this and that...

it seems to me that not everyone on this planet does respect Rocky as much as george does for example... just have a look at this video, a new version of the "eye of the tiger"....

HERE you can find a better version of this song accompanied by a few Rocky fights...

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do you know what the main difference between a European and an American car chase is?
First take a look at this video:
Germany

then compare it to the following one from the
US1
US2

I don't understand why the police in American car chases always tries to crash the other car to stop it. They might as well just use on of those things to stop a person from driving on an interstate...
source: http://www.gorin-images.com/blog/index.php?showimage=85
Anyway, I understand that you are not supposed to speed in the US, however, I don't get why such car chases need to be organized once the police has seen the licence plate the challenge to find out who the driver is should not be that hard...

By the way, these videos remind me of my trip to the US once again. As we drove for 5-6 hours every day for two weeks we had the unique opportunity of getting a good impression of roads and road design in the (south-western) US. In my opinion there should be no speed limit in the desert of Nevada where you drive straight ahead for hours overtaking another car from time to time. The only intersting thing you might see are signs saying; "do not stop for hitchhikers. State penitentiary ahead"...

How to upload a word document...

Look at this nice page: GOOGLE

Look at this nice page!

How to upload a word document!

have fun ;()


(you might want to try to do all this from home. you can access the uni-graz server by the terminalserver system: www-ts.uni-graz.at First, follow the steps described on this page. Then choose "Login Terminalserver" from the drop down menu and log in to your uni-graz account...)

Microeconomics...

Here you can find some work I've done for Microeconomics... some parts are copied out of the internet though.

LINK!!

Have fun!

Arnold for President

... well! costitution or not... Arnold might run for presidency after all...

Arnold running for President

Vocab, NYT articles

Here is some vocab from the articles I discussed just before: (explanations out of LDOCE)

to prune - to make something smaller by removing parts that you do not need or want (or cut branches of a tree to make them grow better)
sluggish – moving or reacting more slowly than normal
to feel smug – showing too much satisfaction with your own cleverness or success
What are you so smug about? To be smug about smth.
incremental – increasing, happening gradually over time
Cumbersome – a slow or difficult system, heavy and difficult to move
To shudder at something – to think that something is very bad or unpleasant
the runoff election
rocking on the toes – move up and down on the toes
to be a whirling dervish of ideas –
to whirl - if your head is whirling, or if thoughts are whirling in your head, your mind is full of thoughts and ideas, and you feel very confused or excited
dervish - a member of a Muslim religious group, some of whom dance fast and spin around as part of a religious ceremony
to have a strained relationship – with many problems
"...who may still have harbored ambitions" – to harbor  to hide/hidden Here: to have hidden, untold ambitions
Arson - the crime of deliberately making something burn, especially a buildin
to quell - to end a situation in which people are behaving violently or protesting, especially by using force (Synonym – to put down)
to dither (a ditherer) – to keep being unable to make a final decision on something
to have strong oratory skills – the skill of making powerful speeches

Change is crucial. But what should change and how?!?

New York Times Article "Forget Who'll Win in France, Change Is a Loser.

This article about “Change Being a Loser” points out the American perspective of the European welfare System and its economic and social impact. When reading this article I inevitably recalled an article about unemployment which is ought to be bound to the social system and unwillingness of Europeans to move where the jobs are. Only downsides, which by the way are not at all proven, were presented producing a backward image of Europe. In fact, I believe, it’s not Europe who should take an example at US politics and US economics but, if anyone should look for a role model, it should be the other way round (yes, this is a very chauvinist point of view).
Anyway, to put it in a nutshell this article describes France, French politics and the French people in itself as a nation not willing to change, as a nation rejecting radical change, as a nation were change needs its time to evolve. The article is not at all negative, the image produced is by far more positive than I expected at first. Basically it says that the French are so well off that it is hard to let the people understand that change is necessary to boast the “sluggish”(kriechend) economy.
The most interesting aspect of the article, however, are the comparisons made between France and the US. There is the degree of violence in the suburbs in 2005 which were exceptionally brutal and seemed threatening for European standards. The author of the New York Times compares these riots to similar situations he has observed in the US and states that the level of violence was not that high after all. The same is done with the health care system, the working hours per week and the comfortable life people live in France everyday.
I can only agree with the author’s impression on life in France compared to the situation in the US. Although I’ve only been to the US once, I consider myself capable of judging the general quality of life there compared to France. Therefore I believe strongly that the welfare system, the 35-hour workweek, the state funded pension system, the lunch voucher etc. are essential achievements which should not be given up easily for a little more (uncertain) economic growth.
At this point I feel urged to say that it is not enough to have “one of the best health/educational/pension/… systems,” but that it is crucial to remodel, modernize and adapt these systems as to increase social equitability and collective wealth. In my vision of society the state is supposed to stand for a collective, to stand for every single individual of a nation’s collective. It is supposed to balance out social inequalities produced by the repartition of wealths as it is today. Why should inhabitants of European states be satisfied with what they have? Why shouldn't they improve their life quality even more? Be careful, I said "life quality" not economic wealth!
What is a six-digit income good for in a world undergoing major climatic changes which might affect your life, your children's lives and your friend's lives?

