Jacob Christensen

Roger Ebert:

The new “Fame” is a sad reflection of the new Hollywood, where material is sanitized and dumbed down for a hypothetical teen market that is way too sophisticated for it.

In Denmark, Beate Bille hated every minute of it as well.

PS: A member of the Fame Regurgitated crew writes to Mr. Ebert.

Gayl Murphy watches the candidates’ debate (without understanding a word of German) on behalf of Die Zeit:

Verstehen Sie es nun also bitte nicht als Ausdruck meiner Geringschätzung, aber die Debatte, die ich da gestern von den USA aus im Internet verfolgt habe, sah eher so aus, als würden zwei Autoren auf einer Bibliothekars-Tagung um einen Literaturpreis wetteifern, als dass zwei altgediente Politiker um das wichtigste politische Amt im Land kämpfen.

More on campaign styles in Germany.

Roger Ebert after watching Jason Reitman’s latest film:

It’s too bad the term “adult movies” means “X-rated films.” It should mean “movies for the mature.”

I’ve heard “Juno” mentioned very favourably – perhaps it is time to get hold of the DVD?

Update: Juno duly ordered along with Thank You for Smoking.

Willem Buiter:

[China] badly needs an unfunded pay-as-you go social security retirement scheme to boost consumption by the old. China’s fiscal position is such that the country could introduce the benefit (pension) part of the social security scheme for a number of years without having the social security tax in place!

The rest of his blog post isn’t for the faint-hearted. And that’s without mentioning the swine flu.

Ideen om tid til fordybelse hører industrialderen til. (The idea about time to concentrate in a subject belongs to the industrial age).

Hanne Løngreen. Vice-dean of the Faculty of the Humanities, University of Copenhagen, quoted in the Danish newspaper Politiken about the role of universities.

Sausage factory, anyone?

Update: Surname of the boot camp manager vice-dean corrected. Or is copy-editing also considered so 19th Century by contemporary university managers?

Give a man enough coffee and he’s capable of anything.

Malcolm Gladwell, via Brad deLong.

Apparently, Barack Obama isn’t a coffee drinker by the way. No latte-sipping revolutions here

Tyler Cowen:

There are advantages to sitting at the very top and very bottom of status distributions; it is often the in-between spots that are problematic.

Durchschnittlich herrscht Mittelmaß

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on a rating of German sociology.

Eric Rauchway despairs:

The 00s were the decade when it stopped being okay to call me on the phone and ask me stuff you could find on the Internets in about fifteen seconds. … People have actually called me to ask my email address. I honestly don’t know how it is possible for this to occur.

Scott McLemee considers the Zeitgeist of the 00s. When his cats do not wake him up at 6 AM on Saturday mornings, that is.

This time by Josep Colomer:

Politicians do not necessarily focus on the issues that worry the voters the most, but rather on those on which they can expect to have an electoral advantage. It is more important what they talk about than what they say.

So in case you’ve ever wondered why the Danish People’s Party sees fundamentalist Muslims everywhere – here’s your answer.

PolSci nerds might want to read the paper Colomer is referring to – available free of charge and registration here.