Why we all should love France

No, you won't be Rickroll'd into anything here, but "never gonna give [you] up" seems to be the motto of French workers, even when facing the worldwide economic crisis. Not only do they lock managers in their offices, now some of them also threaten to blow up a car supplies factory if they don't get redemption payments. Apart from the fact that violence (or the threat of using violence) is "the last refuge of the incompetent" - it gives me hope to read that there are still some people out there who have the guts and will to fight for a more just world, even against overwhelming opposition. When the revolution comes - it will start in France.

Wahlkarten

Die Grünen haben überdurchschnittlich viele Stimmen von Wahlkartenwählern erhalten - wie bei anderen Wahlen auch. FPÖ und BZÖ waren beide im Vergleich zur "normalen" Wahl teils weit unter ihrem Schnitt. Legitimer Schluß: Menschen, denen die Ausübung ihres demokratischen Grundrechts wirklich wichtig ist, wählen bevorzugt Parteien aus dem Zentrum und links davon. Oder, provokant: Wer ein Demokrat ist, lässt Mölzer, Stadler, Strache und Co. rechts liegen.

Wahlbefehl / Call to Vote

Wer nicht zur EU-Wahl geht, hat für 5 Jahre das Recht verspielt, sich über die "undemokratische" EU und die "mangelnde Mitbestimmung" und sonstige populistischen Unterstellungen aufzuregen.

Whoever doesn't vote in the upcoming elections for the European Parliament has lost the right to complain about a "lack of democracy" or "lack of co-determination" and similar populistic resentments for the next 5 years.

Planck & Herschel

This is so smart: Planck and Herschel are orbiting L2, one of the two Lagrangian points really "close" to earth (just 5 lightseconds or 48.6 nanoparsecs away). I remember dimly that we should build space cities at the L-Points (there are 5 of them, I'd personally like to live on L4 or L5 - they seem to be really cool places!), since it's easy to stay in a stable orbit there. The physics behind L-Points is really simple, and very fascinating!
derStandard.at forum members have been questioning the meaning of Planck & Herschel missions. Let me answer them with a thought from Babylon 5: one thing is certain - at one point, our sun will go supernova, destroying Earth. If mankind wants to survive beyond that point (hehehe, if we even make it that far!), there is only one direction to go: space.

Wahlkabine.at

Die netten Leute von wahlkabine.at bescheinigen mir 236 Übereinstimmungspunkte mit den Grünen, 195 mit den mir bis dato unbekannten JuLis, 145 mit der KPÖ, 36 mit der SPÖ und 7 mit der ÖVP. Danach wird es düster - HPM kommt auf -23, die FPÖ auf -90 und die Bienenzüchter gar auf -136. Hach, was soll ich nur wählen....

Obama, oida!

Gut, ich gebs zu, die Überschrift ist geklaut. Jemand im Standard.at-Forum war schneller.

Jetzt ist er also da, Obama, vierundvierzigster Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, und abgesehen von den "realpolitischen" Aufgaben (Wirtschaft, Umwelt, Kriege, Konflikte) wird er auch vor der Herausforderung stehen, eben diese Staaten (und vor allem die Menschen in ihnen) wieder etwas mehr zu vereinigen.

Über all seine Pläne, die Erwartungen, die Herausforderungen, die Probleme und seine Politik ist ja schon genug geschrieben worden; drum soll da mein Senf mal aussen vor bleiben. Aber eins möchte ich schon heute anmerken: wenn er dann (hoffentlich) am 20. 1. 2017 in Präsidialpension geht, dann denke ich werden wir alle ein Stück Geschichte und (hoffentlich) eine Wende zum Besseren miterlebt haben - allen Unkenrufen zum Trotz.

Tu, felix Austria

Only in Austria, a person like Martin Graf can become (and remain) 3rd president of the national assembly. Not only is he a member of "Olympia", a Burschenschaft dangerously close to the Neonazi scene; also his selected assistants paint a somewhat dubious picture, being customers at a Nazi paraphilia shop.

Well, if something like that happened in Germany, he would be forced to step out of office within the minute. Only in Austria, all he has to face is an "urgent talk" with 1st president of the national assembly, Barbara Prammer.

