The Top 10 Everything of 2008

Although it is already end of February I think it still is a good moment to take a look back at most important and newsworthy events of the last year. That is exactly what the online version of Time has done. They have made up a list consisting of various topics from the last year called "The Top 10 Everything of 2008". What makes the list great is the fact that all the dirty grunt work is done for you and the news are nicely organized in topics thus giving us a neat overview. The list has been available for some time but still serves a good opportunity to get some laughs and perhaps even a small amount of new information about events that took place during 2008.

The list of topics are organized into various categories but I'm going to concentrate on "Top 10 Campaign Video Moments" that gives us the overview of ten best or in some cases most embarrassing ads or clips related to last years US presidential campaign.

Some of these stories give a nice example how everything can go so wrong that it really starts to physically hurt. Best examples come from the last years US presidential elections. Main character of these mishaps and mistakes is Sarah Palin, who was the Republican Party's vice-presidential nominee for the 2008 United States presidential election, on John McCain's team. She gets confused in an interview and manages to participate in a turkey slaughter while giving a traditional pardon to a Thanksgiving turkey (although the video that Times.com has linked to has been removed, thankfully the clip is still available here).

All fans of HBO's mob series "Sopranos" will definitely appreciate the tribute paid in Hillary Clinton's campaign video.

Other personal favorites include a presidential candidate making a strong message by staring into the camera, a one word response from Joe Biden, best celebrity endorsement ever and the bittersweetly hilarious clip "Wassup".

All these clips show that when it comes to local political TV ads here in Estonia, US thanks to it financial advantage, is light years ahead of us. Still some of these clips show that you don't need a huge amount of resources to make a video that would stand out from the crowd, as a truly unique idea guarantees that. It remains to be seen if during the shortly coming EU elections we'll see clips as strong as these.

About me.

Hi!!! My name is Karoliine and I am from Pärnu, Estonia. I consider myself quite an international person as I lived in the Netherlands for three years and also graduated high school there. I must say that I like the international environment more than the national one, as it is more tolerant and understanding. My most favorite ‘so called’ hobby is music. I have been singing since I was small, so it has become a big part of who I am. I also love travelling and discovering new places. I especially enjoy road trips, but until now I have only managed to conquer parts of Europe :D However I would like to visit all continents as part of a goal in the ‘things to do in the future’ list. One of my other hobbies includes craftwork especially crocheting and sometimes knitting. I like to make pretty items, like gloves or table cloths, on my own, because it is more personal than buying mass produced things in the mall. When I’m at home in the evening with nothing to do, there is a big chance that I’m browsing through the TV guide looking for cool movies to watch. I must say that I feel quite confident and exited about this blog, as my team is well informed in the COMMPOL area, and I think there will be loads of interesting material here to watch and read!

This is me

Hey,

I´m Jaanika- located in Tallinn as i have been living here my whole life. I study in Baltic Film and Media School Public Relations.

Also I have been a volunteer for the Red Cross for 5 years now and also a member of AIESEC Estonia. So it´s safe to say that I´m an activist in my community. I mostly organise youth projects but also conferences, concerts and other types of events. Since I´ve been involved with politics from a very young age then I´m really in to it. As that been sayed it´s not hard to imagine what my post for this blog are going to be about - Politics. Why such a huge topic?- Because it´s fascinating and there´s really a lot to observe and to talk about.

I feel confident about the team as I have worked with most of them before and I believe we can make this blog into something beautiful and interesting.

Here I am

Every time I introduce my self, people ask me if I miss my country, but what is a country? And what there is in a country to be missed?

If you ask me if I miss what is familiar to me, then my answer is of course I miss the known. In this perspective, I miss Italy as much as I miss England and India, the other two places where I lived. But if you ask me if I would swap the unknown for the known then my answer is negative.

To know is an invaluable achievement, but the beauty of a trip is the travelling in itself. Look forward and the known will become a challenge to explore further more.

My contribution to this blog will be my effort in find connections of our different, but incredibly similar, Europe.

My posts will focus in the understanding of different European political and social realities, stressing on the beauty of differences and similarities.

Alessandro

Intro

Hello,

My name is Kristina though between the friends I'm known as Kri(su). In the last fall I moved to Estonia from Finland to study at the Baltic Film and Media School for Public Relations. It was easy to choose this international University because of my curious nature: Different nations, cultures and people with different backgrounds have always fascinated me.

That's also the reason I love traveling and getting know to new people. Unfortunately there are a lot of injustice in the world which is focused in the poor countries, my big dream would be speaking and spread the messages for these people through my media and PR knowledge. I'm very inspired by "The New York Times" columnist Nicholas D.Kristof and recommend everyone to read his columns.

I'm a helpless romantic: I can find beauty everywhere! Just today I was discussing with one of the Commpol group members how busy people are to see what's happening around them and how we take things and people we love for granted. We shouldn't do that, instead we could

open our eyes and minds, and enjoy the life and share the happiness with the people we love.

I love nature and animals , but especially dogs are close to my heart. In this picture on the right side is my chihuahua Lilo with her best (and only) friend Rini, my parents pug. Aren't they just sweet?

Till the next time!

Greetings!

It still feels that the spring is not anything more than just a promise as looking out the window the reality is still to hard to handle – the grim environment that the Nordic weather and lack of sun has created can weaken the defenses of even a stronger individual.

In a way this situation makes it easier to start with something new as anything that keeps my mind occupied during this god forsaken period in Estonian climate is a good thing.

I feel quite confident about the team I'm as my fellow team members seem to share the same positive attitude with me and that's what is really important to me.

As to myself I'm going to dedicate my blog posting space to analyzing films that are either openly political or have a political message embedded into their content. I have some candidates already but not anything 100% concrete.

For the majority of my life I have been interested and also obsessed with the film world. I immensely enjoy watching films, when not spending time watching films I'm probably seeking info and data about them online and when a longer break is available I'm sure to read a book where movie business and persons involved in making them are main characters.

Yoko enjoying a crisp winter day

My other hobbies include collecting comic books. Among people whose work I enjoy are Mike Mignola with his work on as both the storyteller and artist on Hellboy, David Petersen as the creator of the Mouse Guard universe and the works of writers like Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore. This list of talented artists and writers, sometimes both, can go on and on as there is no shortage of talent. These artists and writers are among many of the pioneers that have elevated the status of comic books as only medium for children to something more.

As if this geeky hobby isn't enough I still have one more skeleton rattling in my cupboard of nerdiness. The skeleton being that I'm hooked to videogames. My collection of videogames and videogame consoles includes 5 different consoles and about hundred different games for these machines.

So basically it is quite safe to say that I'm a geek and also a bit nerd :)

And as it is clear from the photos of I have posted that besides these geeky hobbies I'm also a big fan of dogs – pugs especially.

Cuteness overload!