Yesterday, activists/comedians/artists The Yes Men headed to Kreuzberg’s Betahaus to present their latest feature film “The Yes Men fix the World“. The culture jamming anti-consumerists are in Berlin due to the currently underway Berlinale film festival, in which their picture is running as part of the Panorama section. Betahaus housed the Museum of Capitalism that night, an exhibition that tried to comment on the current economic woes. Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno delivered their gospel to the style-abiding, feel-good leftists while standing, rather fittingly, in a shopping cart. Mike provided us with further enlightenment.
Virtually all university students know about the pains of procrastinating. Why start with the assignment right now instead of in a couple of minutes? Nonetheless, we do it all the time and get ourselves in considerable trouble most of the time. Suddenly, time is short and deadlines approach sooner than we anticipated. Sounds familiar?
There is help to make the right decision. One solution is to pledge to deliver your next paper on time. If you fail, you will donate a significant sum to charity. In this scenario, the short-term incentives to keep delaying are contrasted with the somewhat clearer long-term consequences of loosing money. The question remains—why do we fail to make the right choice so often, and how can we improve?
It took the new media team of now finally President Barack Obama only minutes to move into their new virtual home—www.whitehouse.gov. While the new President was still delivering his Inaugural adress, his web2.0 workers already published the first new post on the President’s official domain. [Read more]
Soon to be inaugurated President-elect Barack Obama might make a comeback to Berlin, the German weekly Focusreports. And this time it might be nothing less than the Brandenburger Tor for Germany’s favorite US President since the days of JFK. [Read more]
As the days of George W. Bush as President of the U.S.A. draw to an end, every part of the transition process takes on historic proportions. Nobody knows how many people will turn out on January 20 to see Obama take over the White House. It will probably be the biggest crowd ever at any Presidential Inauguration, which will also make it the costliest Inauguration ever. We tell you where to watch the celebration in Berlin!
If Germans adore public figures, it is for three things: They are part of a minority, they look cute, and they are not German. Then they will go all out and prove their love with their biggest weapon in stock: Schlagersänger Howard Carpendale.
The most German of Germans—nevermind he is from South Africa—climbed up the chart ladder with his passionate and inspiring song he creatively dubbed “Yes We Can!” Now, let us all praise the new leader of mankind together.
In the good tradition of lists at the end of the year, we bring you the most memorable moments of the already historic 2008 US Presidential election. One media phenomenon was especially salient—Sarah Palin, who will be remembered for putting both hockey moms and Wasilla, Alaska on the political map.
She also sparked a movement of Sarah Palin lookalikes and video spoofs, that succeeded to push the frenzy of Obama music videos from the youtube agenda. The magnitude of her online appeal is so great that after the election, American video websites like Hulu.com have seen their traffic drop due to a post-Sarah-Palin slump.
So, without further ado, our ten favorite videos with or inspired by the moose hunter of the year. Tell us about your favorites and suggest more videos in the comments. Merry Christmas everyone!
German Finanzminister Peer Steinbrück is interviewed in the recent Newsweek issue, and he doesn’t sound too happy:
Doesn’t an unprecedented crisis call for unprecedented measures? “It’s the yearning for the Great Rescue Plan. It doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist! Dealing with an unprecedented crisis is a puzzle, a trial-and-error.”
One indicator for the influence of a nation in the world is the number of people willing to devote their academic career to the studies of said nation. According to this measure, the future isn’t looking very bright for the United States, if you follow this article in Time magazine. Applications for American Studies have significantly dropped in Great Britain in the last years, even though regional studies are still in fashion.
Princeton professor, New York Times columnist and prime economic liberal voice Paul Krugman has won the Nobel Prize for economics. Due vindication for this fervent Bush critic, although he has won it for his remarks on trade theory and not his opposition to the Bush administration. Congratulations! Read more about his assessment of US politics in this liveblog from his speech at the Freie Universität Berlin, which he held just this May.