germany

Every day has been cold here so far this year. It’s either crisp, sunny and cold with minus 10 degrees Celsius - sometimes probably closer to minus 20 degrees in some places at night when the skies are clear -, or it’s overcast and foggy, some minus three degrees or somewhat above the freezing point, [...]

In previous articles, I have voiced some of my criticisms and predictions re globalization here, here, here, and here. Unfortunately, it is becoming clearer by the day that globalization was largely a fraud where Americans could endlessly consume and Chinese factories could endlessly manufacture without any adherence to economic fundamentals and creating a false [...]

Related Justrecently Story: Dear Fenqings
My good friend Taide brought an article to my attention: “Can Fenqing or Angry Youths Think for Themselves?”
The Can Fenqing or Angry Youths Think for Themselves article (in the following: angry article or angry author) refers to an earlier article by Jamil Anderlini in the Financial Times.
I have no doubt that [...]

The Western China-related blogosphere sometimes seems to be split down the middle - pandahuggers and pandabashers. (Actually, I think it is a bit unfair to equate the Pandas and China in its current shape. Imaginative Chinese people make take offense from that because they think of themselves as self-strenghtening and rising while Pandas are kind of [...]

Went to the cinema last night. “Buddenbrooks”, based on Thomas Mann’s novel, and the third or fourth time someone tried to put it into pictures - directed by Heinrich Breloer this time.
It’s a big book squeezed into some 160 minutes or so. To my surprise, it seemed to work. I’d think so, anyway. The movie rushed through the [...]

“This is how we come across abroad: as brutal, aggressive, sabre-rattling lansquenets - who are all this simply because we are fearful, chicken-hearted, peaceloving, helpless slaves.”
Original: “So erscheinen wir dem Ausland: als brutale, Händel suchende, mit dem Säbel rasselnde Kriegesknechte - die aber all das nur sind, weil wir ängstliche, feige, friedliebende, hilflose Herrenknechte sind.”
Gustav [...]

After the indictment and intermittend detention of recent Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian, the Special Investigation Panel of the Supreme Prosecutor’s office said yesterday it would investigate former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) on suspicion of money laundering.  — Story here.
At first glance, I would congratulate Taiwan for its efficient judiciary. They seem to achieve something that France [...]

Helmut Schmidt, German chancellor from 1974 to 1982, and co-editor of Germany’s big weekly Die Zeit for most of the time since, turns  90 this week. He’s an icon in Germany, for being an ostensibly uncaring know-it-all, for his hard work, for regaining an unexpected amount of trust abroad for his country after its only [...]

Learning to read and write took more time when I was a child. Nowadays, it happens faster. But students hardly ever reach the perfection we had to reach to achieve good marks in school.
Does that hurt? Not necessarily. Orthography in the 1970s and 1980s were probably not so different from Imperial exams for would-be officials [...]

 
Me was in an undemanding situation at skull for an hour or so. Had to pay too much attention to the situation to let real paperwork distract myself, but too little to do to do nothing by myself. So I watched the situation with my left eye, and did this little divertimento (see picture) with my right [...]