France has a new president...

Source: http://www.paitabaana.com/images/shit-happens.gif


Nicolas Sarkozy: Winning the Chance to Prove His Critics Wrong, NYT May 6.

“Never in this country will a Sarkozy be president of the republic. For that, you have to go to the United States.” (Paul Sarkozy, Mr. Sarkozy’s father, in the weekly news magazine Le Point in 1999.) - Many (more than 15 mio voters) would have loved his father for being right in this prediction. Alas 18 Mio voters thought differently and made him president of the "Grande Nation" yesterday night.

Paris, 6th of May 2007. The presidential election is over. The result as expected. Horrifying! In the New York Times a few words describing the "new" man are listed: "arrogant, brutal, an authoritarian demagogue, a "perfect Iago".
Arrogant he is and proved it the minute the results were presented. When listening to his speech at his party's headquarters in salle Gaveau one could have thought he was elected president of the whole wide world. This means, he presented himself as a man who was going, not only to change France but also the rest of the world. He spoke about Africa, the US, Global Warming and the European Union. Now the time has come where he has to show what he can do and how he will do it without provoking civil unrest. Actually, he was in government for quite some years in the past as minister of finance and minister of the interior. Somehow, however, he managed to run for presidency without being made responsible for the governments’ (he participated in more than one government…) politics. He was not made responsible for the situation France is in today, not for the economic situation, not for the every day aggravating social problems. He was made president because of his strong oratory skills and because he convinced 53.1% of the voters in the runoff election that he would bring change, higher purchasing power, stability, security and position France as a strong nation in the globalizing world. He promised to re-establish national pride (I didn’t know that the French had lost their pride in the Nation though…)
The brutality Sarkozy is associated with only needs a few words of explanation. When it comes to petty crime (Article, May 2nd about Petty Crime on another Blog) in the banlieues he said a few years ago, he will “clean out” those troubled neighbourhoods and repatriate illegal immigrant. His anti-immigrant, pro France rhetoric was so strong that he managed to collect 60% of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s (FN – Front National, extreme right) votes from the first round of elections. This fact is even more astonishing regarding the fact that Le Pen called to boycott the runoff election. Anyway, these threats by Nicolas Sarkozy ended up in weeks of arson and riots (Brandlegung und Aufruhr) across the country. Again, Sarkozy managed to profit out of the situation by taking the lead in quelling the unrest (Unruhen ersticken lassen/ to quell – bezwingen) while others were unsure of what to do. So much for now about Nicolas Sarkozy: The man who will govern France for the next 5 years; the man who will not hesitate to confront his adversaries; the man who will bring France greater social inequality.

Immigration in Austria

In my last posts I reported about immigration, illgal immigration, to the US. I believe it is crucial not only to talk about other countries, show how the situation is there but to talk about the own country as well. A few days ago the Green Party started a petition concerning the right of residence for asylum seekers who are "waiting" for their process to end for more than 5 years.
As I am working with asylum seekers I can tell from experience that indeed many men and women are waiting for years until their case is closed and a decision on whether they are allowed to stay or have to leave the country is made. By then some have started to work in fields they are allowed to (paper work - distributing newspapers, projects by the city or from organizations like the Caritas...), they have met new people, made friends with other asylum seekers or in the best case with Austrians. Some may have found a partner in the country and married, they may be waiting for a child. None of these reasons will help them to stop their deportation to their country of origin.
The ÖVP, a party which calls itself a "family party" has passed this law tearing appart father, mother and child. It is high time to discuss what is going on in our country and find a better solution for immigrants to our country.

