and digital rights management. And we already have seen that the Amazon Kindle as well as the iPhone (another big eBook plattform) have remote killswitches. If they want those companies can simply switch off access to any content you bought and downloaded for on YOUR own machine.
This is very easy to do with electronic gadgets with an internet – try to that with an old fashioned newspaper or book …
Click image for more cuddles …
Experiments with baby apes have shown that they prefer fake furry mothers with no food over fake non-furry mothers (just a bleak wireframe model) that offered food.
So we primates need warmth, closeness and love more than anything else when we are small and vulnerable.
Nature is not just cruel, it also knows the benefit of love.
An old, yet brilliant Beethoven performance send in by S.Quinn! Thank you so much – this is a great catch.
Leonid Kogan was completely unknown to me – until I saw this video. This is why I love YouTube: it helps us to preserve and share such treasures … one only has to find them ….
Click image for Madness …
My world famous Lady friend and I share the same admiration for “Hello Kitty”. Too bad nobody wants to see me in my Kitsch-Dress …
Click image for past glories …
Who can resist the gaze of Liz Taylor – the modern Cleopatra of Hollywood?
Sorry Keith I had to abuse you …
The first thing the West always sends in an Emergency to help are reporters. They will mobilize the Public at home. The Public then will pressure the Politicians “to do something” to help these poor people.
The Politicians only really care what happened in some shitty place somewhere because their voters do. The Politicians then pledge to send some help now and loads of money later (which usually never arrives).
Then the Reporters will report back and show nice images about the help coming from the Country they are representing. This makes the Public at home feel good and generous about themselves for being such nice people.
The West loves Poverty Porn: we love watching starving children while having Dinner. We also love the Pop Concerts triggered by Poverty Porn.
Click for a bigger presentation.
Young guys love to show off their virility, aggression and power – or so they think, unless they have to really show it to some females.
The physical exam during the muster is quite a humiliating procedure and part of the psychological procedure to strip away your humanity to become a better soldier.
BBC Documentary about those little buggers that can kill us. Highly recommended!
Elvis Aaron Presley was born on the January the 8th 1935 in Tupelo. He was a big part of the Invention of the Teenager, TV celebrities and the global Rock & Roll-Phenomenon.
Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Ireland and Luxemburg want to create a massive new electricity grid in the North Sea.
This grid will collect and share the electricity generated by tidal power station and wind mills.
The 30-Billion-Euro is projected to run over the next 20 years – but it could be a great game changer!
You know that watching cute and cuddly animals is good for your psyche. It gives you that warm and fuzzy delight the evil world denies you constantly …
Just because you are a celebrity doesn’t mean you need to share every stupid aspect of your life with us. Modern Media Sluts have forgotten what it means to "lead by example".
A new "message modesty" is in order for many A-List Twitt-Titts.
We respect your desire to promote your "brand", but real time reports of your digestive system and your overpaid friends will only earn you disrespect.
Every year the same procedure: people make New Years Resolutions and pretty quickly fail them. Stop Smoking? Get fitter? Get smarter, nicer … whatever …
It’s basically willpower versus habit.
But most of us have not especially well trained mind or huge amounts of willpower to overcome intellectual, emotional or physical bad habits or even addictions.
The old mental image of the well trodden path is the best way to explain why resolution most of the time fail.
Bad habits as well as good ones are psychic or physical patterns we repeat. The more established and familiar the pattern is – the easier we can repeat it.
I will change … of at least I’ll try and fail like last years and the year before …
It’s like any skill or behaviour: the more you practice that habit the deeper it is ingrained in your psyche or body. Like reading or throwing a Frisbee practice makes perfect or creates a hellish habit that is harder and harder to escape.
Often we follow these well trodden paths on auto pilot. We can observe ourselves often doing stupid or terrible things to ourselves – often in full knowledge and awareness that we are doing it RIGHT NOW.
The bad habit has embedded itself so deeply into our psyche or body that we can follow it blindly and are zombies of something we more and more hate.
Do you really think you simply can stop such a bad habit but saying to yourself I will change? You already have the awareness you are doing something bad while you are doing it – and you are unable to stop yourself while doing it!
The strategy to simply make a resolution will mostly fail. It is the wrong "tool" to escape from the "bad path" in your psyche!
How will escape a bad "path" if you don’t have a new one?
