Last night Prince Charles was furious over Prince Harry’s decision to dress as a Nazi on a party. Even Prince William must share the blame. Since both William and Harry bought the costumes together, the older brother should have stopped the younger one. Charles ordered both of the minor-monarchs to visit Auschwitz to learn and understand the the atrocities and horrors of the Holocaust. The british newspaper The Guardian communicates slightly different in their blog on „Meanwhile in Germany“ than The Sun – its very interesting to scroll through the comments of this blog…

Another most interesting and amusing article about Britain’s general problem of historical and cultural awareness. Prince Harry is not the only one who needs to be more educated about both local and global development of the political world. As Der Spiegel reports in Prince Harry Isn’t Alone in Needing a History Lesson:

The photo of Prince Harry that has angered the world doesn’t show a young Nazi doing the Prussian goose-step. It shows a thoughtless rascal trying to impress a few other mindless twerps at a party of the young and fashionable. But it also underscores a more disturbing fact: Brits lately have been doing a worse job of dealing with history than the Germans.

This here is from an article found on The Jerusalem Post: Ignorance of the Holocaust in response to DJ’s comment.

The survey […] found that 45 percent of respondents in Britain said they had not heard of Auschwitz. […] 63 percent of 840 respondents did not know what Auschwitz-Birkenau referred to, with the highest levels of ignorance among the 21-30 age group.

The german designer Rudolf Moshammer was found dead in his appartment in Munich. Apparently, he was strangled to death with a telephone cable. But some germans already wondered why he wasn’t murdered sooner! Mr. Moshammer was a fat and chubby designer who continously pestered the german media with his endless gayish behaviour, want-to-be-spicey songs for the Grand Prix de la Eurovision Chanson.

Perhaps it was nobody else but Prince Harry who’s been tagged as a Nazi on a recent society party (When Harry Met Hitler). This disgusting little party youngster who freaks out the british high society through his nothingness and troublesome idiotism should be locked away once and for all. How else can we serve the Queen better?

By now, only Sven and Yannic had nothing else to do but to pester and complain about the fact that I’ve been blogging a little. This public soulstriptease is special, and its my priviledge – not theirs. At least my girlfriend seems to like it, too.

According to golem.de, the Electronic Frontier Foundation will defend bloggers against Apple. The company filed a suit against the bloggers who wrote about an unofficial product named „Asteroid“ which appears to be an adaption for Apple’s software „GarageBand“. The EFF will aid the bloggers of AppleInsider and PowerPage who keep the names of their informants in secrecy.

Jason O’Grady of PowerPage expresses his disappointment on Apple’s behavior as he questions if corporate-paranoia is more important than article 1. More information can be found on golem.de in german.

In the original version of G-Money and Me: Bill Gates Interview, Bill Gates told the following about using a blog on his own:

I’ve toyed with doing one myself, but I don’t want to be one of those people who start and then don’t finish it, and again I’m thinking maybe I could do one a month or one every six weeks–something like that. I’d kind of like to, but I’ve got to be sure I can keep going for at least a year to make it worth doing.

Unfortunately, this paragraph has been erased. Perhaps Mr. Gates himself did not want to see further speculation circulating on other blogs? In the end, it is unavoidable – people will talk about this. I wonder if Mr. Gates would write his blog all alone or let some of his staff members produce the content similar to a corporate blog as found in GoogleBlog. Does the question concerning credibility arise again?

Seven fischerAppelt-Theses about Weblogs

PRPortal.de concludes a few interesting ideas concerning the development and current situation about blogs. The article is in german and can be found here.

1. A flash in the Pan or Revolution?
The Blogging-Trend will change the public communication deeply in 2005

2. Anarchy or Democracy?
Weblogs soften the traditional borders between formal and informal communication.

3. Gossip Factory or Clearing?
The informal distribution and rapidity of weblogs can aid to support company crisis, serve as early warning system but may optimize crisis management.

4. Digital Whirring or Direct Dialogue?
Weblogs offer new chances for opinion research and corporate communication.

5. Radarcontrol or Overflow?
Weblogs challenge the media observers and analysis for companies.

6. Blog-Solo or Corporate Symphony?
As new tool for communication, corporate weblogs must become embedded into the communication strategy.

7. New Foglight or Transparency?
Corporate Weblogs will only become successful once they challenge the dialogue openly and credibly.

So far the US government has pledged $350 million to the victims of the tsunami. But the USA has spent $148 billion on the Iraq war which has been running for nearly 656 days. The conclusion of this is a mathmatical solution in which the money pledged for the tsunami disaster by the United States is the equivalent of one and a half day’s spending in their War against Iraq. What is more important for our world – to help those suffering people or cause exactly this to others – the daily death and turmoil?

