der newsletter der kulturhauptstadt linz 2009 enthüllt es (ENG):

(...) Pecha Kucha in Linz! Gotten hip to this yet? Pecha Kucha is Japanese for gossip. It offers an unconventional presentation format for all you creatives out there! 20 images, 20 seconds per image: so much for the basic facts & figures of Pecha Kucha. Computer-controlled, the images are displayed in a strictly ordered sequence and the presenter has exactly 20 seconds to comment on each one. Despite these constraints, the upshot is an intuitive and, above all, succinct presentation format that is now being utilized effectively by creative networks worldwide (...)

das kann schnell werden. aber ist es auch gut? das scheint weniger wichtig. was es wirklich ist, da muss man/frau erst länger suchen. am 11. dezember soll es losgehen, in linz, der schnellsten stadt der welt. alles für euch, ihr geile kreative da draußen!!!!

(...) Voters complained of intimidation and attempted bribery in what election observers called a coordinated effort to boost United Russia's results in the State Duma vote on Sunday. Golos, the only independent Russian monitoring group, said it received more than 3,500 calls on its complaints hotline. "We know for certain that this is just a drop in the ocean," said Grigory Melkonyants, Golos' deputy head. "We are seeing serious violations that we are afraid will just be ignored." (...)

one couldn't say that this was not expected to happen. nevertheless it is interesting to look more closely to the ways in which misuse happened. moscow times reports.

with regard to the results of the russian elections, robert amsterdam, who followed the elections closely, makes us aware of the following posting: five myths about the elections.

the standard reports on the results (GERM):

(...) Die Partei "Geeintes Russland" mit Präsident Wladimir Putin als Spitzenkandidat hat ihr Ergebnis bei der Parlamentswahl jüngsten Auszählungen zufolge noch verbessert. Nach Auswertung von 98 Prozent der Wahlzettel lag sie mit 64,1 Prozent haushoch vorne, wie die Wahlkommission am Montag bekanntgab. Zweitstärkste Kraft wurde die oppositionelle Kommunistische Partei mit 11,6 Prozent. Die ultranationalistische LDPR von Wladimir Schirinowski kam demnach auf 8,2 Prozent der Stimmen, gefolgt von der Mitte-Links-Partei "Gerechtes Russland", die mit 7,8 Prozent ebenfalls den Sprung über die Sieben-Prozenthürde schaffte. Beide Parteien stehen hinter Putin. (...)

photo by dukal

spontan an die beiden kollegen bei big O denkend: der eine in der tradition von bourdieu, der andere auf den schultern von generationen (gar nicht so) bequem sitzend. das smithsonian magazin blames the rich (ENG). Thanks to 3quarksdaily.

(...) High status has almost always translated into reproductive success, not just in the animal world, but for humans, too. This phenomenon started back in our hunter-gatherer days, when the men who brought home the most meat won the most mates, and it has continued up through the likes of J. Paul Getty and Donald Trump. Betzig's research piled up historical examples, including extreme cases such as the Aztec strongman Montezuma, said to have kept 4,000 concubines, and a Chinese emperor whose harem numbered in the tens of thousands. On a lesser scale, the big houses of the British countryside before World War I often accommodated 10 to 20 servants, who were typically young, female and single. "Housemaid Heights," Betzig argues, functioned as a de facto harem for upper-class males. Thus an 1883 investigation in Scotland found that domestic servants accounted for almost half of out-of-wedlock births (...)