tapmag

Virtually all university students know about the pains of procrastinating. Why start with the assignment right now instead of in a couple of minutes? Nonetheless, we do it all the time and get ourselves in considerable trouble most of the time. Suddenly, time is short and deadlines approach sooner than we anticipated. Sounds familiar?

There is help to make the right decision. One solution is to pledge to deliver your next paper on time. If you fail, you will donate a significant sum to charity. In this scenario, the short-term incentives to keep delaying are contrasted with the somewhat clearer long-term consequences of loosing money. The question remains—why do we fail to make the right choice so often, and how can we improve?

[Read more]

While the lead- up to the war in Iraq has been harshly criticized by many, new evidence suggests the carrying out of those plans was shockingly unprofessional and haphazard. The New York Times, along with ProPublica, have obtained a draft version of a report on the implementation of rebuilding plans that exposes practices such as

• faking numbers of Iraqi security forces
• hiring inexperienced personnel, or personnel with experience and qualifications completely unrelated to the job they were hired to do (National Security and Tennis, anyone?)
• decision making that was often carried out on the go, or by only few individuals without consultation of further expert opinions (Big Decisions, Little Debate)

The whole report can be accessed and searched via the New York Times website, where you can read all the outrageous information for yourself.

The report concludes with a part on “Lessons Learned”, and one can only hope that those lessons will be absorbed by the people in charge of the USA’s other war, as the article points out:

“The United States could soon have reason to consult this cautionary tale of deception, waste and poor planning, as both troop levels and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan are likely to be stepped up under the new administration.”

Precisely one week ago, Obama declared that “change has come to America,” as he became the first black president of the United States. On the very same day, Nov. 4th, 2008, the state of California voted yes on Proposition 8, legally restricting the sanctity of marriage to heterosexual couples only.
“Just how much change can a nation take in one day?” I’m ironically tempted to ask…

Prop 8: Like Icing on the Change?

[Read more]

Government officials today announced the highest unemployment rate, 6.5 percent,  the country has seen since 1994. October thus marked the tenth consecutive month of decline. President-elect Barack Obama is facing what might well be the greatest challenge of his presidency – while scrambling to put together a team that will calm the markets.

[Read more]

The US Presidential elections 2008 are historic in many ways – A black man had to beat a woman to claim the nomination of his party, the campaigns already spent more than a billion dollar to persuade voters, the final month of the election coincides with the collapse of the credit markets and the global economic system is threatened in its entirety.

Also, this election is increasingly fought out not on the TV screen or in newspaper editorials and op-eds, but on the Internet – which adds another historic element. German journalist Tobias Moorstedt has travelled the US to find out more about this development and the changes, challenges and criticisms digital campaigns evoke. He touches on all of these questions in his new book and in the following interview with tapmag (you can also read the interview in German on my private blog).

[Read more]

At eleven forty the crowd slowly becomes bored and people start to entertain themselves. They rythmically shout, “Yes, we can! Yes, we can!” An interpreter for the hearing-impaired is still on stage, who raptly joins in. She clenches her right fist to nod with it, brings it to her chest with her index finger out, then clenches both fists and stems them toward the ground – Yes, we can! Back and forth, the crowd and the little woman in a summer dress are firing each other up; all just to lure him, the Democratic Presidential Nominee, savior and general hopeful on to the stage. To no avail. Barack Obama sets his own timetable.

[Read more]

tapmag has been reporting frequently on different religious views and their intertwinement with politics, especially apparent during election times. But religion does not only come into play when it is time to chose a new leader, and to figure out if the candidates match one’s own ethical views, or faith. In many areas of conflict, religious feelings or tradition play an important role, and set a border for political ambitions (in Germany, a prime example is the 24/7 opening of stores, which is still prohibited for the reason of a “sacred” Sunday). But the two main denominations in Germany, lutheran and catholic, also struggle with declining membership and financial problems.

In this article, I explore a different kind of church. Please excuse that for now it is only in German.

Go to article here.

The US Presidential elections are finally entering the homestretch after a seemingly endless qualify season. USA Today has laid out the last meters in great detail. They describe how the campaigns try to prepare in advance for the events they know about and how they react to all the unscripted surprises that might happen before it’s all over November 4th. Prime example are the Olympic Games, during which both candidates will find it hard to generate substantial press coverage of their campaigns.

Here’s what fills the calendars of both John McCain and Barack Obama.

[Read more]

As if Americans didn’t have enough on their plates with foreclosures and rising unemployment, the obesity epidemic continues to weigh down the Land of the Free.

[Read more]

Yesterday, it meant do or die for Hillary Clinton. The Democrats in Vermont, Rhode Island, Ohio and Texas voted for their presidential candidate, and once more, it was super-close.

Surprisingly, she won Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas. So, Hillary is back in the race. These primary elections were crucial for her, since her political career (and rumors say her marriage, too) was said to be in free fall after Barack Obama had won eleven states in a row. Obamania (some say Obamamania, but that looks ridiculous to me) has been spreading all over the country and all over Tinseltown. [Read more]