2009

Welcome to the year 2009.
The world starts with a war, and since Nov. 4th, we are not allowed to categorize everything into "good" or "evil". Difficult.
There is an old wisdom in conflict management, that says if a conflict has advanced too far, it is impossible for the parties involved to solve it on their own. It needs an external party (a so-called "mediator") to help them resolve the conflict. My guess is that a.) shooting and bombing each other is definitely a stage of having "advanced too far" in a conflict and b.) it will need one hell of a brilliant mediator to help resolve that one.

Welcome to the year 2009.

Elections

So, here we are - two days until we elect our new parliament. It was nice to see the last parlamentary discussion, and even nicer to see (and read about) TV "duels"; decided? Not really... but on Sunday in the morning, I'll walk over to my townhall, and put an X for one of the parties. A small note though...

BZÖ in reply to a question concerning suits made at the constitutional court against the new police and surveillance law: "Decisions of the Constitutional Court have to be accepted [...]." A very funny statement for a party which has Jörg Haider as their boss, who refuses to accept several Constitutional Court rulings concerning bi-lingual traffic (place-name) signs in Carinthia for several years now...

Wählbefehl

Dies ist ein Wählbefehl. Wer am 28. September nicht wählen geht, hat für 4 Jahre das Recht verwirkt, sich über "die Politik" im Allgemeinen oder "den/die Politiker/in" im Speziellen zu beschweren.

Zur Erinnerung:

SPÖ

ÖVP

Die Grünen

Die originalen Originalen

Das originale Original

LIF

Pick me! Pick me!

The Greens are casting people for their team running for the upcoming elections. If you read this - pick me. I promise to be good :-)
Ok, after letting users design some election posters and generally trying to sound serious about going into gouvernment (but with whom, that's the question!), there is a new idea - casting new faces to refresh the party image. Maybe Wahlkampf 2.0? As long as we don't end up with a Tschuggnall situation, but rather with some Stürmer success....

Epiphanies, European Union, Elections

The epiphanies of course are all these populist people appearing from nowhere (ok, Tyrolia, Burgenland, etc.) suddenly running for parliament. Populism has two big strenghts - simple answers to complex questions; and the promise of doing things "differently". Its weakness shows when populists suddenly are given the opportunity to actually demonstrate their "different" ways, and face a reality that doesn't deal with simple answers. O'Reilly on Letterman wanted a simple answer, and David responded "It's not simple to me, because I'm a thoughtful person". This applies to politics maybe more than to anything else in the world, and thoughtful people may question the simple answers populists give, and whether or not they would be practicable if these populists manage to achieve gouvernmental power.

The European Union is something Austrians don't seem to quite understand, or appreciate. It has given more wealth, more rights within Europe and more privileges to us than to most other European countries; still, it is blamed for everything that goes wrong - next thing we know, the infamous Salzburger Schnürlregen is the consequence of an EU directive. derStandard took up the challenge of correcting this image, and writing some new chapters into the Austrian - EU book. Still, as long as our epiphanies continue with "EU's fault" as their favourite Simple Answer, the efforts may be wasted.

So, we are allowed to elect a new gouvernment on Sept. 28th... A chance for the SPÖ to get rid of the great coalition, a chance for the ÖVP to let the voter "correct the mistake" they did in the last elections, a chance for the FPÖ to actually become a big party in Austria again, a chance for die Grünen to enter gouvernment for the first time, a chance for the BZÖ to... what? Finally disappear? Lots of chances for our little parties and epiphanies to destroy the possibilities for stable coalitons and force us back into the SPÖVP coalition we learned to suffer through the last 2 years.

For the first time since I'm allowed to vote, I am thinking of voting void.....

Dear Spanish Church: shut up!

"Por que no te callas" asked King Juan Carlos, and the same question goes to the Spanish bishops - why don't you shut up?

If there's one thing that we all seemed to have learned not only from recent and more oriental events, but also from our own history is that church and politics don't mix well - or, more precisely, whenever they do it ends in disaster. Now, I understand that the fear of losing power drives the Spanish bishops into condemning Zapatero, but hey!, swallow it, it's not your job to intervene in the political life of the state.

Otherwise, we could just as well go back to the middle ages, couldn't we?!

