oddly enough, songwriting, US Politics

Pretty Good.

The George W Bush Don’t Worry, be Happy List by Tim Dunlop.

Oh, and did I mention I composed a song called “George W Blues”…. well, it’s not actually blues, it’s got more of a Texan country feel in the latest version. It’s about a dyslexic boy whose dad once read to him from Machiavelli and then told him he would become a great leader, if only he learnt how to read…

If Michael Moore won’t produce it, I’ll post it here sometime.

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German Politics, oddly enough

I’m leaving the country.

You know what? A sizeable portion of Germans are probably truly mad, after all. I have just learnt of a poll result indicating that a third of Germans would support a political comeback of Oskar Lafontaine, the loony left former chairman of the Social Democrats, who blocked each and every economic reform initiative in the 1990s. Yes, *that* Oskar. The “I’m against it, what are we talking about?” Lafontaine.

Frankly, if Lafontaine had been born in the US, he would be advocating Creationism and write op-eds about the failure of science to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the earth is not flat.

I mean, has anyone ever “really” seen the entire globe?

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Germany, oddly enough

Not Even Sarcasm.

Usually, I’m less critical of the current state of the German academic reality than most people. This is probably owed to the fact that my experiences within the German university system were rather positive, for I attended one of its shining models, Mannheim University. But I probably have to face the fact that many, if not most students, certainly in the northern German states, are less lucky – as the following quote from the website “oekonomen.de” indicates.

Auf dieser Seite wird den Professoren und Lehrbeauftragten der Hochschule Bremen die Möglichkeit gegeben, ihre Skripten zu veröffentlichen. Dadurch haben die Studenten den Zugriff auf stets vollständige und aktuelle Unterlagen. Dies ist in der Bibliothek nicht immer möglich, da hier vielfach Unterlagen abhanden kommen.

It basically says that the website exists so professors at Bremen University can offer their complete (sic!) lecture scrips to students. The faculty’s or university’s library – for whatever reason – is apparently not able to provide this service.

Should you click on the link to the site, please note the recommendation of Stephen R. Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People“. Sarcasm – not usually a German quality, I’d say. So maybe even such a sad state of affairs is good for something… ahh, just reloaded the page and realised their recommendations are rotated by script. So – maybe not even sarcasm.

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media, oddly enough

Technology?

The world is full of strange people. Sometimes even stranger ones. And then some who have no moral standards at all, like, say, Mr Dutroux, currently on trial in Belgium for the kidnapping, raping, and killing of several young girls.

Sad as this is, I think it is important to realize that the word in-human is actually an oxymoron when it comes to malice – for every human beauty there is a human beast, for every Dr. Jekyll, a Mr Hyde lurks behind the corner.

But however much a realistic view of humanity can help deal with the usually sad reality – how on earth could CNN classify a report about the seemingly serious attempt by an evidently as ill-natured as stupid German couple to sell the woman’s eight year old daughter as a ‘technology’ story simply because the man put a photograph of the child on ebay?

In my book, that in itself is so strange it warrants a report.

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oddly enough, US Politics, USA

An Ambigous Tour Of The Oval Office.

More people than usual are concerned about the quality of the administrational work done by elected officials these days. Domestic German examples abound and include the recent scandal surrounding the “world’s most advanced vehicle toll system”, which is so advanced it has to be protected by not deploying it; and, of course, by a 1700-pages contract that, with hindsight, should alarm Brussels because, to me, it looks like a bad example of how to grant hidden subventions to national industrial champions.

In the US, on top of all the credibility problems, the administration has to fight different, but equally embarrassing issues of quality management. With regard to the story of the day, a voodoo finance concept to save the (also demographically challenged) US social security (pension) system, Matthew Yglesias claims that the problem is inherent, that this Presidency is all about abiguity.

Note that the president’s habit of proposing not actual legislation, but rather vague “principles” that tell no one anything about anything is quite systemic. … People on the Hill have literally no idea what the president thinks about this or, really, any other issue. Apparently the White House staff doesn’t know either – the speechwriters just write stuff and the president says it and no one knows what anyone’s talking about.

I’ve always said that too many people are probably underestimating Mr Bush. And maybe that is still correct. But, then again, “maybe” may not be sufficient with respect to defining the political guidelines of the most important polity on the planet.

Let me invite you to the White House oval office for some first hand, apparently only slightly edited streaming evidence, provided by President Bush himself. It’s a document that is, in my opinion, rather illuminating about the character of his presidency. It is oscillating between moments of rather informed historic comment, Cowboy paintings and marvel Bushisms. It seems that indeed, the ambiguity we can witness on tv each day is not simply in policies or PR.

Seriously, what is one to think of a President who can in one moment rather precisely explain historical details and in the next moment go on to state that “these windows are magnificient – they let in the sunlight…” – in this strangely clumsy manner we had to witness so many times.

Well, I don’t know.

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oddly enough

It’s all the Jews. Or maybe not?

About two years ago, I attended a talk about the American National Missile Defence Initiative given by James Rubin, formerly Madelaine Albright’s spokesperson and recently a foreign policy advisor to the clintonesque but unsuccessful campaign of former NATO commander Wesley Clark. Mr. Rubin, who is Jewish himself, began said lecture with a sad, but still funny joke about two Jews sitting on a park bench in the Vienna ghetto, ca 1941.

