the alpha and omega

Austrian Social Democrats: "New Fairness"

Mahalanobis — 2006-10-03T11:43:00Z

Alfred Gusenbauer's Social Democrats (SPÖ) defeated the governing conservatives in Austria's national election on Sunday. His 2006 campaign was headlined "New Fairness". But what did they mean by "New Fairness"? Less government intervention, and thus more freedom and prosperity? Come on, you know that the social democrats always have had a strange understanding of the word "fairness":

Addendum: The longer I think about it...

Careful where you place that vote

Mahalanobis — 2006-08-09T13:41:00Z

Subtle environmental cues can influence decisions on issues of real consequence, write Jonah Berger and Marc Meredith, two doctoral students at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, and S. Christian Wheeler, a Stanford marketing professor, in a paper (summary) reported in July's SER. The environmental cues are surprising indeed: according to the authors, the polling places used by voters may influence their choices. One study showed voters in Arizona in 2000 were more likely to support a measure to increase the state sales tax, with the proceeds going to public education, if they voted in a school. Following up, the authors showed subjects images of a church, a school, or a generic building and asked them to vote on certain measures. Not only were the respondents more likely to support education measures if they had been shown pictures of schools, but they were also more likely to vote against stem-cell research if they had been shown pictures of churches. American polling places have usually been assigned by state officials on the basis of convenience; this research suggests they could become political battlegrounds in a whole new manner.

via The Economist

Famous mathematician slams academic corruption in China

Mahalanobis — 2005-08-20T16:03:12Z

People's Daily Online: If academic corruption in China can not be curbed, scientific and technological development in the country will be delayed by 20 years, world-known mathematician Shing-Tung Yau warned recently. Yau, who is the only Chinese American winner of the Fields Medal, lashed out at... continue reading.

Barmaids protest as EU plans cover-up in the beer gardens

Mahalanobis — 2005-08-04T15:37:13Z

Telegraph: Bavarians [and Austrians] are hot under the collar over an EU directive that will force their barmaids to cover up, supposedly to protect them from the sun.

Brewery owners, politicians and most of the women themselves have condemned the legislation as absurd, claiming the "tan ban", as it has been nicknamed, will destroy a centuries-old tradition. Click here to read the story.

via liberalismus.at

Wearing a dirndl is a most feminine allure,
and the décolleté a very important part of the glamourous view of these dresses.

Soviet America?

Mahalanobis — 2005-06-07T23:11:07Z

J-Walk Blog: Seen on the MARC commuter train (between Baltimore and DC) today, this picture pretty much sums up the new "National Security":

Is this a hoax??

related items: MARC Rail

For the avoidance of doubt - YES to Europe

Mahalanobis — 2005-06-04T15:25:18Z

VoIP and ENUM, Richard Stastny:

From some feedback I received on my post on NON or NEE, it may not be completely clear: I would have voted YES to the European Constitution, for two reasons:

As born Austrian you get educated over the time that if you feel oblidged to partizipate in democratic elections, you never have the choice to vote for the best choice, only for the least worse. In this case it was the choice between the less flawed draft constitution and the seriously flawed Nice treaty.
I do not want to be seen anywhere near the camps of the core opponents, being a weird and dangerous melange of far-right (xenophobists) and far-left (antiglobalists), the unions and the useful idiots. Both left and right wings are known to be anti-democratic by history.

I wonder why the left wing still chants the Socialist International. Nowadays it would be more feasible if they would drop the "Inter" part and rename the hymne to Socialist-National, going back to the roots: "Die Fahne Hoch" aka "The Horst-Wessel-Lied", to be chanted together in the common demonstrations.

Mirror Images

Mahalanobis — 2005-05-30T20:40:01Z

WSJ Europe, Opinion Section: Can you spot the difference between the two images reproduced here? No? Well, we have to admit, it's really not easy.

It is much easier to spot the hole in the budget the German labor office's attempt at corporate redesign will cause. While the office itself is tight-lipped about the price tag, advertising experts estimate that the design and introduction of the new logo (right) will cost taxpayers about 10 million euros. Apparently, that kind of money buys you a white stylized "A" (for Arbeit or labor) on a red background replacing the old red stylized "A" on a white background. Thanks to this ingenious reversal of colors, the new logo reminds some people of a stop sign. The message to the country's five million unemployed appears to be: don't enter, don't bother.

