The news surrounding Japan are starting to wear off. It doesn’t dominate the news anymore. FINALLY! I’m happy for it. Now I can watch other news of other places and things again. I was sick and tired of the same “news” over and over again: “Leaks, but unknown how much radioactive material actually leaked… so and so many deaths… these and those tragedies”. I just didn’t care enough.
“Asshole!” “Heartless something!” “How can you not care about the fate of those people?” I mean, of course, it is tragic, but why should I care about it? It’s just one tragedy we’re made aware of through the media. Just like today’s tornadoes in the US or shootings in Libya. The media decide what we’re supposed to care or even cry about. We’re not thinking ourselves anymore. We could cry about people starving to death – weather it be in Africa, Asia or even Germany or the US. But we don’t. It’s not in the media. If it does reach the media it’s only a side note in the form of a statistic.
This is why I just don’t care about those tragedies not directly affecting me or my surroundings. I’d have to worry or be sad all day long for the sake of equality. Same with homeless people. I don’t give them money. I’d have to give all of them money. And who knows if they really are homeless and not trying to get money even if they wouldn’t have to? Just this weekend I saw a supposed homeless person with two dogs in Halle. One of the dogs was hugging the other in during sleep. Two hours later he was at a different spot. Today I learned that he was in Leipzig, and his dogs were in the same position again. Oh, you can travel between cities (and maybe even don’t pay for the train) but have to beg for money? NAH!
Yes, I will probably donate money for a project at some later stage in my life and thus will contradict myself – why don’t I then pay for other projects as well? But it will definitely be a smaller project – helping raped/abused women or other victims of violence or other things… something that’s not publicized too much. Until then I’ll only care about when something bad happens to my friends, family or myself. I’m too busy for worrying about people I don’t and will never know.
Update (04/18/11 – 11.20 pm): Yep, it would be tragic for me if I was affected by something like a tsunami or hurricane or whatnot. But I couldn’t change it. Of course, I would be depressed. Indeed, donated money would help me, but I just can’t decide for myself: which people should I care about, whose worries and tragedies should I ignore? I just don’t know. And I probably will never know. This is why I won’t care about Japan. What makes them better than starving people?
Joke of the day: The Deutsche Bahn wants to continually erase more and more English terms from their vocabulary. One example was: “Hotline” becomes “Servicerufnummer”. Is trading one English word for another and adding a German one to the English word a process of eliminating English words? Maybe, but it’s definitely not making the language more German and less English… it’s a process of making the language more Denglish. Something we are way too familiar with when actually “trävelling wis Deutsche Bahn” and being able to enjoy our beloved conducters speak “English”, or whatever it is.
For those of you wondering, here’s a part of the entry of “service” in Marriam Webster’s Dictionary:
Main Entry: 1ser·vice Pronunciation: \ˈsər-vəs\
Function: noun Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French servise, from Latin servitium condition of a slave, body of slaves, from servus slave
Date: 13th century
The biggest news yesterday: Köhler and Schröder married. What a day! But how will this marriage go? The current President of Germany and an ex-chancellor married? Don’t they have wives? I never knew they were homosexual. Oh well, may they have a happy life together.
It seems so unreal: Köhler, the rather very shy person who would seem to jump on a fellow president’s arm if any one of the many people alongside welcoming meetings in other countries just made a quick, loud “boo” wants to get together with Schröder? Hallelujah! Schröder is the complete opposite: loves a beer or two, loves to speak loudly and proud and loves to carry his agenda through.
Uhm, what? Oh, sorry: I was just told that it’s not Horst and Gerhard, but Kristina Köhler, current minister of family affairs, and Ole Schröder (fellow member of the CDU) married. My bad.
Many years ago Stone Cold Steve Austin made John 3:16 famous and just rewrote it to “Austin 3:16”. This was the first Bible “quote” of my life. Ever since I’ve seen two different ways of quoting the Bible: the German and the English style. And once again, I love what the English language has to offer.
If you want to quote numerous verses in English it looks like this: John 3:16-17, 19; 4:1. If you want to do the same in German it looks like this: Johannes 3,16-17; 3,19; 4,1 (and I’m not even sure about the German one).
Why don’t I like the German one at all? Well, maybe because I have been taught a different meaning of commas in school: commas signal divisions, enumerations etc. Only in math is a comma used to subdivide something (at least in the German numbering). Since when does theology have a closer relationship to math/natural sciences than to humanities?
I love the English version more: the colon signals something else of that kind is coming. If you then want to enumerate (!) verses of the same chapter you use the comma and don’t have to write down the chapter anew. I’m not sure if 3,4,6 is allowed in German but in my opinion it would look retarded and I’d even rather understand “chapters 3, 4 and 6”. German is weird.
