HBO - like the BBC - is one of the great producers of astonishing stories, series and movies. It’s newest mini series “John Adams” is simply amazing - or at least the first two episodes so far.

Paul Giamatti is simply breath taking as John Adams - and Laura Linney as his wife simply blows me away.

The script is well written, the dialogues intriguing and one gets a pretty good feeling how hard it must have been for the so called founding fathers to break away from the British Empire and start their experiment called the United States of America.

Highly recommended!

Borders are not a human invention, but natures. All kind of animals mark and defend their territory against their own and other species. Just ask your own pets.

But it’s time for the human race to transcend borders and the idea of the Nationstate altogether. The flow of people, ideas and goods should be free. That was one of the basic ideas behind the European Union - and still is.

Crossing borders has become much easier in the last 100 years, but there are still too many walls and fences up. And we still have some nations totally isolated from the global community. But the number of international trade and travel agreements are slowly growing and the openness is expanding.

Let’s hope that in 100 or 200 years most borders only exist on paper.

Just brilliant and simple. But I am afraid it won’t reach those minds in their mental war zones and bunkers that need it the most.

Finally Obama delivered some beef. This is the first speech I have heard from him that got dirty and down to business. No longer all that “feel good” and “come together” crap.

Good for you Sir!

That commercial precisely captures two modern truths: pumping yourself up with music (via your iPod) and loads of sugar & caffeine from your local latte dealer.

Music, sugar and caffeine to make ourselves feel good and calm down our neurotic egos. We do matter! We do great stuff! We have a great job to fulfil! We are someone!

So we force our brains to feel euphoric although there is nothing to feel euphoric about. So that high that you kick yourself into is simply self-deception and worth nothing.

Stop lying to yourself and get real highs.

The great writer and visionary has left this planet. Another sad loss for humanity.

More? Wikipedia, BBC News, Arthur C. Clark Foundation and his HomePage.

Welcome to my life … and 2oo8 will be a great year!

One of the many things I admire about van Gogh is that he had such a passion for people - normal working class people. Before he became a painter he wanted to save souls and lived with the poorest of the poor.

That is why he is one of the first (modern) artists to paint everyday scenes and poverty. But not in a dreadful way - but in the way he saw life: there is almost always beauty of nature around us - no matter if you are rich or poor.

Forget all these exercises about inner peace, harmony and patience. These are lies - even the gets get annoyed by trivial stuff …

*Thanks to Edosan for that lesson*

Germany still has an odd relationship to anything military, because of it’s Nazi past. Germany’s Bundeswehr is finally an active army again - supporting NATO and the UN in peace missions. It took Germany over 50 years to allow military involvement OUTSIDE of Germany.

The Bundeswehr is more and more becoming a professional army - and now that bullets are flying again the military leadership would like to have the same gadgets and gimmicks all other armies have: medals.

There are already some medals, but these are campaign medals which a soldier gets automatically - if he has been brave or not. So the German Generals would like to reintroduce the Iron Cross that has been the medal for valor for a long time.

But because it smacks of militarism and Nazis our politicians go bonkers and refuse that little piece of metal. Sometimes political correctness is simply idiotic. Germany needs to accept it’s bad spots, but also reintegrate the military in a normal and positive way into society. The least thing you can do for young man brave enough to risk their necks for everybody is to give them a nice medal to honor their achievements …

UN Data is one of these websites that look REALLY boring, but offer a HUGE amount of interesting data - at least for people who want to know more details.

These official numbers are certainly not perfect - I am pretty sure some governments feed the UN crappy data. But at least it’s a global repository for important facts about our planet, the current state of human affairs and our societies.

MSNBC has a nice feature highlighting the “debate” Paper vs Plastic. Pretty idiotic: let’s get rid of these stupid plastic bags. Paper is the way to go - or simply use a reusable bag made out of cotton …

As a kid I would have sold you both my grannies, my mother and my father for a Stormtrooper uniform. I only managed to buy a really really really crappy helmet for a HUGE amount of of hard earned Deutschmarks back in the 80’s.

Today you simply can order that bloody thing off the intranets - but still for a price: $899.

I could save (again) that amount of money - but I am afraid there are no Fattroopers in the Star Wars Universe and dressing up a Jabba the Hut is not my idea of a good time.

Maybe I could do an oversized R2D2? Or I go as a mutant Yoda?

I love fluffy tech and I like monsters. So this Monster Notebook Sleeve is just fucking brilliant. It even has a proper mouth and tongue when you open the monsters “jaws” to insert your precious machine.

Check it out!

Great insight found at the New Scientist:

It is a chicken and egg question – did mammals evolve nutritional milk before or after they abandoned yolky eggs?

