How To Lose A Guy

Yesterday, I watched "How to lose a guy in 10 days" on a German TV channel. I liked the movie and endured even the (as per usual) too long and too many commercial breaks. The strange thing was that I liked the movie although I didn't find any of the actors or actresses even remotely attractive.

The German Wikipedia entry tells me, that the movie was largely panned by the critics because of being "predictable" and "frumpy". Then again, relationships between guys and girls are predictable, including all the courting and flirting actions leading to them.

As for me, it is much easier to lose me. Bringing a little, ugly dog which pees on my belongings alone would do it. But in real life, the girls are usually much more imaginative...

Berlin Impressions

In Berlin again. Yeah!

Yesterday, Jörg and me went to the Web2.0 Expo. "A Conversation with Neil Holloway, Microsoft Europe. Interviewed by Tim O'Reilly" was incredibly boring, even by "Web2.0 Talk" standards. The key note on Creating Passionate Users (Kathy Sierra) was quite funny. Then again, I always get annoyed if a mother of teenage girls is using the term "kick ass" every two minutes and regards it (plus "wtf") even "Power Point presentable". She made a point, though, by telling us that "getting laid" (the true meaning in web2.0 conferences, if I got her right) becomes a little sketchy if the audience lacks gender diversity (provided you are not gay, that is). And since the people I saw at the web2.0 expo yesterday were by about 94.4% pale, badly shaved males in their 20s to 30s, gender diversity was something from the "in your dreams, baby" section.

If you're interested in what Kathy actually said, please see this detailed blog entry by Stephanie Booth .

***

In the evening, I spent nearly two hours at Cafe Meilenstein, reading newspapers and listening to singer/songwriter lovesongs. The coffee and the Earl Grey were good and soooo cheap in comparison to Duesseldorf *sigh*.

***

Today, I went to see an exhibition about the Silk Road at Martin Gropius Bau. It was a little dry, but quite okay.

Greg Mankiw's Blog: Don't be fooled with statistics

Two of my blog friends are taking on Greg Mankiw's Blog: Don't be fooled with statistics:

Joerg Wolf has cross-posted his response here and here (this one drew some comments already), whereas Statler of the German blog A-Team, (short for "Antibuerokratieteam", anti-bureaucracy team) is fiercefully combatting his opponents here (alas, in German).

Sometimes a little confusing, this whole blog thing...

(This post is mainly to test the "create a link" feature.)

"My Reagan Stuff is doin' super"

This morning, German public radio station Deutschlandfunk had a short feature about the presidential primary debate in Orlando, Fla., last night, ending with a quote from a guy who sold GOP buttons and stuff at the meeting:

My Reagan stuff is doin' super and the Anti-Hillary here is selling
good.

This is spot on, no?

(a more detailed version, in German: this way, please)

Priceless

Beauty and Jiang Zemin. (via China Digital Times: Jiang Zemin Gets Distracted During Hu Jintao's Speech)

Che, the Icon: Even the T-Shirt is a Fake

(Ex-) Leftists around the world celebrate Ernesto "Che" Guevara again these days. The Irish Independent asks: Should Che be an icon?

The notorious George Galloway answers "yes". (You know you're done, when George Galloway comes to your rescue.)

Here's a snippet from the "no" piece by Johann Hari:

The myth of Che Guevara is seductive and lush. It's the story of an Argentinian rich-boy who was so shocked by poverty he became a Robin Hood fighting alongside the poor, until eventually he was murdered by the CIA. But the reality of Che Guevara is very different. The facts show that he was a totalitarian with a messiah streak, who openly wanted to impose Maoist tyranny on the world. He was so fanatical that at the hottest moment in the Cold War, he even begged the Soviet Union to nuke New York or Washington or Los Angeles and bring about the end of the world.

(...)