So you failed again? Understand the power of bad patterns before you try to change …
Imagine being a Jogger and you have a course you have been running for years. You know every inch of the way, the timing, your own capabilities and each obstacle. But also the pleasure of that very course …
A new course is to be learned through practice and experiencing it again and again. The same applies to retraining new patterns in your behaviour.
Instead of wasting a lot of time and energy to fight a bad old pattern, pour these resources into creating and strengthening a new one. It will help your "self improvement" more to experience (small) successes instead of constant and well ingrained failures.
Be patient! Be persistent!
Oh sweet sweet fucking success!
To build new patterns takes time. Failures will happen and that’s a good thing too. You can use these "failures" to measure how well the new pattern is already established. Obviously over time you should less and less fall back to bad old behaviour …
To own a digital camera at the end of the 1990’s was pretty unusual and expensive. Ten years later almost every gadget seems to be able to shot photos and videos – even in High-Definition …
The arrival of cheap sensors and storage allowed cell phone and computer manufacturer to stuff a camera into almost every gadget we carry around. There are hardly any cell phones or notebooks without a cam these days.
And the Quality! There was literally an explosion of pixel power – who would today bother with a 1-Mega-Pixel-Camera? Sure pixel resolution is not everything, but the image quality has equally improved with pixel quantity.
Early Nokia prototypes …
But the Revolution of the Pixel includes LCD monitors – which are now huge and cheap (my current 24"-Samsung-Display would have been astronomically expensive in 1999). The analogue monitor is dead – LCDs have overtaken our eyes. Their sharpness and extreme colour range has redefined our viewing habits.
Big sensor create big images – but today we also have the CHEAP big memory cards, sticks and chips to store them – as well as fast broadband to send our crappy holiday shots to all our friends and social media appendices via eMail or Social Media website (like Flickr and Facebook).
Because not only Big Brother has CCTV cameras everywhere we mere mortals can and do record anything. Thanks to YouTube and Flickr (and their clones) we can and do share everything we record.
In the last ten years there has been a flood of digital videos and photos. I suspect we all shot more images and hours of footage in these last ten years with our cheap gadgets than all generations before us?!
And the pixelated flood will continue.
On the web you can videos of any occasion and situation: from airplanes crashes, terrorist attacks, amateur sex and children’s birthdays. It alls there.
I wonder how he feels about that (public) video in twenty years?
The new global sharing culture enables us to share our lives with others and see how others live their life’s. It has never been so easy to experience, study and learn the human condition.
Since we love Social Porn (<- see my essay on that subject here) this trend will continue. It’s not Big Brother watching us – we love to show ourselves and watch others. This was first limited to celebrities and personal holiday snapshots. Today we can record and broadcast our own lives 24/7 – and some people already do.
That also means that social acceptance of being watched by the government and others has risen. In a world were everybody can record, share and watch everyone the old idea of privacy is gone …
We all know what you did ten summers ago … and you will never be able to delete that image …
The global visual sharing culture has just begun, already billions of images and videos are online. And the web never forgets …
In the last century your parents were probably the keepers and guardians of your embarrassing childhood shots – today compromising material will sooner or later land on the web.
Many employers as well as "friends" check on Facebook and other social media your history before they get closer.
Thanks to Geo-Tagging and Facial Recognition it will be much easier to find a specific person in a gazillion images and videos. There is no such thing as anonymity in this brave new pixel world.
Reality – captured from many slightly different perspectives.
Soon there won’t be a place that hasn’t been photographed or captured in video. We will have a complete visual memory of our planet.
But there is more: all these images and technology will not only allow us to "find" each other – it will allow us to merge all that huge image and video pool into synthesized memory spaces (<- read my essay here).
Smart software literally stitches photos into a 3D-environment and connect / compute additional information into that "space".
When you think that Google Streetview and Google Earth are pretty amazing than hold on to your socks – the new kind of search will finally feel like stranger than any science fiction movie you have seen …
Is it real or is it … HDR?
The last ten years have also brought a different change: the way we perceive what "reality" should look like.
Cameras, monitors and videos have slowly changed from the old 4:3 format to 16:9. The future is no longer square, but widescreen …
But the sharpness, colour range and contrast of images has changed dramatically, best illustrated by so called HDR-Images.
Before and after the HDR treatment …
Similar to before mentioned synthesized memory spaces already available cameras can combine several shots into one "High dynamic range image" that looks more real than reality.