It all started in 2002 when it transpired that the labor office, known as a rather sleepy bureaucracy, had shown unusual initiative. Unfortunately, it had used its new-found energy not to find work for the unemployed but to inflate the number of successful job placements by roughly 70%. This scandal forced the government to finally try to turn this behemoth of almost 100,000 civil servants into an efficient job-search machine. A new name was to signal this reorganization and the dynamic Federal Agency for Labor was born, laying to rest the old and ineffectual Federal Institution for Labor (the German word for "institution" being plagued by the same double-entendre as in English). This subtle rebranding now also has its equally subtle logo redesign.

Unfortunately, it will take more than a color reversal to reverse the trajectory of German unemployment. Removal of the stop sign that labor law represents would work better.

Farmers and working classes top the No vote

Mahalanobis — 2005-05-30T13:56:30Z

EUobserver: French farmers, workers and public servants showed the strongest hostility to the EU constitution, while students, professionals and wealthier people were more keen to support it.

According to preliminary analysis by the Ipsos agency, the majority of citizens in the voting categories rejected the treaty with an overall turnout reported at 70.5 per cent. Frenchmen gave a louder "non" to the constitution than women, with 57 per cent voting against, as opposed to 53 per cent of female opponents. The result differs from the previous vote on the Maastricht treaty, where the womens no was slightly more prominent.

Within the various age groups, the oldest citizens 60 years and more were the only ones to reach a majority in favour. On the other hand, middle aged people voted against on an almost 2 to 1 majority. More data.

OECD muzzled on impact of EU policies

Mahalanobis — 2005-05-23T17:49:52Z

EUobserver: A longstanding disagreement between the EU and the OECD about how the international economic organisation reports European Commission policies is slowly coming to a head. Non-EU countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development are getting irritated by the fact that OECD reports may not include the impact of EU policies on agriculture, competition and trade.

When the OECD in February this year published an economic survey of Denmark the report for the first time included a disclaimer saying the examination of the countrys economy may not be complete. An evaluation of EU policies effects on the economy was not included, the note said. Since February five reports in total have been published including similar disclaimers. The latest appeared in the survey published about Italys economy:

"This Economic Survey may not include an examination of certain policies that are relevant to the country but fall within the competence of the European Community"

Click here to read the story.

Schröder sets early vote after defeat

Mahalanobis — 2005-05-22T23:21:16Z

Herald Tribune: Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany said Sunday that he wanted to hold early elections in the autumn after his Social Democrats were ousted from power in the crucial western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The surprise announcement on prime-time television was made after the opposition Christian Democrats were swept into power in North Rhine-Westphalia, ending nearly four decades of rule by the Social Democrats. |Source|

CDU party leader Angela Merkel:

"If the SPD thinks there is a need for early elections, I can only say that every day that the SPD-Greens are not ruling is a good day for Germany"

I couldn't agree more! (And I don't think that they will turn back the clock even further by undoing the labour market reform...).

Europe unites in hatred of French

Mahalanobis — 2005-05-17T17:27:39Z

Guardian: [A] report on how France is perceived by other European countries may give even the most patriotic Frenchman pause for thought. Not only are the views expressed damning - its authors are French.

The conclusions of the study, Why the French are the Worst Company on the Planet - by Olivier Clodong, a professor of social and economic communication, and Jose-Manuel Lamarque, a journalist - speak for themselves: the British think they are "chauvinists, stubborn, nannied and humourless". Even the tolerant Swedes admit to finding them "disobedient, immoral, disorganised, neo-colonialist and dirty". The Germans find them "pretentious, haughty and frivolous", the Spanish see them as "cold, distant, vain and impolite". and the Dutch describe them as "agitated, talkative and shallow". The story is similar elsewhere. The Portuguese find them too preachy, the Italians think they are "snobbish, arrogant, carnal, righteous and self-obsessed", and the Greeks dismiss them as "out-of-touch, egocentric bons vivants". | Source |

The good news:

Holy... didn't know that watching TV can be as exciting as going to the exhibition "Nuda Veritas" (currently at the Leopold Museum in Vienna)

via Foreign Dispatches

Correlated Answers

Mahalanobis — 2004-12-27T04:24:38Z

Results of the latest High IQ Society Poll:

Turkey warns of terror wave

Mahalanobis — 2004-12-13T21:45:26Z

... if EU membership is rejected

'Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned European Union leaders that violence from Islamic extremists could escalate if the EU rejects Turkey as a member. Speaking before the opening of Istanbuls first modern art museum Mr Erdogan said, according to the Times: "There is nothing we can do if the EU feels that it can live with being simply a Christian club . . . but if these countries burn their bridges with the rest of the world, history will not forgive them".' Continue reading.