If you understand German and want to read some more about this topic, please open the following link to the Petition of the Green Party. dahamisdaham

Illegal Immigration and other YouTube Stuff

I started talking about immigration, so here are some videos commenting on that topic.

Here is a video about an Australian girl with an "asian" face - talking about herself being Australian for various reasons:

I can call myself Austrialian if I want to
Stereotypes Austrialians have from Americans


The Cost of Illegal Immigration from CNN
A report on the protests and demonstrations that were going on in the US concerning illegal immigration. After watching this report you should get bach to the cartoon on "The History of Illegal Immigration" and you should think about why these people try to cross the border to our industrialized countries. You should also think about how povertry could be changed on a global scale, maybe you have an answer to the problem.

Here another Cartoon... "Illegal Immigration and You!" For me this cartoon is rather shocking and not representing my political beliefs on immigration, nevertheless it mentiones many points worth thinking about.


Video on the Oval Office A great parody of Bush's politics (only watch it if you haven't watched too many of those before... Somehow it's always the same. Still, from time to time I like watching this kind of stuff.
"The thing about the Oval Office is it w're all a family and even though we disagree on how to fight wars we always agree to fight them." Citation out of the Video on the Oval Office.

The Governator - The Green Giant

Source: http://www.londonrubbish.com/images/20050813161938_20050813.jpg


Actually, when writing about an Inconvenient Truth I was planning an introduction to an article I read in Newsweek (April 16, 2007) recently. It presented Arnold Schwarzenegger as “The Green Giant” able to build coalitions between Chevron and the Sierra Club (a Club dedicated to many environmental issues, in particular related to global warming and green house effects) or at least to bring representatives of both groups on one stage with him, the one and only Governator, in the middle.
I think the article sums up very well the environmental discussion in the US. California is leading and other states are taking an example at the new laws that were passed in the past year(s) and get ready to do the same. The family we were staying with in Colorado told us that it was good that California was not waiting for Washington to do something because America will follow what happens in The Golden State anyway. Many economists, enterprises and investors have understood that there is money to make in high-tech methods helping to save energy and save the environment. President Bush, however, does not want to put any pressure on the automobile industry to develop new engines or less fuel consuming cars. He claims that without China and India in the boat nothing is to be done. I was astonished to hear that America compares its economy with the one of a post-communist regime and of a developing country. Furthermore, European and Asian automobile companies are already investing a lot of money and efforts in the development of new technologies, while American companies are waiting for more restrictive laws in their home country.

Anyway, back to the article again. The green giant told some journalists about the origin of this attitude: Schwarzenegger traces his green sensibilities to his childhood in postwar Austria, where he grew up with rationed food and electricity - and had to haul bath water from a well. "I'm a conservative fanatic," he says. "I still can't walk out of a room without turning off the lights. I can't stand it when the kids spend longer than five minutes in the shower." (Newsweek April 16(print), 2007. 56).
There is another passage in the text referring to Schwarzenegger's roots, when describing the impossibility of him being elected president of the US, which I think is very amusing.
Austria is also to be found on a diagram describing the Global per Capita Carbon Dioxide Emissions. The result is striking, countries like Switzerland, France or even Italy are better off than Austria, still in the US the per Capita consumption is about three times as high as in Austria. California on the other hand is not that many tons away from Austria. This diagram should tell us that Austria is not all that green as it likes to present itself!

To end this article one thing needs to be said: More than once Arnold Schwarzenegger is described as "savvy" in Newsweek magazine. I believe this adjective hasn't been used to describe him as an actor nor as governator before his Green campaign.


This picture is related to a speech of Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004

source: http://gopandcollege.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_archive.html Republican Blog...