Before the arrival of digital tools (read Photoshop or Paint Boxes for professional TV and Film productions) it was very hard to manipulate images.
Today almost any cheap camera or cell phone cam offers "image improvement filters" ranging from simple red eye removal to face finders and even body slimmers.
All these technologies have changed our perception of reality: old black & white television was unreal, even analogue colour TV looks unreal to a certain degree – and so do "classic" photos.
But today’s image technology allows us to create images and videos that look and feel more real than reality, but catching and synthesizing more details, sharpness and speed than ever before.
Remember him?
The last ten years saw the Perfection of Fakery – thanks to tools like Photoshop, After Effects and many other image manipulation tools.
Movies like Jurassic Park and Matrix paved the way for CGI in movies – and helped the directors to tell amazing tales. But today many movies and TV shows feel boring, because there are too many "amazing effects". Special effects have turned into a big bore …
But Photoshop & Co are now also the #1 toys for Fakery – from Beauty Magazines and Advertising to Viral Videos – Fakes are now everywhere.
Every time people see today an amazing photo or video they distrust what they see: "Is it photoshopped or is it real?!"
Fakery is increasingly hard to spot and image manipulation is now standard for almost anything you see printed or on TV.
Especially advertising was always about fake reality, but now that advertised reality looks absolutely real and can be even more beautiful than ever before. Especially woman still try to "achieve" the beauty standards in advertising – but these fake beauties are unreal and do not exist … their "level of beauty" can never be reached by any real person …
LonelyGirl15 – the first YouTube Superstar?
When 8 mm movies came out it was touted as the Hollywood revolution for everyone. But the technology was cumbersome, expensive and difficult to master.
Today a GOOD video camera is affordable even for amateurs and the quality is amazing. Editing and special effects software is also cheap and basically the same the real Pros in Hollywood use.
But most of all there is now a global and cheap way to show and distribute your videos: the web.
New talent and film students can create movies and no longer rely on movie theatres, Hollywood studios or TV broadcasters to bring their work to the masses.
That means there is a wider platform for artists, moviemakers and crap alike – but it is most of all a true democratization of moviemaking and broadcasting like never before.
Low Budget series like LonelyGirl15 became global brands / phenomenon’s. Becoming a superstar on a budget was no possible!
Hello Human! Do you know where are you going to?
Today we are quite used to "live" in 3D spaces, either in games or car navigation systems – not too mention Google Earth …
The visuals of Computer Games have made a huge leap forward in the last 10 years. The X-Box, Playstation 2 and Wii can deliver incredible visuals.
Games have been pushing simulated 3D worlds for now over 20 years. New games look incredibly realistic and have left it’s visually primitive forefather Pong far behind.
But 3D engines, geo-tagging, camera sensors and search engines will merge into a new technology called Augmented Reality.
Here you look at the world through a computer display – and the computer will analyze what you and it sees – and add additional information.
The simplest form of this technology have been car navigation systems, but newer versions will go much further.
This is just a simply version of AR …
They could tell you for example which people or businesses are in a building nearby, because a search engine show you all information regarding the location you are currently at – and also know thanks to other peoples computers and cell phones who is currently near that exact spot you are standing.
Like other technologies this will make us even more dependent on our little gizmos. The pocket calculator robbed us of the need to learn math. The cell phone is our external memory for phone numbers, addresses and even our schedule (be honest how many phone numbers can you remember?).
Augmented Play Time …
Most people could hardly read maps anyway, but Augmented Reality will make them totally dependent on where to go. And thanks to "smart software" it will tell them what to shop where and that the person in front of them is their wife …
We are developing a totally new visual culture. Once the invention of photography radically changed how we captured reality and made it permanent – so will the digital capture, global storage and synthesizing of photos and videos.
Everybody needs a cam like this and everybody will wear some form of camera in the future anyway …
Thanks to a coming 24/7 always-on camera capture we will also develop a new form of Telepresence we have developed in the last century: first there was the telegraph that allowed almost instant reporting of events far away. Then came the telephone and radio, which allowed us to hear live events far away. With television we suddenly had eyes and ears all over the globe. We could watch catastrophes and music concerts unfold live.
A global web connected camera network will allow us to watch anything everywhere. It is not just a network for "watching" – it also will record, store and cross connect everything it sees.