Since the Soviet Union was too soft for his tastes, there were only two countries that Che found truly admirable: Maoist China and Kim Il Sung's North Korea. He bragged that there was "not a single discrepancy" between Mao's world view and his own. As Che was happily fawning over Mao in the flesh in Beijing, in the surrounding countryside there was an epidemic of mothers cutting off the flesh from their inner thighs to feed it to their starving children. The programme that caused this biting hunger - the mass collectivisation of the farms - represented "true socialist morality", Che said. The dictator killed 70 million people in the end, cheered on by his guerrilla friend at every stage.

Of course, Che's defenders act as if this was the only choice confronted by Latin Americans: you were either for US-imposed market fundamentalism, or for Maoist Communism. But you don't have to look very far in Che's life to see that this is a lie. (...)

And the left-wing weekly New Statesman reveals that the famous photograph of Che by Alberto Korda has been worked over before being used as a motif for posters and T-shirts (Still a messiah? By Isabel Hilton. New Statesman, 04 October 2007):

In 1968, when the photographer Don Honeyman was experimenting with Alberto Korda's iconic image of Che Guevara, he discovered something curious. Honeyman had been experimenting with a process of solarisation as a way of making fashion images more exciting and had been asked by a poster company to try the same thing with Korda's photograph of Che - said to be the most reproduced photo in the world. But he was having trouble duplicating the look of the image as it had first been published in Europe by the revolutionary press.

"I worked over the image for several days," Honeyman wrote, "but couldn't seem to get the same idealistic gleam in Che's eyes. I finally compared the first Che with the second, and discovered that some canny designer, presumably at [the original Italian printers], had made Che slimmer and his face longer, by about one-sixth. It was so effective that I, too, stretched him, and it worked like a charm. It doesn't really do to have a revolutionary who's too plump."

So, even the posters and T-shirts of Che are a fake.

The Rich Ohio State University Graduate

Forbes: 26-year-old woman is China's richest person

By Joe McDonald, AP Business Writer

BEIJING — A 26-year-old Ohio State University graduate worth $16.2 billion is mainland China's richest person, the business magazine Forbes said Monday, topping a list of tycoons whose wealth has soared amid a boom in stock and property prices.

The fortune of Yang Huiyan — also Asia's richest woman — is based on shares in Country Garden Holdings, a real estate developer founded by her father, Forbes said. It said the company's Hong Kong stock market debut this year made billionaires of Yang and four other people.

(...)

But sorry guys, Yang Huiyan (杨惠妍) is already married (quite normal for a 26-year old Chinese woman, no?):

The then 24-year-old bride smiled beside her unnamed groom in the pictures. He is to have graduated from Tsinghua University and studied in the United States.

Cruel even by Chinese Standards

Leader who blew up mistress is executed. By Jane Macartney, The Times

(...)

Mr Duan was a former chairman of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress, or parliament, of Jinan, the capital of eastern Shandong province. He had admitted asking his nephew, Chen Zhi, a Jinan policeman, to help him to arrange a road accident to eliminate the young woman, Liu Haiping.

(...)

He took the divorced woman — about 30 years his junior — as his mistress in 2000 and gave her money to buy two cars and four apartments, one in a smart district of Jinan that she bought in the name of her mother.

The rising party cadre also arranged a job for her in the Jinan Financial Bureau and then the city Bureau of Land and Resources. Her two sisters also obtained higher-paying jobs.

But as the years passed, Miss Liu’s demands for money and marriage began to grate with her benefactor. He tried to split up with her.

Some reports said that she obtained evidence linking him to illegal income and may have been blackmailing him. His conviction said that he had taken bribes and asked for as much as 1.69 million yuan (£120,000), and that he had been unable to explain another 1.3 million in assets — well beyond his income level.

Mr Duan told police he had not intended to kill his mistress, but only to arrange an accident so that she would “lose her ability to think”.

(...)

The article has also a "TOP 5" of recent corruption cases.