One of them, he said, reading the last remaining local Jewish newspaper, the other one reading the SS’ newspaper. Eventually, the one reading the Jewish newspaper could not help but ask his neighbour why he was reading Nazi propaganda of all things? To that the other one replied – ‘see, my friend, your paper tells me we’re weak, desperate and about to be slaughtered. But in mine, we’re rich, decadent, ruling Hollywood and the world. Which one do you think makes the better reading in a place like this?’

Of course, there was no WLAN acces avbailable at the time, but if it had been, I suppose this would have been the second man’s homepage. For now, my gentle readers, it is official: the International Jewish Conspiracy has finally taken over the Internet and so we are finally provided with answers to all the questions we would have never thought of on our own.

Example? The mean international Jewish conspiracy has claimed responsibility for making the new Mini Cooper bigger than the old one so Germans would think they were shrinking. Eeeeevil. And – a truly shocking revelation – they provide evidence that the existence of Barbra Streisand (scroll down to ‘1942’) is owed to the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, of which they now exclusively present a new and improved version! Oh, and they do have a disclaimer

By the way, I’m writing yet another article about the new European anti-semitism discourse (as opposed to the new European anti-semitism) for ‘fistful‘. And even though I doubt INJEWCON is a European site, somehow I think it fits in nicely…

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oddly enough

Mail from Mrs. Abacha. Again.

I have a friend who’s working in Nigeria for a European company like, say, P & G. After some difficult two years of learning by doing (and not dying while being robbed by a militant gang somewhere in the middle of nowhere) he has now come to the conclusion that Nigeria actually does have to offer more and, at least for him, even Lagos, the place he would not have wished on his worst enemy only two years ago now seems to hold a certain attraction, despite occasional ammunition depot explosions right next to his window.

However, whenever I proposed to pay him a visit he said, ‘listen, mate, no need to, really. Let’s meet in London when I’m on vacation. You can die a happy man without having ever been to this place.

Fair enough. So for me, as for millions of others, igeria will remain a country struck and progressively torn apart by the discovery of Oil, Religion, Ethnic strife. And, of course, a country widely known for its Industry of “419” spam, the reason for this post, and – although not all spammers are from Nigeria or even use Nigerian aliases in their emails – something the Nigerian government is embarrassed about and has accordingly promised to eradicate, most recently at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos.

The notorious “419” spam asks people to advance money to a person identified in an email (or fax) in order to receive a much larger sum for their help in the safe transfer of embezzled money to some offshore account. It’s obviously not the kind of industry people have in mind when they speak about economically empowering Africa.

But for all efforts, this kind of spam is going to be around for a while. That’s actually not too hard to predict, as there are only two major reasons for this spam to exist anyway: Greed and Stupidity. Both vices have reportedly been a steady companion of humanity, so it’s hard to believe any verbal or even actual efforts on the part of the Nigerian government are going to eradicate the incentives for this kind of crime. Nor are the continuous efforts of Dutch police.

Of course, the victim’s stupidity can never be a justification for a crime. But it helps a lot in explaining it, don’t you think? I mean, who, if weren’t for greed having switched off any remnants of a rationality, who would buy into an offer like the following? Annotated for your reading pleasure… [Oh wait, let’s make this foolproof… NOTE: THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPHS ARE A QUOTE FROM A 419 NIGERIAN SPAM EMAIL. ONLY FOR DOCUMENTATION! THIS IS NOT A REAL PROPOSITION!]

Dear Friend,

[“friend”? Oh look, you don’t remember my name but, hey, you want to entrust me with $52 million. That sounds like really serious offer, c’mon…?]

I am HAJIYA MARYAM ABACHA, wife of the late Nigeria Head of State,

[ah, thanks, now I remember. Yeah, didn’t we have a great time after your husband’s funeral… But as you know, I’m ‘friends’ with the wives of so many military strongmen I usually tend to forget them after a while. No offence…]

General Sanni Abacha who died on the 8th of June, 1998

[now that’s a lot of detail to back up your story, and if it weren’t for the BBC I would have almost believed you…]

while still on active duty. l am contacting you in view of the fact that we will be of great assistance to each other’s likeness developing a cordial relationship.

[and I almost thought you meant ‘friend’ when you said friend…]

I currently have within my reach the sum of FIFTY TWO MILLION US Dollars (US$52,000,000.00)

[thanks for the verification and your trust, but as you’ll certainly remember I’m not that good with the digits. So don’t be mad if I lose a zero somewhere along the line…]

cash which l intend to use for investment, like Real Estate Development or import/export business specifically in your country.

[Oh, now I’m a little disappointed Hajiya, you don’t remember my name, and now you don’t even remember where I come from. Now I think I might start sulking…]

NB: Because of the security being mounted on the members of my family, l have decided that this transaction be kept in utmost secrecy, remember to include your private Telephone or fax number for easy communication.

[You lost my number – again??? Can’t you be a little more responsible with these things. Now I’m going to get enourmous amounts of stupid spam…]

You can also contact my trusted friend and family attorney, barrister Richard Lithuli and is email address is lithulirichard1@justice.com

[Wow, and you do have a fake email address. That’s so great. You know what? I do, too. But I’m not sharing ;)]

Update – Just saw that Brad DeLong also has a recent 419 Spam post. It’s called “419 Spam as Literary Art”. Alas, my little oeuvre above does not fit this category… have a look.

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