Academia, Stuck To the Left

Mahalanobis — 2004-12-02T00:37:35Z

Washington Post columnist George Will looks at why higher education has a bias towards "liberal" ideology. Will argues that most college campuses are one-nation parties.

The core:

A filtering process, from graduate school admissions through tenure decisions, tends to exclude conservatives from what Mark Bauerlein calls academia's "sheltered habitat." In a dazzling essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University and director of research and analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts, notes that the "first protocol" of academic society is the "common assumption" -- that, at professional gatherings, all the strangers in the room are liberals.

It is a reasonable assumption, given that in order to enter the profession, your work must be deemed, by the criteria of the prevailing culture, "relevant." Bauerlein says that various academic fields now have regnant premises that embed political orientations in their very definitions of scholarship:

"Schools of education, for instance, take constructivist theories of learning as definitive, excluding realists (in matters of knowledge) on principle, while the quasi-Marxist outlook of cultural studies rules out those who espouse capitalism. If you disapprove of affirmative action, forget pursuing a degree in African-American studies. If you think that the nuclear family proves the best unit of social well-being, stay away from women's studies."

This gives rise to what Bauerlein calls the "false consensus effect," which occurs when, because of institutional provincialism, "people think that the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population." There also is what Cass Sunstein /* delinquent */, professor of political science and jurisprudence at the University of Chicago, calls "the law of group polarization." Bauerlein explains: "When like-minded people deliberate as an organized group, the general opinion shifts toward extreme versions of their common beliefs." They become tone-deaf to the way they sound to others outside their closed circle of belief.

When John Kennedy brought to Washington such academics as Arthur Schlesinger Jr., John Kenneth Galbraith, McGeorge and William Bundy and Walt Rostow, it was said that the Charles River was flowing into the Potomac. Actually, Richard Nixon's administration had an even more distinguished academic cast -- Henry Kissinger, Pat Moynihan, Arthur Burns, James Schlesinger and others.

Academics such as the next secretary of state still decorate Washington, but academia is less listened to than it was. It has marginalized itself, partly by political shrillness and silliness that have something to do with the parochialism produced by what George Orwell called "smelly little orthodoxies."

Many campuses are intellectual versions of one-party nations -- except such nations usually have the merit, such as it is, of candor about their ideological monopolies. In contrast, American campuses have more insistently proclaimed their commitment to diversity as they have become more intellectually monochrome.

They do indeed cultivate diversity -- in race, skin color, ethnicity, sexual preference. In everything but thought.

Kofi Annan Must Go

Mahalanobis — 2004-12-01T19:17:54Z

OpinionJournal, Norm Coleman: Over the past seven months, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair, has conducted an exhaustive, bipartisan investigation into the scandal surrounding the U.N. Oil-for-Food program. That noble program was established by the U.N. to ease the suffering of the Iraqi people, then languishing under Saddam Hussein's ironfisted rule, as well as the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the U.N. after the first Gulf War. While sanctions were designed to instigate the removal of Saddam from power, or at least render him impotent, the Oil-for-Food program was designed to support the Iraqi people with food and other humanitarian aid under the watchful eye of the U.N.

Our Investigative Subcommittee has gathered overwhelming evidence that Saddam turned this program on its head. Rather than erode his grip on power, the program was manipulated by Saddam to line his own pockets and actually strengthen his position at the expense of the Iraqi people. At our hearing on Nov. 15, we presented evidence that Saddam accumulated more than $21 billion through abuses of the Oil-for-Food program and U.N. sanctions. We continue to amass evidence that he used the overt support of prominent members of the U.N., such as France and Russia, along with numerous foreign officials, companies and possibly even senior U.N. officials, to exploit the program to his advantage. We have obtained evidence that indicates that Saddam doled out lucrative oil allotments to foreign officials, sympathetic journalists and even one senior U.N. official, in order to undermine international support for sanctions. In addition, we are gathering evidence that Saddam gave hundreds of thousands--maybe even millions--of Oil-for-Food dollars to terrorists and terrorist organizations. All of this occurred under the supposedly vigilant eye of the U.N. >continue reading<

Don't miss Towards a more relevant United Nations by The Economist

via Decision '08 (Kofi Annan: The Drumbeat Grows Stronger)