Churches have elections?

The Local.se

The Church of Sweden held an election for its General Synod on Sunday. Since the Church of Sweden was (or is, I forget) part of the government, these elections are highly political and all major political parties run candidates alongside parties that only exist within the Church. Anyone that that is a member of the Church of Sweden, which is most of Sweden, can vote. However, only 12% did so.

In a follow-up article they mention big gains made by anti-gay marriage groups. Sweden recently approved of gay marriage, with the Christian Democrats being the only dissenting party within the Riksdag. I was going to put up a post about how this would seem an obvious result given that voters in a General Synod election with such low turn-out would tend to be conservative and focused on recent controversies. However, a look at the full results reveals something else. All left-wing parties also increased their share of the vote. The only parties to lose seats were the center-right parties. So anti-gay groups made gains, but so did leftist, pro-gay groups.

Could it be a sign that Swedish politics are becoming more polarized? Actually, probably not. Sweden is a social democratic country, so any gains made by the Social Democrats is probably a move back towards the center. While there was movement towards the right within the right, they still shrunk overall.

Flash Mob "Approves" of Merkel

The Local.de

Tom is probably the only person that reads this that will appreciate it, but during a recent CDU rally in Hamburg, a flash mob showed up and shouted with great enthuiasm, "yeah!" after every statement Chancellor Merkel made.

Visit Denmark!

BBC News

So how do we get people to visit Denmark? I know, post a video of a young lady holding a baby that was conceived during a one-night stand some foreigner had during an obviously very good vacation in Denmark.

When I first read about it, it just sounded hilariously offensive, but having watched the video, it just seems sad. Did no one along the line of the making of this video say, you know what, this is kind of offensive and depressing? Who is going to watch this video and think they should visit Denmark? Other than people attending to have at least one illegitimate child in every country.

New Music, courtesy of Ralph

Ralph, like me, is a big fan of new music, so when we met in Würzburg we exchanged music. Here are some the best new bands I learned of from Ralph.

MGMT
I first heard "Electric Feel" on the radio here in Germany and thought it was brilliant. Ralph finally let me know who it was. The video I linked to is for a different song and isn't the official video. I didn't like the official one.

Cold War Kids
I'm pretty sure I've heard of them before, but for reason they didn't get my attention until I heard this song.

Dear Reader
Some light acoustic music.

Gisbert zu Knyphausen
German music for those that are interested.

The Gossip
I think this is pretty stunning. Such a clean, crisp sound.

I Am Kloot
This guy sounds very British.

Mando Diao
Swedish band with a bit of a retro sound. Not so much in this song, but in others.

White Rabbits
I love the drums on this song.

Felice Brothers
Similar to Cold War Kids. I heard of them a long time ago, but they didn't get my attention until I heard "Run Chicken Run".

Miss Li
Swedish singer that reminds me a lot of fellow Swede Maia Hirasawa.

Bonus:
Dead Heart Bloom
I've had a copy of one of their CDs since college, but it wasn't until recently that I discovered they have all of their music for free on their website. You should download it.

Top ten movies I haven't seen

More fun with Criticker. You can search for movies based on popularity. The most often ranked movies on Criticker are The Matrix, Fight Club, and Kill Bill, which probably says a lot about the kind of people that use Criticker. Anyway, I decided to use it to find the 10 most popular movies that I haven't seen.

1. The Sixth Sense - Didn't have much interest in seeing this movie when it first came out, and now that I know the twist ending, I don't have much incentive to see it.

2. Seven - The concept of Seven always seemed interesting, but I can never bring myself to watch it.

3. Memento - This movie falls into the category of movies everyone assumes I've already seen, so they never think to invite me to watch it.

4. Back to the Future - I've never had a chance to watch it all the way through. Speaking of which, I saw the third one multiple times when I was a kid, but I have yet to have viewed a single scene from the second one.

5. Titanic - I've seen bits and pieces, enough to know I don't care to see the whole thing.

6. The 40-Year-Old Virgin - I'm surprised so many people have seen it. I thought it sounded dumb, but apparently it's pretty good.

7. The Silence of the Lambs - I'm not a fan of horror movies, but I liked Red Dragon, so maybe.

8. Reservoir Dogs - They played this movie once when I was on the bus riding back to Asheville from NCSSM, but I don't remember any of it other than we didn't finish it.

9. A Clockwork Orange - Another movie everyone assumes I have seen.

10. A Beautiful Mind - The only movie about an economist and I haven't seen it.

Mu Cow - Best Movies

Criticker

Criticker has a new feature (well, new to me) that let's you organize films based on various categories, so I've decided to make my own "Best Movies" from each year and genre.

1927 - Metropolis
1928 skip
1929 - The Cocoanuts
1930 - Animal Crackers
1931 - Monkey Business
1932 skip
1933 - Duck Soup
1934 skip
1935 - A Night at the Opera
1936-43 skip
1944 - Arsenic and Old Lace
1945-54 skip
1955 - The Court Jester
1956-62 skip
1963 - The Raven
1964 - Dr. Strangelove
1965 skip
1966 - Batman
1967 - How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying
1968-70 skip
1971 - Harold and Maude (the only movie)
1972-73 skip
1974 - Young Frankenstein
1975 - Quest for the Holy Grail
1976 skip
1977 - A New Hope
1978 skip
1979 - The Jerk
1980 - The Empire Strikes Back
1981 - Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982 - Blade Runner
1983 - Return of the Jedi
1984 - Ghostbusters
1985 - Brazil
1986 - Labyrinth
1987 - The Princess Bride
1988 - Young Einstein
1989 - Christmas Vacation
1990 - Edward Scissorhands
1991 - Hudson Hawke
1992 - Aladdin
1993 - Groundhog Day
1994 - Forrest Gump
1995 - Braveheart
1996 - Trainspotting
1997 - The Fifth Element
1998 - The Legend of 1900
1999 - Fight Club
2000 - Requiem for a Dream
2001 - Moulin Rouge
2002 - Chicago
2003 - Return of the King
2004 - Napoleon Dynamite
2005 - Batman Begins
2006 - The Fountain
2007 - No Country for Old Men
2008 - The Dark Knight
2009 (so far) - Watchmen

Romance - Metropolis
Drama - Metropolis
Crime - The Dark Knight
For Kids - The Emperor's New Groove
Action - The Fountain (really?)
War - Braveheart
Western - Dead Man
Animation - The Emperor's New Groove
Thriller - Metropolis
Documentary - Animals are Beautiful People
Comedy - Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Sci-Fi - Metropolis
Musical - Moulin Rouge!
Fantasy - Batman Begins
Adventure - Children of Men
Horror - Young Frankenstein
Mystery - The Dark Knight

So apparently Criticker defines genres very broadly and inconsistently, as a lot of these don't make sense (Batman Begins is a fantasy, but The Dark Knight is not). It appears that Metropolis is the overall winner, but I like how often Batman shows up. Another thing I found funny, despite giving all the Lord of the Rings movies the same rating, Return of the King is the only one that makes the list.

World of Text

World of Text

Counting on just your fingers is for amateurs

The World Atlas of Language Structures

After a rousing discussion on linguistic typology, I decided to look up more information on the subject. I got a bit side-tracked when I found this website. While reading through the articles I came across this one on numeral systems. It has some interesting stuff in it, but definitely read the part about Kobon and the extended body-part system. It's pretty brilliant.