Kasi-Blog

Only 24 hours after Barack Obama announced that Senator Joseph Biden runs as Vice-Presidential Candidate, the Obama Campaign put out an email asking supporters to buy the First Edition of the Obama-Biden-Car-Margnet (I wonder if that would work in Germany as well, the Beck-Steinmeier-Car-Magnet or the Merkel-Koch-Support-Button.)

What the announcement has shown: it’s hard to keep secrets. Obama has been pondering this choice for quite some time, even saying that it will be the most important choice of his presidential campaign.

Only a few people were involved in the decision-making: his wife Michelle Obama and probably his Campaign Manager David Plouffe. They probably also briefed all possible candidates to not say a word to the media on this but simply to test their discipline.

Earlier this week, Obama made his choice. The Obama Campaign said it will announce the decision through SMS and Emails to his supporters first. Yet when the Campaign called other possible candidates to tell them they were not picked, the word leaked out very quickly.

When they finally called Joe Biden, probably sometime on Friday afternoon, the secret could not be kept behind closed doors. Someone, either relatives or friends or staff of Biden, must have notified CNN which were then ready to announce the news really quick.

The Obama Campaign then tried to send around an SMS at 3am on Saturday morning, and they sent an email on Saturday afternoon. In my opinion, this shows some lack of planning. They should have called Biden, ask for his confirmation that he wants to run, and had the SMS-Message and the Emails ready to be sent as soon as Bidens response comes in.

This whole incident shows that it’s very hard to keep secrets once more than three or four people are involved. So to all you conspiracy theorist who think that the Americans did not land on the moon or that George Bush plotted 9/11, you should first prove why such a secret remained a secret.

Now the country song for ever lost its soul
when the guitar player turned to rock & roll

When I was a kid, I was enthusiastis about the Olympics. In 1988 in Korea, it was clear that the Soviets would get most medals, followed by the small country of German Democratic Republic. The Opening Sessions were spectacular and massive manifestations of crowd displays.

This year, I watched the Opening Session which was amazing. But when I heard about the repeated manipulations made to the images, I lost interest in the event as a whole. I read some articles on the internet on some sport results, but I never watched it on television.

In 1988, I still thought that the Olympics try to bring people from various countries together. Yet with Jacques Rogge openly admitting its impotence in the face of Chinese Human Rights violations, with Doping being so prominently used in almost all sports, and with commerce dominating sports health, the Olympics have become boring.

The situation in China is too complicated that it fits into the China-Evil-Tibet-Good-Pattern neatly. It’s also clear that a Sport Event does not change a country’s development overnight. But I think the whole rhetoric about human rights, olympic values, peace and prosperity is nonsense. The Olympic Games is acting like a huge corporation, maximizing its value by appealing to new markets. This however makes the Olympics as interesting as any other Corporate Sport Event.

Maybe London will change things. I still remember the great crowd enthusiasm at the Paralympics in Sydney in 2000. And maybe reforms need it times, if we look back in time, than eight years after the 1936 Games in Berlin, the Hitler-Regime was gone, 10 years after the 1980 Games in Moscow the Soviet Union broke up. Maybe in 2018, China will look very different from what it looks today.

Bavaria is like Texas. Agricultural in some parts, high-tech in other parts, wealthy in most parts, conservative almost everywhere. The Conservative Party, the CSU, has been running the country for than five decades.

This time however the Conservatives are in trouble. The Bavarian prime-minister, Beckstein, and the Head of the Conservatives, Huber, appear not to be such fortunate in implementing the legacy of former prime-minister Stoiber.

At the regional elections this fall, the opposition parties have a real chance to get a large pie of the Bavarian Electorate Pie. The Left-Party is most likely to enter the Parliament for the First Time and the Green Party is already hoping to be the coalition partner for a weekened Conservative Party.

The Bavarian SPD, the German Labour Party, has some problems bringing their message of change to the voters. The problem is that the campaign is not really modern, despite attempts to cultivate its Rebell-Image.