The new telepresence and visual network will let you watch such events even from "unrecorded" angles …
This global camera network is not like Big Brother – it is a decentralized sister network, which consists of millions of independent digital eyes and ears that record and record …
Like a computer game all that data can be used to replay and synthesize the events it captured.
Sherlock Holmes is one of my personal heroes: he uses his brain to beat the villains. He has always been the archetype of the smart, civilized and nevertheless determined hero.
Guy Ritchie is addicted to violence in his movies – everything needs to have a "bang" to make any sense … for him. And of course he has to turn this old fashioned Gentlemen into a boxing and shooting womanizer …
Jeremy Brett – a great and endearing actor!
Did he actually read ANY Sherlock Holmes novels? Did he never watch the great Granada TV series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with the great Jeremy Brett?
Too bad many young people will confuse the brawling Robert Downey version of Sherlock as a bit smarter than usual hero – instead of the real thing.
Another great Sherlock: Basil Rathbone.
By the way: Mr Downey do you really need to play any idiotic hero role thrown your way?
Guy Ritchie I hereby sentence you to another marriage to Madonna!
PS: The currently best running adaptation of the character and attitude of Sherlock Holmes is done by Hugh Laurie as Dr. House – and his friend Dr. Wilson is obviously Dr. Watson.
The Thick of it is one of my favourite shows – it’s deeply cynical and a great satire about political dealings. It based on the British Labour Government under Tony Blair – but it could be any modern Government.
It’s all about spin doctors, power grabbing and back stabbing, while trying to score points with the public and being politically correct …
It follows the British tradition of such great shows like Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister and The New Statesman.
Season 3 just finished and I can’t wait for another one. There is also a movie called In the Loop featuring almost the same cast of actors albeit playing a bit different characters.
Highly recommended for people who love politics and satire.
Crittercams are not just for our pets, but can be used to serious science as well. I love this example – watch the video.
Hardest working Media Slut of the Noughties: Katie Price.
The insight that “Sex sells” is hardly a new one – and blonde sluts selling particularly well is also not a new invention.
But Blonde was the ruling colour in Entertainment and our Celebrity obsessed culture.
And nobody personified this better than Paris Hilton. Already rich she simply hungered for fame and glory. In the case of Katie Price and many of her modified sisters I can understand the motivation: they wanted to make money with their blondness – but Paris already had all that already …
But there was something new: Media Whoring developed into a new form – Web Sluttism (my other essay on the very same topic can be found here “Princess Salome and her modern Web 2.0 Sisters“).
The Celebrity Obsession found a much better soil to grow on and accelerate to new insane heights. “Leaked” sex tape and naughty photos on the net (read YouTube) allowed unknown starlets to become world wide brands within 24 hours.
Websites like TMZ and Bloggers like Perez Hilton became the new News Channels and pushed classical mainstream media aside. Media Whores like Paris or the Cutchers could also build their audiences via Twitter and Facebook.
Thanks to new technology we could track, watch and talk about (and with celebrities) 24/7. Their lives became our lives …
Carrie gave Dumbness a bad name …
Suddenly we mere mortals could be “friends” with our Alpha-Males & Females. Social Porn (read also my essay “Why do we love to watch Social Porn on TV?“) became a much stronger and intimate part of our lives – we were “connected” with the stars and could “talk” with them …
Death is just the beginning for some …
But nobody epitomized our Celebrity Obsession like the life and death of Michael Jackson. From his downfall, ruin and trial to his sudden death … the whole globe was watching and going mad with hysteria.
Jacko is now a modern God – his fans worship him like one and I wonder if this madness will increase the longer he is dead?!
Michael Jackson might well be our first Cradle-2-Grave-Celebrity – who’s first and last steps have been documented without mercy for the real person behind the surgery.
While the West celebrated in the late 1990’s the End of History and all old evils like religion – the Middle East wasn’t there yet.
Compared to 1999 we know much more about Arabs and Islam … the West has spent almost a decade trying to understand and formulate an answer to bloody terrorism, the emergence of Islam and the growing influence of Arab countries …
Not only 9/11 and terrorism have changed the West’s view on Islam and the Middle East - Islam is simply the fastest growing religion world wide and Arab countries are demanding more power in the world as well.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are the winners of this decade in terms of political power and money. Both made huge sums of money from the explosion of oil prices. And both countries used the money to further their influences all over the world.