I love me some English and as a tribute to a dear teacher: “I speak German accent: sis is frong”
Much has been said about the purchase of a CD with data on defrauders. I just want to quickly take sides. This is the only time since our new administration has been in office that I agree with our beloved FDP. BUT their disagreement isn’t enough to prevent the German government from buying the CD. FDP’s reaction? None: let’s get on with life. There seem to be more important issues on the agenda…
Really? I’m not even quite sure yet if the decision to buy this CD is a matter of right or wrong. Both sides have their arguments: on one side, backed by people like Sigmar Gabriel (SPD), you have the supporters who say that every person gets persecuted for the smallest wrongdoings (e.g. parking in a no-parking zone) and defrauders should be dealt with the same way, i.e. be persecuted with all means necessary. After the reduction of the VAT for the hotel industry the administration has faced complaints of doing politics for the rich. Not buying the CD would mean they are protecting their target group once again. On the other side you have people like me who say: it’s all correct what you say, but there several problems with the arguments.
First: do the CDU and FDP really act for their target group if they don’t buy this CD? Since when have criminals become a target group of the larger parties in Germany again? Yes, those criminals are rich, but I doubt you can win an election with 2,000 more votes, which is an approximate number of the possible defrauders.
Second: Should defrauders really be persecuted with all means necessary? Of course I wish them hell! People in the lower classes need to work their ass off just to be able to survive and those people do nothing and can enjoy an even more prosperous life since they didn’t want to pay, say 1m € of their 10m €. But does that mean that Germany has to deem itself a banana republic for good? Protection of data does not mean anything anymore. Of course, at the moment they “only” (which is not even “entirely” correct) use their malicious methods for really malicious acts. What will come in the future? Just overrun privacy for less important matters?
Furthermore, what example does the government present us with? Act illegally if you think you can get some money out of it (that someone stole from you)? Now, please explain something to me why self-justice is usually persecuted then, as well?
Thus, you can only go wrong no matter what you do: if you buy the CD there will be enough arguments against it. If you don’t? Same thing. But sometimes you really need to balance out the weight of the arguments. Of course, the defrauders are protected if the CD is not bought, but on the other hand maybe there should be some other thoughts involved in this:
Why do you never hear about the problem of tax fraud in Switzerland? Why do you never hear anything about rich people leaving Switzerland because the taxes are too high? Maybe our nice and giving former and recent governments have established a way of thinking that even the lowest taxes for the rich (many of them also don’t work as much as most poor people for their money) are still too high. Our finances are never going to be stable. Thoughts like having everyone pay 10% for their retirement instead of just having to pay x% (sorry, I don’t know the exact figure) up to a specific point of income (after that there is no tax on income concerning this matter) and other more just taxing systems would probably cause a wave of emigrants from Germany to Switzerland because those rich people would feel overtaxed.
Oh wait, that system is in place in Switzerland already.
OK, I actually wanted to post about the pope’s and Vatican’s latest statements regarding faith and even Avatar, but that’ll have to wait. I found something better:
An extract from my C.V. follows:
bla bla bla… I was in the United States of America for over 10 months and am thus qualified to fulfill posts which require a good knowledge of the pronunciation of the English language… bla bla bla
Are you kidding me? The guy talks about how important English is or will become and what does he deliver? NOTHING! NADA! OK, sorry, less than that. His performance was awful. I hereby apply for a job in the European Parliament to replace Günther Oettinger. I would also like to accept the salary and pension that comes with the post. Shouldn’t be too difficult to give any speeches since they are written by someone else most of the time, anyway. OK, some people would have to get used to my honesty and lack of diplomacy. But I think Europe is ready for a change!
Just as a quick clarification: “Man” is supposed to mean “human being”. I hate the latter word for such texts, but political correctness caused many strange things, one being the replacement of “man” with “human being”.
Anyway, these are the questions of the final days of this year:
Man
Why does man want to rule the world?
Why does man set goals only once a year?
Goals he usually can’t accomplish, anyway?
Why does man always complain about others?
About things that are perfectly fine?
About attributes they can’t change, anyway?
Why does man not like another?
Because he’s told to do so?
Because the other is not perfect?
Why does man seek a perfect partner?
Even though he is not perfect himself?
And never will be.
Why does man only think of himself?
Gaining more and more prosperty,
But forgetting his neighbor he usually loves.
Why does man say “You mustn’t do this” to another
but does it himself and
allows others to do so, as well?
Because he is MAN.
I don’t have any more good ideas at the moment. If you have more ideas: Write a comment and I will implement it (if I like it…). Would be great if you put it in n · 3 (as in “n multiplied by 3”) lines.
