Linkliste unbehandelter Themen

Politics: 

Germany is expecting to be the target of a terrorist attack. Meanwhile, Realtest-Koffer is on its way to becoming the UNWORT DES JAHRES.

A couple of days before the Presidential elections, Haiti continues to fight an outbreak of Cholera that has cost more than 900 lives so far. Demonstrations against the UN forces and the government have reached Port-au-Prince. 

A couple of weeks after revealing a budget that avoids the idea of an administrative reform, the Austrian's People's Party is insisting that the responsibility for teachers be transferred to the Länder (cutting the county-level in the process), since the one thing that is clearly going to save money is transferring responsibility to megalomaniac Landesfürsten.

Ireland's economy isn't doing so well, but the Irish government isn't exactly ecstatic about the EU and the IMF stepping in.

"The public finances are in a dreadful mess. The government is on track to spend 12% of GDP more than it takes in taxes this year, even after spending cuts and tax rises worth €14.5 billion ($19.6 billion). The deficit will be a staggering 32% of GDP once injections of capital into broken banks are taken into account. The total cost to the state could rise to €50 billion, or 30% of GDP. Anglo Irish Bank, a reckless property lender taken over by the government in January 2009, would account for two-thirds of that."

The Economist: Threadbare, November 18, 2010

Pop Culture: 

Spike Jonze shot a video for Arcade Fire's The Suburbs. It captures the strange mixture of suburbia and apocalyptic visions perfectly. 

Misfits is back. I watched the first, six-episode long season this January and thought it was pretty fantastic, but the two episodes of the new season so far have been stellar. It's about five people who get struck by lightning while doing community service and get different powers - but the show doesn't have to figure out new ways to disarm them to avoid a deus ex machina, because they can't really control their powers, and they don't have any aspirations to become superheroes either.