This is one of my favourite Stories by Kishon, a great humorist. Jewish Poker For quite a while the two of us sat at our table, wordlessly stirring our coffee. Ervinke was bored. All right, he said. Let's play poker. No, I answered. I hate cards. I always lose. Who's talking about cards? thus Ervinke. I was thinking of Jewish poker. He then briefly explained the rules of the game. Jewish poker is played without cards, in your head, as befits the People of the Boo...

John Demjanjuk has been declared fit to stand trial in Germany, probably one of the last huge trials of an alleged Nazi warcrime perpetrator.

I grew up in Germany. Patriotism is a very ambivalent issue here because honestly, if you are proud to be a german it is often just equalled to being a Neonazi. Honouring our soldiers on memorial day would mean honouring soldiers that commited crimes against humanity and were fighting for a country that was guillty for causing 2 world wars. Honouring our flag falls into that same category. So when we have a memorial day we do not honour our fallen soldiers but mourn rather those whose death we ...

I found this article today. It is totally incomprehensible for me how people can be so stupid, but it is a sad truth. If it was up to me I'd repatriate the lot of them to WhiteRussia, they can live their dream of a communist/socialist dictatorship of the soviet variety there. Article here Spiegel Online International (in english) Majority of Eastern Germans Feel Life Better under Communism Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berli...

It is a spectacular vision: European households will be supplied with clean energy from african deserts. The Club of Rome has been busy thinking about this idea for a long time with its Desertec-Initiative, and now 20 corporations want to get down to business in the fight against climate change. In two to three years, these corporations (Siemens and Münchner Rück amongst them) plan to have a technological and economical concept for solarenergy out of Africa. But the hurdles seem to be ...

Even after Marx respectlessly declared the "Expropriation of the Expropriators" as his proclaimed objective - it had different consequences for the future and did by no means mean the compensation for an injustice that happend eons ago. Marx's critique was rather aimed at the elimination of the daily renewed plundering inherent of the capitalsystem. Allegedly, this plundering guarantees that the value of all industrial produce will allways be devided unfairly: mere subsistence for the workers, ...

With this backdrop in mind, it is easy to understand why all "critical" economy after Rousseau had to take on the form of a general theory of theft. Where thiefes are in power - even if they have affected a genteel demeanour for a long time - the only possible way for developing a realistic economic science has to be the cleptocracy of the wealthy. This theory tries to explain why the rich have always been the rulers: Those who are successful during the initial theft will be on the forefront wh...

This a very good article that I found in my papers' Feuilleton on wednesday. It was written by Peter Sloterdijk in german(y), and I'll translate it part for part. It is a good linguistic exercise for me to translate newspaper articles, so if any formulations or phrasings seem off, please let me know. Part 1 Arbitrariness and gullibility were at the beginning of economic relationships - if the classics are to be believed. Rousseau wrote about this issue in his famous introduction for his ...

Today I worked as a museumguide in a small museum, telling people about the life of a female poet that lived in the first half of the 19th century. It is actually quite interesting, and most people really enjoy their visit because I don't just refer facts but try to make it a interesting narrative. But the truth is that there are only so many ways to tell a story, and as a museumguide you run through them all in short order. Visitors differ greatly from each other as well - which keeps telling t...

My neighbor growing up had this really great idea for solving the energy problem. He hated joggers and cyclers with a passion and proposed to ban such activities alltogether and instead make people with the urge to exercise run in gigantic treadmills to produce electricity.. Do something for your health AND your economy AND your environment - all rolled in one! Triple benefit.. also applicable to prisons, recess in elementary school (honestly, who has more energy than little kids?) and other ins...

My neighbor growing up had this really great idea for solving the energy problem. He hated joggers and cyclers with a passion and proposed to ban such activities alltogether and instead make people with the urge to exercise run in gigantic treadmills to produce electricity.. Do something for your health AND your economy AND your environment - all rolled in one! Triple benefit.. also applicable to prisons, recess in elementary school (honestly, who has more energy than little kids?) and other ins...