It takes a lot for me to read a 300-page book an entire weekend. Usually I play console games or am lost in the depths of the Internets. And it takes even more to make me laugh out (extremely) loudly on one page and have tears in my eyes the next one.
Lo and behold, Mr Commitment, written by Mike Gayle, did just that. I found the book lying around in a box at university that said “You can take these books”, or something like this. I would have probably never fancied taking it hadn’t the book had such a great and colorful cover. I love colors! I picked it up, read the back of the book and some of the one-line reviews and gave it a try. I would not regret it.
The first laughs already came on the first page during a dialog between Duffy and Mel when Mel won’t stop asking Duffy how much he loves her. Duffy, a stand-up comedian “loves” these kind of talks. He’s the rather laid back kind of personality. Mel, on the other side, is a person who wants to have security and thus wants to MARRY. This, however, poses a big problem for Duffy who is seriously afraid of committing to each other since they haven’t even lived together yet (due to his avoidances).
A very enthralling story about marriage, potential marriage and the general relationship between men and women unfolds. Though the book will not make you laugh every page since it rather builds up to huge laughs it is still an extremely entertaining read that will make you laugh and cry… and maybe even teach you valuable things for your own love life. You should definitely give it a try!
Change of scenery. To be honest I’m sick of talking about politics. No matter how much is criticized nothing is or seems to be changing. Neither America nor Germany. Just one happy aspect: Canada has been voted the most stable country concerning banks! Their banks barely lost anything during the crisis. And guess what led to that? Early and restrictive state control. How I love Americans complaining about any kind of government control to be communism. I guess Canada is extremely communist and that communism is the best form of state, after all… at least concerning banks. Enough about politics. I wanted a change of scenery: How one decision can get you unemployed three years later.
Now come on: NO POLITICS! Yes, yes. I know. It’s got nothing to do with politics, but rather one of my other favorite topics: STARGATE.
Iris protecting the Stargate
There was a time when Stargate was truly a show about people going through a gate to other planets or rarely even galaxies. That’s why the movie and later the show were called Stargate. Easy to understand, isn’t it. Problem was: in order to create a far superior enemy this enemy needed a way to attack earth by other means than the Stargate since that one was protected by an iris (a protection mechanism that prevented unwanted enemies from coming through… in most cases). As in most science-fiction shows the solution presented itself in the form of spaceships – in the case of the Goa’uld they were flying pyramids with a protective shield and energy weapons.
The interim solution was to introduce the Asgard: your stereotypical grey aliens. They protected earth with their own gigantic space ships and even more superior shields and energy weapons. No big deal.
But this protection wasn’t enough at one point anymore. Earth needed to protect itself since the Asgard were busy protecting themselves against enemies which could just absorb their energy weapons.
Prometheus
Prometheus, Earth’s first space ship, was introduced. Now, I didn’t mind the decision and I also didn’t mind the decision this blog is about (which I will come to later). It probably made the show much more expensive but also introduced some of the most magnificent special effects. Battles that included spaceships were very well choreographed. It was a joy to watch these epic battles (though the best battles did not come until the ninth season of Stargate SG-1 after Prometheus was destroyed).
After Prometheus’ demise and the start of the first Stargate spin-off show, Stargate Atlantis (SGA) more Earth ships were introduced, all looking alike: 1st Daedalus, only available to Atlantis, later Odyssey and Korolev (latter one was destroyed, too) and even later the Apollo, Sun-Tzu and finally the Phoenix/George Hammond (name depends on which reality you prefer).
Yes, Earth built itself quite an army there, huh? Earth didn’t really need the Asgard to protect Earth anymore. They could protect themselves quite well. WELL, NOT EXACTLY. The engines and the energy shields were provided by the Asgard. And a lot more came. At the beginning the Asgard were very reluctant to share any weapon systems. So the Earthlings had to live with their rail guns and nuclear warheads. Not quite effective against the shielding technology of enemy ships: whether that be energy shields or smaller ships being shot down in place of the mothership.
Eventually the first Stargate show, SG-1, got cancelled, extremely short-dated. There was supposed to be an eleventh season but a few days or weeks before shooting the last episode of SG-1 the writers and producers got word that this was to be the end of the show (future direct-to-DVD movies aside). They wanted to go out with a bang… a big bang. Up until then the Asgard became the fan favorites of the show. They just had one problem: they reproduced asexually, in Jack O’Neill terms: “don’t have sex but rather clone themselves”. However, this caused their bodies to deteriorate faster and faster and eventually they were also struck by an irreversible disease. In the last episode they committed mass suicide and gave the humans their energy weapons, though many members of the Asgard High Council (their government) still opposed this move. But either their legacy was to die or to live on. More members decided for it to live on.