Nice vocab and cultural information picked up while reading:

Sierra Club
...there are still bones to pick.
Jousting
To assuage your conscience without tightening your belt
Endorsement
A tepid relationship

An Inconvenient Truth

SOURCE; http://www.jeremylatham.com/images/an-inconvenient-truth.jpg


Many of you may have seen the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” by the former presidential candidate Al Gore. This documentary on global warming, its consequences for the planet in general and for human and animal life in particular won the Oscar for best documentary this year. I had the opportunity to see this film in the US on the campus of an engineering University – the Colorado School of Mines. This impressive climate lecture by Al Gore was followed by a panel discussion with several professors of the above University.
Before going into further detail concerning the discussion and film in itself I want to describe my first impressions when arriving in the lecture hall where the movie was shown with the help of a projector.
What struck me first was the crowd waiting to enter the lecture hall. Environmentalism seems to be a big issue in the US right now and students want to take part in the discussion. Another, less important, matter I realized immediately was the unfashionable way in which students, both men and women, were dressed. Actually, Harald’s brother had warned us on our way there that engineering students were not the most fashionable species (I know that this word is rather used to describe species of animals etc.). Still, I was amazed on how homey people dressed and seemed to feel good sitting in a lecture hall on a Tuesday night wearing sport pants and trainers (not the Addidas kind but rather the running version). Then, there was the ratio of men to women sitting there waiting for the government representative to end his speech and the show to begin. Unlike my expectations there were a quite astonishing number of women in the audience. However, I was told that this audience was not at all representative for the general men to women ration at the School of Mines (as to get some more girls into the bars of Golden, CO there are Ladies Nights were women can drink as much as they want for free… it isn’t that expensive for men neither, a pitcher(2L) costs about 3$ - if you want to know more about beer measures click here). Later, in the discussion I noticed that more women expressed themselves, asked questions or presented their theories than men did. Once more, Ulrich (Harald’s brother) confirmed that female students were generally more motivated and active in the courses he had attended in the US.
Anyway, I don’t want to summarize the plot of the film in this blog, however, I want to recommend everyone out there to go to your DVD-rental and watch this film at least once. Al Gore’s skilful presentation contains a lot of scientific information which is without controversy accepted by scientists around the world. Only the media and some politicians try to spread incertitude amongst the people.
The discussion on environmentalism and on what was to do to prevent the worst from happening (floods, more tornados, hurricanes, droughts etc.) turned out to be very interesting. Students were well aware of the fact that something had to be done, and that as engineers they had the possibility and responsibility to push this development. However, there was disunity on what to do. Generally speaking, ideas like carbon-trading systems or the development of biofuel engines were well accepted. Scepticisms on whether higher oil prices would result in fewer SUVs and increase the number of “clean cars” was all the while present. One student explained that in the past during oil crisis, when the prices for fuel were exorbitantly high for that time, people did consume less, however, this decrease in demand resulted in a surplus of supply provoking, following the rules of the free market, falling prices which in turn increased the demand again. To sum his point up, he said that if prices for fuel enhanced the demand for alternative fuels prices would fall and Americans might be tempted to start the engine of their good old SUVs and pick-up trucks again. To this point, nobody in the audience or on the podium had even thought about introducing taxes to regulate or enforce efforts concerning the emission of greenhouse gasses. It was, if I remember correctly, a girl from the Netherlands intervening in the discussion who finally described how the problem was dealt with in many parts of Europe. She pointed out that tax relief for companies making big efforts or even for a private person doing its best to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, could help to integrate the economy into an environmental program. Subsidies on “zero energy buildings”, on clean cars or on the development of new technologies concerning renewable energy could help our world and the human race to live in stable climatic conditions for a few more years.
Well, I think this is a hell lot of information I handed on to my readers and I hope that some of you will watch An Inconvenient Truth or read a book or two on the topic.

Comic Strip on Global Warming:
CLICK HERE

Listening! Immigration

The Immigration Debate

Immigration is in everybody's mouths, politicians, tabloids, sociologists, police, etc. all think they have understood the problem and believe having THE one and only solution to this problem...

If you follow the above link you will know some more about the first immigrants to the us, if you are interested in Illegal Immigrants in the US you should click on the link below.

I think both reports try to present the problem from an unusual point of view, summarizing what has been done so far and what has gone wrong in the past and will go wrong in future.