My New Hobby: FedEx Tracking

Ah, international logistics. What fun. Being the cold-hearted neoliberal capitalist that I am, I recently discovered a new free time activity: FedEx Tracking! It looks like this:

Almaty! Just imagine! So, I try to generate as much tracking numbers as possible in order to insert the numbers and track the shipments! It's a little bit expensive, though :-/

To my horror, I learned today that FedEx does not deliver within Germany. Argh! In my panic, I chose DHL instead. After only five minutes in the queue, I was told that I have to buy an envelope first! But not at the DHL counter - noooo! Another 20 minutes spent in line at the normal post office counter. And back to the queue at the DHL counter. I'll try TNT next time. Then again, as I just checked the TNT web site for a little test, the system told me that "destination and zip code don't match!" So, you wanna tell me that I don't know my own zip code, or what? That's certainly not a good start...

Lessons learned today:

1.) FedEx does not do domestic Germany.

2.) The term "free-of-charge envelope" is totally unknown to DHL.

Tummy Button

Is there really a need for a colloquial expression for navel? Well, that seems to be the case.

Intelligenzbestie March Tian Boedihardjo

Mad Minerva has the story about nine-year-old March Tian Boedihardjo, the youngest ever student to enrol in a university in Hong Kong. You go, boy! Well done! And all the best for your future.

In the German news, they used the term Intelligenzbestie to describe March. The English term is "brainiac", but the word Intelligenzbestie, literally Intelligence beast, is so telling. An intelligent person is a problem and a threat to society, as is a beast.

Btw, the press conference with March and his father had a very nice quote of the latter (my emphasis):

"I will advise parents in Hong Kong there's no need to know the IQ of your children. Just try to do your best to nurture them and give them space to develop," Tony Boedihardjo said.

That's it. Nurture and space. Education is easy.

Suicide Bombing Approval Rates And Stupid Statistics

How stupid can statistics get? I just came across an article in the Financial Times (EU Muslims: seeking jihad or democracy?) with a chart by PEW on "Muslims views on suicide bombing". The answers given were:

- often/sometimes justified
- rarely/never justified
- don't know (sic!)

For me, the only answer possibilities acceptable would be:

- justified
- never justified

The PEW possibilities given are plain stupid. What's the difference between "sometimes justified" and "rarely justified"? And why these two answers are in different clusters?

Btw, as the chart shows, about 1/4 of Spanish muslims think suicide bombings are justified, whereas only about 10% of muslims in Germany seem to embrace suicide bombings. Scary enough.

Backbone? Values? - Nah, just listen to the pollsters.

I really like the ECONOMIST, and sometimes, I like articles of the Wall Street Journal as well. On one issue, they both get it totally wrong: illegal immigration. It starts with bashing those who oppose the illegality and those who oppose immigration as a whole alike, and goes on by mixing all kinds of arguments only to make the point that the U.S. needs immigrants.

There's one point that really worries me. Couple of weeks ago, the Economist warned:

In the long term, though, anti-immigrant hardliners are likely to suffer most. Latino voters are growing quickly in number (see article) and history suggests they will punish intolerant talk on immigration. Mark DiCamillo, a pollster, points out that California's Hispanics used to lean only slightly leftwards. In 1990, for example, they favoured Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic candidate for governor, over Pete Wilson, a Republican, by 53% to 47%. Then in 1994 came a ballot initiative, supported by Mr Wilson, which sought to make life much more difficult for illegal immigrants. Since then California's Latinos have favoured Democrats by a margin of between two-to-one and four-to-one.

Today, Kimberly A. Strassel from WSJ's editorial board follows:

[F]or every base Republican who is gratified by talk of ID cards and border patrols, there's an entire family of Hispanic immigrants who are absorbing the mean language of "sanctuary cities," "lawbreakers" and "deportation." Many of these folks are religious, entrepreneurial, and true believers in the American dream; as such, they're the biggest new voting potential the Republican Party has seen in ages. But a growing number, just like those Catholics of yore, are angered by the recent rhetoric and wondering why they should pull a lever for any party that would go out of its way to tag their community as the source of America's problems.

