Jacob Christensen

Good news for Swedish traffic authorities: Die Zeit reports that the moose are reclaiming their old German territory.

With a little luck, the Germans will have to make their own moose warning-signs instead of stealing those on the Swedish roads.

Fun (Danish) fact of the day: If a CEO’s mother-in-law dies, the value of that CEO’s company rises slightly.

The Swedish government (or to be more specific: The Conservative Party) lost its third minister in one year today as Defence Minister Mikael Odenberg announced his resignation over proposed substantial cuts in the defense budget.

Media reactions: Dagens Nyheter (blaming the PM for bad leadership); Svenska Dagbladet (also pointing at the PM); Aftonbladet; Expressen.

I would note that as there has been an obvious policy conflict between the Finance and Defense Ministers over defense policy, this is intriguing. A (rather clumsy) defamation campaign?

Update: Svenska Dagbladet 2.

• NYT – Microsoft Favored to Win Open Document Vote
  Amid intense lobbying, Microsoft is expected to squeak out a victory this week to have its open document format, Office Open XML, recognized as an international standard.
  (tags: software microsoft standards policy)
• Bad Science – Ten pieces of advice for old media
  …emboldened by the Diet Pepsi I began to offer unsolicited advice on what newspapers should do with the internet: as a punter, as a microfamous internet oligarch and, of course, as a gentleman
  (tags: blog blogging journalism media news publishing web writing research academic)
• “Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach” By Shankar Vedantam
  The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a flier to combat myths about the flu vaccine. It recited various commonly held views and labeled them either ‘true’ or ‘false.’ Among those identified as false were statements such as
  (tags: research psychology policy publichealth)
• SourceForge.net: phpScheduleIt
  (tags: scheduling calendar opensource programming)
• Trends in presidential voting by state
  When you look at presidential election returns by state, they jump all over, but when you subtract the national vote and group by region, some clear patterns jump out:
  (tags: usa elections politicalscience statistics voting research)
• Crooked Timber � � Methods in political theory/philosophy bleg
  …two questions: What are the methods of political theorists and philosophers? And is there a good book or set of articles on �methods and techniques in political theory and philosophy� ?
  (tags: politicalscience politicaltheory philosophy methodology academic research)
• Onlinedurchsuchung – ZEIT online
  (tags: germany internet web publicadministration policing)

Den 11. time, originally uploaded by jacobchristensen.

“Den 11. time” (The 11th Hour) is a programme broadcast by the Danish TV station DR on DR2 (at 11pm) and hosted by Mikael Bertelsen.

Bertelsen has a uniquely warped mind and you never know what to expect: The programme can be about anything – an interview with Bryan Ferry (centrered around the relative merits of narrow and wide ties), mentally handicapped running a dinner service, collections of McDonald’s� Happy Meal-toys.

You name it, they’ve done it.

As I live in Northern Sweden, my only chance of watching the programme is through the podcast – which of cause is compressed for the miniature screen of an iPod or a similar device, but via the AppleTV I can watch it on my TV. It works even though it looks a bit odd – though not as odd as the photo would suggest.

Still, the colour and form effects somehow fit the off-beat nature of the programme.