Illegal Immigrants

New Word

A moment ago I just sat in my microeconomics lesson listening to explanations of Game Theory when the professor flipped to the next slide with a version of the prisoner's dilema on it.
He tried to explain it using a hard working person and a shirk. I suppose that nobody really knew what a shirk was (this is an economics class, remember) but everyone did understand the meaning of it in some way.
I think shirk is a very beautiful word for a lazy person.
The Longam Dictionary defines it as follows: to deliberately avoid doing something you should do, because you are lazy.

There is the verb to shirk but also the noun a shirker.

Well this is it for today I suppose...

Writing - text written for class...

Black Canyon 1 source: private picture


This text was written for class, however, at the same time it is one of the adventures I had in the US. Therefore, I need to post it to this blog as well.



The Black Canyon Experience

What I’d like to tell you about is something that happened to me and a friend of mine in Colorado. Never having been to a canyon before, we were excited when approaching Black Canyon National Park on an unpaved, dusty road where we planned to stay for the night. Actually, our goal was to hike down to the bottom of the canyon and sleep near the Gunnison River on a backcountry campsite.
Being the only human souls around, we had to register ourselves at the closed ranger station on the north rim of the canyon. The irregular gusts of wind gave us a hard time filling out the necessary registration forms and orienting ourselves on the provided tourist map. Finally, we made our decision, we were going to hike along the Dead Horse Trail and at its viewpoint “find our way down the canyon” as it said on the notice board. Before leaving our car behind, though, a warning caught my attention: “Coyotes, Striped Whipsnakes and Black Bears live in this area; occasionally Mountain Lions might be seen. Be cautious and respect wildlife.”
Not far had we gone, when our trail seemed to divide in various directions. The map was not very clear on where to go; therefore we decided to move towards the rim which very soon turned out to be wrong. By then, some mule deer had overtaken us on our path and we realized that we actually were on their trail. All we could do was to approach the rim and walk along its border. The first sight of the canyon was unbelievable: the sheer walls combined with the startling depths and narrow opening of the canyon will always stay branded in my memory. On and on we went for what seemed like forever, and we both began to feel the heavy load of our backpacks. A tent, two gallons of water and food for two days are not easy to carry through bushes on rocky mule deer paths.
To cut a long story short, we did eventually get to the Dead Horse Viewpoint where we immediately decided to, what seemed to us an adequate trail, try to descend as fast as possible. Unfortunately, dusk was faster than us and the wall steeper than expected. Hence, we stopped on a small but more or less stable rock platform in the middle of the wall, heated some noodles on our cooker and tried to get some sleep.
It was long before dust when we were awakened by the sound of howling coyotes and the freezing night. So, with the first beams of light we began our hike back up strengthened only by a Powerbar and a sip of Gatorade.
Afterwards, friends told us that we had chosen the wrong path and were not supposed to “find our way down” the canyon on our own but that there actually was a real trail on the other side of the ranger station leading down to the Gunnison River. To this day, I’ve not reached the shore of the Gunnison River, but someday I will. Still, it was a rugged experience after all.

Mock exam preparation

This actually is an Axolotl - source: http://pageperso.aol.fr/lechaletblanc/images/axolotl%202.jpg

In preparation for our mock exam (yes it is possible to prepare even for mock exams even though other important exams are coming up soon) a few friends and I sat together after Welland's class at Axolotl's.
First, we discussed about what we actually had to do, know or be able to talk about for our oral exam next week. Then we took turns talking about ourselves, hobbies, things we do outside class and why we decided to study translation and English in particular. Similar topics are supposed to come up at the oral exam at the end of the semester.
Our second main topic was class work and topics discussed in class. We tried to reflect a little on Jaywalking and then decided to create a list of the texts we've read so far in class and on the topics we've been working on.
Finally, we focused our attention on the 3 minutes group discussion we are supposed to have next Thursday and at the end of the semester. Not only did we talk or discuss the topics listed in our skript on page 11 (Speaking Practice 1) but we also timed the discussions as to get a better feeling for how much each and every one of us can talk. We realized that 3 minutes were really short and that it was quite difficult to relate to what the person before you had said. In the end, however, all of us thought that we had done a good job for a first speaking practice of this kind.
Before we left Axolotl we decided upon the next practice session which will be tomorrow.
Some more information, maybe some interesting phrases for interaction, will be published there after.