So, to cross the border illegally does not involve breaking the law? And the American dream means leaving your family, crossing the border illegally, working illegally, hoping everyone involved keeps a blind eye and finally the government changes things for the better by launching a big "naturalisation campaign" (or similar - I still prefer the term amnesty here.)? This is what the American Dream consists of? If so, I have to recalibrate my mind set. Hands down, most of the Hispanic immigrants are religious and entrepreneurial - but you can't call yourself neither if not obeying by the law in the first place.

But what bothers me most is this idea not to ask whether something is right or wrong, but whether a large group of voters will react irresponsible. If Hispanic voters are really going to turn their back on those politicians who opposed the latest attempt of immigration reform - well, then be it. But I really doubt that. Plus, I doubt that it's a good idea to give the signal: "Hey, just threaten me a little and I'm doing what you want!".

A final point. In another piece, the Economist ranted:

[T]he immigration problem remains unsolved. The border enforcement system remains overwhelmed. Hostility to migrants remains high, even though large parts of the economy depend on migrant labour. Some 12m or more people are left toiling in the shadows, just as before, with many more to follow. The abject failure of this bill suggests any future efforts at reform will be similarly mired.

All those problems exist. But none of them would have been targeted, let alone solved, by the immigration reform that failed in June. And if the perspective of getting legalization within a decade or so isn't a bold incentive for more illegal immigration, what is?

Stories from the 21st century (2): Web 2.0 Overkill

Some Web 2.0 tools are useful (like del.icio.us or diigo or wikipedia), but sometimes this whole hype leads to a huuuge waste of time:

300-page iPhone bill

Btw, I've really forgotten about the fact that telecommunication bills *could* be printed on paper. I received my last paper bill in ... 2005? Maybe.

Stories from the 21st century (1): Holy Innocents

In Bed with Hugo

Come again?

Chávez oil dollars buy bus tickets for London

Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, broke new ground in his campaign of global oil diplomacy on Monday when London mayor Ken Livingstone announced half-price bus travel for poor Londoners, funded with millions of Venezuelan oil dollars.

(...)

Mr Livingstone on Monday denied he had been seduced by Mr Chávez’s petro-diplomacy. “When someone turns up and says: ‘Do you want £14m?’ they get my attention,” Mr Livingstone told the Financial Times.

But he told reporters: “Frankly I’d rather be getting into bed with [Mr
Chávez] than, as the British government has been, getting into bed with [US president] George W. Bush.”

I wonder how long Berlin's mayor would resist such an offer. He recently declared Berlin "poor, but sexy". Then again, who would not trade sexiness for some millions?

Hilarious!

Video of the Month:

If Business Meetings Were Like Internet Comments


[via]

Sounds of a moribund hard disc

chrr....chrr...beep...chrrr...bip....bip....chrrr

Telling from the sounds my computer's hard disc is making right now, it is going to die in the very near future...

So, if this place will be silent again for a couple of days, this time, I might have a good excuse.

What kind of celebrity wedding is this?

My students in Nanning always used to say: "No, we don't like him! He is ugly!" They preferred to rant about Michael Jordan instead. Well, I like him, especially after reading this story about his wedding:

The three-hour ceremony was attended by over 70 family members and close friends while security guards patrolled the hotel to keep the Chinese and international media out.

Pardon me? Only 70 family members - and no media? Yonkers. What kind of celebrity wedding is this?

And he didn't even offer shark fin's soup. Perhaps because of his former team back in China...

Shorter!

That doesn't come exactly as a big surprise:

YOU ARE...

1.7 in. SHORTER THAN THE AVG. GERMAN

1.5 in. SHORTER THAN THE AVG. AMERICAN

I know. I KNOW! (Chagrin of my life. Okay, one of the chagrins.)

Thank you, Nancy!

Since he is so heavy on my mind these days I put the energy in this thread instead of sitting vigil. I hope you enjoy these pictures of my dear friend.

Barton Lee and me: A brief retrospective - The Sinatra Family Forum

R.I.P., Lee Hazlewood.