“Milk was originally for egg wetting,” says Henrik Kaessman at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. Instead of a hard shell, the first mammalian eggs had a parchment-like covering which mothers rolled in milk to prevent them drying out, he says.

Today, placental and marsupial mammals nourish their newborn young with milk containing a calcium-packed protein called casein.

Makes total sense to me.

God killed your baby girl so he can give her back to you on judgement day in mint condition. 

There actually is no way to rationalize ANY gods reason for killing the innocent and the young. That is a “flaw” in all religions - and they can’t explain it or makes any sense out of a “senseless” death.

Nature is not rational, it follows no great plan, no philosophy and no desire - apart from random selection, brutal honesty and death in all shapes, sizes and forms.

Nature just is and death just happens - and we should accept it without building weird ideas around OUR inability to cope with unavoidable end that is coming to all of us.

There is a very special sound when your girlfriend farts on your tummy while riding you down. This sound makes males happier than anything else - as you can see on this image.

Another Chinese Wall at work … 

China is a police state were any form of protest gets you harsh treatment. Check!

China is run by an corrupt elite that has no liability to the law or to the people. Check!

China is a new colonial power that play dirty tricks to secure it’s resources all over the world. Check!

China is still occupying Tibet and suppressing it’s native population. Check!

China is still polluting the planet on a large scale and does give a shit about environmental protection. Check!

China is exploiting it’s own workers and people under the guise of progress and development. Check!

The great Orange Guru

It is even more shameful that so many governments and companies are sucking up to the brutal communists to get their “fair” share of the Chinese Boom. There is blood on that money and appeasement doesn’t work with these people.

China today is a huge slave labor camp. Economical progress has brought only little advancements for people’s rights, safety and education. The rule of law still isn’t there. Freedom isn’t there and Democracy isn’t there.

Under the almost mad Air Force General Curtis LeMay the American bombed Japan to bits. Since most Japanese cities were built with wood Curtis ordered incendiary bombs to be used instead of normal bombs - and the effect was devastating.

On March the 10th 1945 more than 25% of Tokyo was destroyed and over 100.000 people were killed. That us MUCH more than in Dresden (were estimates range from 24.000 to 40.000). Even Hiroshima (est. 80.000 direct deaths) and Nakasaki (est. 40.000 to 75.000 deaths).

But the firebombing of Tokyo is one of the many forgotten war crimes and human disasters.

I am a big fan of Mr Connolly, because he such a great storyteller - an art almost lost these days. I wouldn’t consider him a “comedian”, because he is not really telling jokes - he simply reflects life and it’s madness in all it’s glory with his wit and charm.

This video is one of my favorite stories …

I am bit overwhelmed with work and laziness at the same time! Business is getting better and so is my mood. I am also yearning for sunshine and spring. Give me blue skies and sunlight - or give me Prozac!;-)

Most people are afraid about the future. They fear the unpredictable - that is why all those imposters who claim to give you glints of the future have always been in high demand by scared human minds.

But we define the future ourselves by going there. We can’t influence everything what is coming toward us - but we can take part in the “design” and “movement” of our destiny. It’s not all blurry and totally unpredictable.

If you take an active part in your own life and invest some thoughts & actions for your own future - the coming “now” will be much more to your liking and enjoyable - instead of simply stumbling into another moment of randomness …

Sorry for the silence, but I was on another business trip with very little time for fun and only sporadic net access. Currently working to get rid of my backlog of messages and feeds to read. Some more blog postings coming up …

Just because one species thinks you are cute doesn’t mean you can’t be lunch for another one. There is safety in numbers, but not in cuteness …

I used to love traveling by train. You could do some work, relax and prepare meeting your clients. Basically an extension of my office. Compared to flying or driving by car it USED to be less stressful and very productive.

Not anymore.

The last few travels I was constantly surrounded by people blabbing on their cell phones. That is annoying. But it is young blabbering woman that annoy me the most. They high pitched voices and fast talking even penetrates the noise of the train (males voices drown in the noise and are easier to ignore). Even when I put on my headphones and some nice music - I still can hear them.

But most unnerving of all is the content of all that chatter: total idiocy. Blabla about the latest relationship gossip, the latest celebrity crap, what they had for dinner, how they felt about this or that. And they hysterically scream all that important stuff into their pink cell phones like the end of the world is near and all that chatter still could save us.

And that chatter literally goes on for hours. I now even had trips where several woman had more than one cell phone to blabber into (I guess the business line and the relationship phone).

I usually try to escape and find a seat in a section of the train with less woman and less chatter. I tried several times asked these sirens politely to lower their voices. But all you get is a blank stare. Maybe I simply should place myself beside these radio stations and join the conversations, since I am part of the affair anyway?  

But one of these days I am gonna freak out and silence one of these chatter boxes forever …