Yeah, yeah we get it: Death to all! Bla bla bla …
Saudi Arabia was much quieter, but also funded dubious religious and political groups all over the world. Iran was hard to overlook – all the tantrums and threats were not always unjustified (look here and here). But overall Iran tries way to hard to flex it’s muscles and provoke a confrontation with almost anyone …
In Europe Islam and the so called clash of cultures is causing many problems: the Assassination of Theo van Gogh in 2004, home grown terrorists in Spain (Madrid in 2004) and Britain (London Bombings in 2005). Muslim extremism was not just limited to the Middle East. But there is also a backlash in Europe: the Mohammad Cartoons in Denmark (2005) and the most recent Minaret Ban in Switzerland (2009).
Europe grants Freedom for Religions as well as Freedom from Religious Oppressions! Got it?
Europe still has a hard time to cope with madness of (any) religion – something it thought it had left behind in the last millennium …
Let’s hope the Middle East will transform itself – and let’s also hope that Islam will have a “modern” reformation like Christianity or hopefully looses it’s bloody influence …
On the 24th of December 1979 the first Ariane rocket took off from the French Guyane Space Centre.
It is one of the greatest space programs so far with a 190 successful launches and only 9 failures.
Yes, Europe can tackle big projects and be a top player in high tech.
Let’s hope that the Brits (who finally get their own Space Agency just recently to replace the old one) rejoin Ariane soon.
Click images for more speed.
China recently opened a new speed train connection between Wuhan to Guangzhou – cutting travel time from 10 to 3 hours.
The new trains reach an average speed of 350 km/h – top speed is 397 km/h. Wow!
This is faster than the Japanese Shinkansen (average 243 km/h) or the French TGV (average 277 km/h).
It is easier for China to built such high-speed-lines – any opposition is swept away and many areas are not as densely populated like Europe.
But Europe as well as the US has foolishly ignored trains as a serious alternative to fuel guzzling air and car travel. There is no wide ranging master plan in Europe to create a high-speed-train-network.
What a shame!
By the way: many European companies helped China to built this high speed train line …
Most Christmas movies reek of sweetness and kindness – and are terrible morale fantasies. I despise such brain sugar.
Sure Trading Places is also fiction – but it is a moral fable with a nasty sting and big bowl of satire. It illustrates many nasty aspects of real life: poverty, injustice and arbitrariness …
But it conquers these obstacles with wit and brains – and not stupid trust in the kindness of people.
So this is the movie James Cameron always wanted to make? His childhood dream? Some dreams are better left untouched …
It perfectly fulfils the current desire of the masses to be nice to mother nature and go back to a simpler life (by watching high-tech-movies).
The movie plays with the old concept of the Noble Savage (please read the <- Wikipedia article, because it is excellent!). This theme has been used many times in famous stories like Moby Dick, Mowgli and Tarzan – and almost every time it has been bastardized by Hollywood.
Cameron spends 300 Million Dollars and 2,5 hours on this theme and completely disappoints. Like Roland Emmerich almost all his movies have the same core message. In Mister Emmerichs case it’s utter destruction of our planet (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012) and in Mr Cameron’s case it’s always a huge military drama (Terminator I & II, Rambo II, Aliens, Abyss, Avatar).
The more money these directors get – the more crap they produce. I call it the George Lucas Syndrome – but many others have suffered from it as well (like Carpenter).
Why can’t these film makers get a good therapist and workout their problems, instead of recreating the same boring story lines over and over again?
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orangeguru: @Männig: Thanks for the graph … It’s such a shame that “we” know this things for...
Juleika: *lach* Zoee und du seid euch doch immer einig 
Jens Arne Männig: Why not put all of this put in an easy to understand graph? (Taken from »Limits to Growth: The... orangeguru: @Männig: I agree with you RSS and similar mechanisms should be “the future” – not... orangeguru: @MadEarl: I think “emotional bonding” is one of the most important “features̶ 1;... Jens Arne Männig: Users prefer content in their browsers? Of course it’s better than PDF or the incredible...
Mad Earl: I know that nature is tricking us to do its thing, but do I care? Those are the dearest, most intimate... orangeguru: @soubriquet: Now that sounds like my kinda movie. I’ll see if I can find it on the intranets asap....
soubriquet: Worth seeing is “Bubba Ho-Tep”, a spoof horror movie. It stars Elvis, as an old man, living...
joe477: thank you. i have been trying to find the name of this cd which i listened to when i was 15. it has all come...
