Einem alten Witz zufolge waren im Sozialismus Frühling, Sommer, Herbst und Winter die schlimmsten Feinde der Wirtschaft.
Kein Witz ist, dass Minister Tiefensee, der neben Verkehrsproblemen auch für alle Wehwehchen der Neuen Länder zuständig ist, endlich einen Schuldigen für die wirtschaftliche Stagnation im ungeliebten Osten ausgemacht hat. Das Klima hätte sich angeboten, hat aber den Nachteil, dass die gravierenden Schäden der vermuteten Erderwärmung erst in fünfzig Jahren eintreten werden. Dann wird der Solidarpakt längst Geschichte sein. Die Rechtsextremen sind dagegen allgegenwärtig. Auf jeder Dorfkirmes können sie ihre Glatzen erheben und für Aufregung im Blätterwald sorgen. Ihre neue Rolle als Wirtschaftsschädlinge wird ein dankbares Publikum finden. Politiker müssen sich keine Gedanken mehr machen, welche...

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/meinung/Kommentare-Israel;art141,2383214

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/opinion/20cohen.html?ex=1190952000&en=ed93c29b1880540d&ei=5070&emc=eta1

“The Zionists were looking around for another enemy to have, because to them the Soviet Union was an enemy because they wouldn’t allow Jewish emigration. So they used that as an organizing tool, basically, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, there was no more organizing about the Soviet Union. So they looked around, and they said:  Well, the Muslims. Let’s find the Arabs and the Muslims, and make them the boogeyman.  And that’s what they did.”
http://blogcentral.jpost.com/index.php?cat_id=7&blog_id=59&blog_post_id=1522

Sie haben sicher schon von der These gehört, dass Babys, die schon früh und möglichst im Mutterbauch mit Mozart oder ruhiger Meditationsmusik berieselt werden, zu intelligenteren und kreativeren Wesen heranwachsen. Wie eine neue Studie belegt, ist das alles sehr wahrscheinlich kompletter Unfug:

Scientific American: Fact or Fiction?: Babies Exposed to Classical Music End Up Smarter   

“In 1999 psychologist Christopher Chabris, now at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., performed a meta-analysis on 16 studies related to the Mozart effect to survey its overall effectiveness. “The effect is only one and a half IQ points, and it’s only confined to this paper-folding task,” Chabris says. He notes that the improvement could simply be a result of the natural variability a person experiences between two test sittings.

Earlier this year,...

Many have accused the photo of young Mohammed Al Dura’s father shielding him from Israeli bullets of being a fake, but the original videotape from which this photo was drawn was hidden from view by France 2. Yesterday a French judge finally ordered the channel to produce it. PJM’s Nidra Poller was one of the few journalists witnessing this stunning turning point.
http://www.pajamasmedia.com/2007/09/dam_bursts_at_al_dura_trial.php

Gestern schickte mir ein befreundeter Astronom aus den USA ein lustiges e-mail zu den Spekulationen über einen angeblichen Meteoriteneinschlag in Peru:

“I’m waiting for the first mainstream media or BBC report that it’s all Bush’s fault. ;^) Whatever this Peruvian crater turns out to be, the hoopla has been pretty fun so far.”

Guess what? Es ist tatsächlich alles Bushs Schuld! Zumindest behauptet das heute die Pravda (“Wahrheit” in russisch) :

Russian Military Intelligence Analysts are reporting today that one of the United States most secretive spy satellites, the KH-13, targeting Iran was ‘destroyed in its orbit’ with its main power generator powered by the radioactive isotope Pu-238 surviving re-entry and crashing in a remote region of the South American Nation of Peru, and where hundreds are reported to be ill from radiation...

The price of the best AK-47 rifles, made either in Russia or the former Yugoslavia, has fallen to $500, from $2,200 before June, he said, roughly the price paid for them in Egypt. The last shipment he knows about was bought and stored by a Gazan arms dealer as an investment, “hoping the situation will get bad again,” Muhammad said, laughing.
Chinese or Czech versions were $1,400, and now no one wants them.
An AK-47 bullet, before June, cost $8.80 — “the price of eight shwarma” sandwiches, he said, “enough to feed a family.” His profit was $6.58. Even before the Hamas election, in 2005, the price was $3.45 to $4.40. Now a bullet costs $1.21.
n Egypt, the same bullet costs 73 cents, 40 percent less. But with the expense of tunneling and bribing, Muhammad said, the current profit on a bullet is less than five cents.
A...