Currently the Partly of the National SPD, Kurt Beck, is in Bavaria. Despite what the media in Berlin thinks, I personally think that he is often underestimated. He is good at managing a dialogue, but his not good at backstabbing people – which is what the journalists in Berlin like so much.

In a recent Spiegel-Article about Becks Summer Tour through Bavaria, I read that he also visited Gundelsheim, a small village not far from Bamberg in the northern part of Bavaria (escuse me – correct it would be Upper Franconia).

Gundelsheim is famous now because it has a young Social Democrat as mayor, Jonas Merzbacher. I was really astonished when I read the name, but then I should not have been surprised. I met Jonas, now 25, during my Campaign for the European Parliament 4 years ago. He was quite unlike most of the other people in the SPD Youth Organisation – not so much interested in theoretical debates, but interested in pragmatic politics.

He is a “local” in the best sense of the word – member in almost all clubs in that area, knew everybody in his region, organized all kinds of activities for young and old. And as you can see in the picture below, even during his speech on the night of victory, he drinks beer, disguised as lemonade.

The Bavarian SPD needs more people like Jonas. It should present itself as the “Local Party with an international history” and help young people like Jonas to become more active in local politics.

For a couple of weeks now there wasps have been building a nest in the roof outside my window. On Monday night one of these little beasts must have come through the window when I was sleeping and mistook my leg for a nice soft spot to have a midnight supper.

On Tuesday and Wednesday the bite got worse, but last night I couldn’t really walk because the leg was swollen – nothing dramatic though, no amputation needed. I felt I should go to the doctor, have it checked out and meet with the British Health System for the second time.

So I called the GP down the road. GP stands for General Practitioner and like in the old days in East-Germany, it’s a bunch of doctors which share a clinic. But the nice lady at the reception said that I don’t need a doctor, the “Common Ailments Nurse” would be sufficient.

Well, what is the “Common Ailments Nurse”. It’s a really good invention of the British Health System. She can prescribe medication and treat minor diseases, such as Cough or Fever, Headache, or Insomnia. My Nurse was called June and quite helpful, but I was more surprised by the whole procedure.

I called at 9am, got an appointment at 11am, sait in the waiting room for 3 minutes, talked to the nurse for 10 minutes and had my medication. What did I pay for that? Nothing – Basic Health Care is free in the UK. Did I have to bring some sort of insurance proof? No, it suffices that I was registered with the College.

During those 3 minutes in the Waiting Room, I also discovered on the leaflets there that the government gives money to young parents to buy milk and vitamins. I also discovered that the city of Cambridge helps older people if they have problems paying taxes. It’s almost socialism, isn’t it?

Well, I had to go the pharmacy to get the antibiotics. Here came another surprise: the pharmacy is in the center of town. It’s called “Superdrugs”. But the people in there must have been on a tranquilizer or something. There were about five people standing behind the counter all of them busy watching each other. Instead of just fetching the box of pills, my prescription was passed through the hands of each of them.

I was told to wait five to ten minutes. I asked why it takes so long and the person behind the registry said that the medicine has to go into the computer and whatnot. Ten minutes later I received a small package, about three times the size of the box of pills inside. Neatly stapled together, folded, wrapped up (with a bow – no just kidding). Ah, that’s what takes them so long, each customer gets their own little present – a paper bag. I think they were kinda disappointed when I ripped the bag open right on the counter and put the small box in my rucksack. “The young people are so ungrateful”.

The German Health System could learn a lot from that. For most treatments, you don’t need a doctor – a trained nurse is quicker and easier to access. Each medicine, regardless of the type, costs 7.10 Pounds – a one-price-fits-all policy. Clinics and doctors have the responsiblity to prevent diseases – and not just treat them.

Chris George sits in a corner at the Sunday Up Market on Brick Lane. He has a table of T-Shirts and Bags in front of him, which he created himself and normally sells them somewhere in the Camden Lock Market. Chris is the kind of guy who should be a hero for his generation, because he does what he wants and listens to good music. Read on, my friend »

I sometimes drift off to Youtube when I should be doing more productive things. I love the attitude of this lady in the clip.