The victims of the tsunami pay the price of war on Iraq

Me and my girlfriend strumbled upon a few articles about blogs and bloggers in online release of the german newsmagazine Der Spiegel.

Tägliche Ration Wahnsinn – 08. January 2005: The authors reflect their thoughts concerning the newly accquired hobby of the Germans in comparision with the local development of blogs in the USA. Furthermore, they express the interest of multi-national companies in utilizing blogs as a media for press-releases which are hidden inside the usual content of blogs. Mediaservices and newspapers accquire blogs as an innovative addition to the common program-content or to find new targetgroups to canalize their audience. Germany might find itself in a situation where blogs create political opinions similar to the events prior to the 2004 US-Election in America.

Blogger heizen Jamba ein – 06. January 2005: Overall, approximately 20-30% of the current TV commercials in Germany consist of the continously beeping, ringing and singing sounds and images of Jamba. The distributor for ring tones and logos for mobile phones rips off younths as they waste their money for nothing else but services. The blog Spreeblick began to criticize this tactic and behavior of the company, and many other bloggers joined in. All out of the sudden, the large german company „Jamba“ found itself on the verge of public ruin as the newspapers and magazines took up the story.

More „Der Spiegel“ about blogs:

Input from other Blogs:

I noticed the increase of newsreports concerning the official aid programs to the countries and people affected by the recent Tsunami wave. Many countries offered their monetary help within the rage of a few 10-20 million Dollars as far as to the week between Christmas and New Year Eve. But suddenly these countries (especially their leaders) sought this call for assistance and moved it into a medial struggle for the one who will spend the most money to the disaster’s victims. I wonder who can actually pay all these funds while the countries who wish to raise the money are already drowned in debt?

In my opinion, its only a measurement on new political power. Who can compete against the „US World Police“ as „XYZ World Aide“? The politicians secretly exploit the tragedy within the rather shiney interest for the victims. How can Germany offer 500 million Euros (current status) extra money – while our population gave 200 million Euros from private savings? Apparently, Australia offered 1 billion Dollars over last night, and the European Union did not hesitate to combine everything to offer 1.5 billion on their own (including Germany). One the first hand, I detest the idea in which each government tries to outgun the other with their funds as seen in this new Rat-Race for nothing else but digital money. On the other hand, I prefer to see money being spend senseful and intensive for the victims. Nevertheless, I must point out that I love the idea and all the effort to help the victims: I encourage everybody to devote your own small part to assist them – be it money or be it your personal help in your or their society.

Im Fernsehen läuft nichts neues, absolut nichts was von belang ist. Die einzigen Ausnahmen bilden natürlich die Dokumentationen oder Wissenschaftssendungen, aber sämtliche Serien, Soaps und sogar die Spielfilme sind alles andere als Highlights, wie es von den Senderfamilien immer gepriesen wird. Wiederholungen, Konzept-TV, Formatvorlagen, Kopierwahn – es ist abgrundtief enttäuschend, in was für einer Misere das deutsche Fernsehen sich bewegt. Anstatt im Zuge der medialen Möglichkeiten die Programmvielfalt auch anspruchsvoll zu gestalten, wird immer mehr Trash und unsinniges Gestammel gesendet. Dies ist kein gutes Zeichen für den eigentlichen kulturellen Inhalt eines Programms, und die TV-Macher beschwören schon selbst das eigene dunkle Omen, dass sich im Dunst der surrealen Bildschirmwelten abzeichnet: Der Culture-Clash unserer Fernsehgeneration wird durch endlose wiederholende Werbung ausgeweitet, und die Formate wechseln zwischen einem kompletten Portfolio aus mundgerechter geistiger Monotonie, die in der Proportion der geistigen Kapazität der Zuschauer mündet.

Hiermit möchte ich meinen tiegründigen Dank an alle Senderfamilien aussprechen…
– für die nicht vorhandene Kreativität durch immer wieder kopierte Erfolgsformate
– für die widersprüchlichen Wiederholungen im Abendprogramm
– für „Reality TV“ bzw. „Reality Soaps“ und die obszönen Momente in denen einzelne Menschen oder ganze Familien in der Öffentlichkeit blosgestellt werden
– für das schamlose und ekelhafte Darstellen von Prominenten, den Stars und deren Sternchen, die Busenwunder, die Tratschtanten, die Hackfressen und allen anderen pseudo-Promis, welche nichts sinnvolles herausbringen können
– für das Dummbeuteln der Zuschauer
– für endlose Klingeltonwerbung und nichtssagendes Handytralala

Ja Danke und frohe Weihnachten!