So schmeckt der Winter

Ok, in 2 Monaten kräht kein Hahn mehr nach Frau Dr. Winter (FPÖ), die im grazer Wahlkampf derart ausfallend über den Religionsgründer des islamischen Glaubens hergefallen ist. Viel schockierender als diese maßlose Dummheit (deren Folgen hoffentlich nicht allzu schlimm sein werden - vermutlich sind die Betroffenen vernünftiger als Frau Winter) ist, mit welcher Selbstverständlichkeit das blaubraune Klüngel sich diese Aussagen aneignet, wiederholt und rechtfertigt.

Eine Diskussion über die Vermischung unserer Alltagskulturen ist sicher angebracht - unter der Voraussetzung, diese als gegeben zu akzeptieren, und im gegenseitigen Respekt und mit Rücksicht auf die Bedürfnisse aller damit umzugehen. Interkultureller Dialog passiert nicht mehr in Projekten, Konferenzen, politischen Treffen, in Vereinen und zwischen Interessensgruppen. Interkultureller Dialog passiert vor unserer Haustür, und wir lernen besser, damit umzugehen und ihn zu meistern; denn in einer Welt, die immer kleiner wird und immer weiter zusammenwächst wird dieser Dialog zum Überlebenskriterium für das Individuum.

Insofern besteht ja vielleicht noch Hoffnung für das dritte Lager - in ein paar Jahrzehnten hat es sich entweder wegevolutioniert, oder dazugelernt. Ich tendiere ja zu ersterer Möglichkeit...

2008

a:fter all, nobody expected a kind of Spanish Inquisition. It's just another night, between two other days, who happen to be the 31st of December and the 1st of January.
Nevertheless, lots of special feelings came up that night, waltz, champagne and a sense of doing things completely different in the oncoming 12 months (366 days). Something that should not only apply to me, but even more to people who are "in power" - which leads me to the latest thoughts on politics:

• Shouldn't be the smartest / most intelligent / most experienced people be leading our country? Why is "Mr. Average" so afraid of intelligence among politicans then, and prefers to vote for someone who, let's say, finished secondary school instead of someone who's a professor at a large university?
• The dilemma of politicians: To rise to a position of power, you have to serve, obey and work in the party's structure for years. In these years, you learn to shut up, follow, accept, and crawl. How can you expect that all of a sudden, you are able to speak, lead, decide and stand straight? Parties educate their members to be servants, and thus we are led by people who were trained to be servants. Not so surprising any more that our country is led the way it is.... yes?
  

Movie: Lions for Lambs

Who would have thought? A movie that makes you think from the very first minute til hours after you have seen it... Patriotism at its best, not the "negative" association one may have with it, but what it really means - fighting for the sake of your country, for its political system, for its people, for control over its leaders; questioning everything, deciding, making the right choices, admitting mistakes (or not...).

A definite must-see for everyone who grew tired of the US flag waving in the background while 11 men walk shoulder by shoulder saving the world!

¿Por que no te callas?

Man mag von Aznar halten was man will, desgleichen von König Juan Carlos, aber Herr Chavez hat es verdient dass ihm mal jemand "über die Goschn" fährt. Wer im Glashaus sitzt soll nicht mit Steinen werfen, und auch wenn der Linksruck in den südamerikanischen Staaten sicher eine gute Entwicklung ist, so herrschen dort doch viel mehr "diktatorische" Verhältnisse (wie oft wurde in der letzten Zeit eine Verfassung geändert, um Wiederwahlen zu ermöglichen?). Kritik an Personen in der politischen Öffentlichkeit ist angebracht, doch ein Dialog ist immer nur dort möglich, wo auch gegenseitiger Respekt vorhanden ist.

Vielleicht vermissen es Politiker ja, dass ihnen hin und wieder mal jemand sagt "Halt einfach die Goschn!"... fehlender Realitätsbezug in einer Welt der Diplomatie, wo alles nur mit dem Samthandschuh angefasst wird? - Insofern ist es noch beachtlicher, dass der spanische König die cojones hatte, auf die Äusserungen Chavez' mit undiplomatischer Gegenrede zu antworten.

Generell (hört mir zu!) wäre es mal wieder Zeit, sich den Nuhr in Erinnerung zu rufen:
"Wenn man keine Ahnung hat - einfach mal Fresse halten."