Via Zen is Calm in the Chaos

Barack Obama will be announcing his pick for Vice-Presidential Nominee first to his supporters. I think that is an extraordinary move for two reasons.

First of all, it allows him to update his database of contacts and email addresses. Even though I was already signed up, I had to provide my contact data one more time. I assume that Obama is going to use this extended database for fund raising in the fall.

Secondly, it’s nice that his supporters will know something ahead of the media, although I suspect that every single journalist in the states will sign up already.

Can German parties learn from that lesson? Would be nice if Kurt Beck or Walter Steinmeier announce their decision on the candidate for the German SPD to the Party Members first.

I personally think that Kathleen Sibelius will be Obamas VP Choice, because of her profile as Governor of Kansas and her appeal to Clinton-Supporters (admittedly, there are some Clinton supporters who have warned Obama to pick a female VP other than Hillary Clinton, but I don’t think such a threat really had an impact).

Was McCain trying to compliment Paris Hilton by comparing her to a succesful presidential candidate capable of shooting three-pointers?

I had a look at the legal document from the Facebook-Lawsuit against StudiVZ. It seems that their main argument is that StudiVZ looks and feels like Facebook, that the StudiVZ Founders used their access to Facebook to copy the website, and that Facebook has been damaged as a result of that.

It is an honor for me that the Facebook Lawyers found it worthy to quote an earlier blog post on the StudiVZ-debate in their case against the German Social Network. Although some people at StudiVZ have not behaved nicely in the past, I still don’t know whether I agree with the lawcase or not.

There is no doubt that StudiVZ copied Facebook, but I think it is less clear that Facebook really was damaged by this. I don’t think it is possible to confuse the two websites: even though they look similar and have (better, had) the same look and feel, I think that StudiVZ and Facebook are quite distinct.

Especially after the introduction of new features, such as the Friend’s Feed, Facebook already gained a clear advantage over StudiVZ. This advantage is increasingly recognized by German users. My impression is that StudiVZ users are massively transfering to Facebook.

The only disadvantage that Facebook might have is that due to the data leaks and the scandals caused by StudiVZ, more people became reluctant to sign up to a new social network. Facebook could argue that StudiVZ made it establishing social network in Germany more difficult. However such a claim is not plausible given the tremendous success of other recently established social networks, such Wer-kennt-wen.de, which mostly targeted non-student usergroups.

I am not sure why Facebook is sueing StudiVZ now. I heard various explanations: they want to raise attention to Facebook, put pressure on Holtzbrinck to sale StudiVZ or are upset because
Facebook is not growing as fast as it could. I personally think that none of these explanations are true.

Firstly, a trial like this raises little interest from the average user, even if bloggers and journalists write about the trial. Press coverage does not induce viral growth, it only feeds on growth. What really produces growth in social networks is a mixture of the right network at the right time with the right people. Such a combination is hard to achieve and trials have no impact on this.

Secondly, I don’t think that Facebook is interested in buying StudiVZ because it would take too much effort to integrate the database of StudiVZ users into Facebook and such a process would clearly conflict with the Terms of Usage of StudiVZ.

Thirdly, I don’t think that Facebook is particularly concerned about its slower growth in Germany. Social networks are not directly competitors, because people use a few social networks. What Facebook ought to be concerned about is that the German Social Network landscape is highly fractured and, unlike in other countries, Facebook is not the main social network for high school students, university students, young employees, families etc.

Thus maybe Facebook is disappointed about its revenues from ads in Germany and other European countries, and tries to eliminate a competitor in the social network ad market. But I have to admit, this is only speculation on my parts.

Lastly, what makes me wonder is that if Facebook really would be after Copycats, it could easily go after sites like www.vkontakte.ru which is similar to Facebook even with regards to the colour.