Searchterms. Someone just found this site by looking for \”supermodel AND tobi\”… several months after I took my picture down. Looks like I did make a lasting impression on at least some people ;-).

Feudalism, a.d. 2003 Dorothee Meer describes the way German students and their professors interact in Spiegel Online today. She’s right to assert that their relationship is rarely a healthy one for the students who almost never get the feeling to talk to someone who respects them as a fellow, albeit less advanced, scholar. Although such generalisations are not fair to many professors – some of which I had the pleasure to learn from – I also had similar experiences in Germany – but not even once at my French Ecole or at the LSE. I believe that this tendency of professoral condescendence is mainly a consequence of lack of pre-selection at German universities and of the fact that professors do not have to be nice to students for the simple fact that they don’t pay for their education – the ministery of education does. Professors do not always treat students condescendingly, but as opposed to students in other countries who – due to the difficulty of getting into a specific university – get the intellectual benefit of the doubt and are direct clients of the teacher, students at German universities don’t and aren’t.

From Oklahoma With Love. After the planned redistricting bill in Texas has indeed been killed by the walkout of the Democratic representatives, Lawrence Wright looks at the past, present, and future of walkouts – and the Texan Democratic party. From the NY Times.

More Markus. In his own blog, Markus thoroughly substantiates his claim that the Instapundit is an idiot for linking anti-German hate literature as serious news and not even apologizing when proven wrong. This episode is quite telling. But the Instapundit also believes that Bulgaria should join Nafta instead of the EU…

Politicians lie! No one would have believed it if it weren’t for a scientific study. But Reuters tells us that it’s official – \”In a study described in the Observer newspaper, Glen Newey, a political scientist at the University of Strathclyde, concluded that lying is an important part of politics in the modern democracy.\”

Try German Volksmusik! that would surely improve results even further – \”U.S. military units have been breaking Saddam supporters with long sessions in which they’re forced to listen to heavy-metal and children’s songs. ‘Trust me, it works,” says one U.S. operative.’\” (via
MSNBC.com)

Being Indexed. The NY Times reports plans of the US government to take fingerprints of every person entering the country with a Visum – \”Foreign visitors arriving with visas at U.S. airports or seaports next year will have their travel documents scanned, their fingerprints and photos taken and their identification checked against terrorist watch lists.\”

Powell in Berlin. About an hour ago, Colin Powell arrived in Berlin for talks with German foreign minister Joschka Fischer and, noted as a gesture of raprochement, chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Schroeder even cut his trip to Asia short to meet Powell in Berlin tomorrow morning. Spiegel Online just published a meeting-forecast.