Asgard energy weapon
So the humans received the Asgard energy weapons: an extremely powerful weaponry which destroyed any motherships of any enemy with just a few shots. Only in the last episode of Stargate Atlantis they ran into trouble against one ship. But other than that they could easily kill off anything in their way.
Apparently this posed to be a big problem. Writers didn’t really know how to handle this power. Sci-Fi shows are only as good as their villains are bad and superior. Superior enemies in Stargate? Thanks to the energy weapons just barely any left. Either the humans were ridiculously outnumbered or they had an easy time transforming ships into space garbage. But I guess the writers were a bit uncreative during Stargate Atlantis, anyway. It had great potential, but could not fulfill it at all. Ratings dropped and the show got cancelled again in favor for a new show (Stargate Universe) whose plot almost entirely takes place on a different ship.
Destiny
Remember the beginning of my post when I said the show was called Stargate since people actually went through this gate? This is not the central plot device in Stargate Universe anymore. Destiny, the ship is. They barely go through the gate anymore. So much emphasis is put on character development. This is not a
bad thing, if executed correctly. So far it has been way too much soap opera, crying and all that stuff. The special effects of the show are even greater (click the image below for an example).
But ultimately, the writers of the show confessed that they did have a problem with
the superiority of Earth’s weapons (Earth’s defensive weapons were even better… until they were destroyed, also in the last episode of SGA). Now a group of people is trapped on a ship which is billions of light years away from Earth and whose weapon/shield/energy systems are far inferior to the ships previously seen. An old plot device was won back again: inferior ship technology. But I guess we will see how this will turn out. However, it won’t change the fact that SGA was cancelled and a great cast was without a job after that. That show had some of the best characters of all times. I included some funny or marvelous scenes from SGA and SG-1 or behind the scenes stuff beneath.
O radical, for spacious cries,
For amber waves of pain,
For rich speculating majesties
Above the poor and lame!
America! America! God shed His homophobia on thee,
And crown thy rich with hypocrisy, from tax haven to the sea.
O discriminee, for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for unlawful beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America! God showed thine ev’ry flaw;
Confirm thy soul in self ridicule, thy discrimination in law!
O homophobe, for heroes mocked
In denouncing strife,
Who more than self their country loved
But stabbed with a sharp knife!
America! America! May God thy brains define,
Till all success becomes impossible, and ev’ry law malign!
O horrible, for equality dream
That sees beyond the years,
Thine politics as pretty as dog cream
Unimproved by human tears!
America! America! God shed His fallibility on thee,
And make thy poor just poorer, stuck in shit up to the knee!
OK, so why did I write this rather radical post? Two occurences:
#1 Bernie Goldberg appeared on Fox News and tried to smear Liberals/Democrats and tried to explain why Liberals hate Sarah Palin. His brainless hypothesis: “She has 5 kids. Liberals don’t have 5 kids. One of them has down-syndrome. Liberals certainly don’t allow that to happen.” I think Jon Stewart’s response sums it up very well: “Go fuck yourself”, later adding “Eunice Kennedy Shriver [one of nine Kennedy children] founded the Special Olympics because she wanted an organized form where she could mock children with down-syndrome. Of course the Special Olympics is to winners as Fox news is to experts. If you show up, you are one”
watch the entire clip of Stewarts coverage of the Palin hype here.
#2 A 10-year-old child from Arkansas refused to pledge allegiance to the flag of the US. His reasoning? The Pledge of Allegiance states “with liberty and justice for all”. The kid thinks this has not been accomplished yet since homosexuals are still severely discriminated in the US. What happened after that? He got mobbed by his fellow students AND teachers alike. I really do love some Americans and how to oversell their patriotism. If that’s not all some (fortunately not all) posters on a Christian forum picked on him even more. Some excerpts:
“These are the types of kids who grow up to be those ultra-jerky liberals who think they are smarter then everyone else because they can articulate well. The kinds of people who take Michael Moore and Richard Dawkins seriously.”
“Eh, the little punk needs to be slapped.”
“If you can’t pledge allegiance to this country get the heck out of it, or change it.”
I think it’s sad if somebody is mocked for a true statement. And some of these idiots should consider what psychological consequences their mocking might have. But well, criticizing the truth is one of mankind’s favorite activity… I’ve got nothing more to say to this…
Much has been said about the purchase of a CD with data on defrauders. I just want to quickly take sides. This is the only time since our new administration has been in office that I agree with our beloved FDP. BUT their disagreement isn’t enough to prevent the German government from buying the CD. FDP’s reaction? None: let’s get on with life. There seem to be more important issues on the agenda…
Neoglobe - A look beyond 