tell or insider trading

I always thought those friendly games of poker that became quite a regular tableau for the senior crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation illustrated a sort of refined irony, sort of like those velvet paintings of dogs playing poker or fishing with no expectation of catching anything—since, after all the human players were at a clear disadvantage, facing the analytical skills of an android, a psychic and a Klingon who might rips ones arms out of their sockets if he didn't win. Though I think after wards there will be little danger of the of the accords not being agreed to in their present form, there is an important debate happening in the Bundestag and other parliaments of Europe concerning the US-EU free trade agreement.
How could any nation reach true compromise with the other bargaining unit knows exactly what the other wants to hear and what concessions to promise and how the future regulatory landscape will change? The thrust of intelligence gathering and snooping was certainly not limited to juicy gossip and blackmail-material but also extended into business-spying, and for production and labour standards worlds apart, very different cultural tolerances for employment protections, genetic dabbling with food, internet architecture, ecological stewardship, rigour of testing for pharmaceuticals and respecting privacy and proprietary information itself, it is hard to see a happy medium reached without someone taking the upper-hand. Go fish. Let the Wookie win.

gondwanaland or atlantropa

There is an unhealthy public sentiment, I think, fueled by a few firebrands that is resulting in a wholesale rejection of experimentation and ambition. In Germany in 1932 there was a wild proposal for a peaceful, broader union for a disjointed continent reeling from the horrors of the Great War that captivated the public in ways that no national party or platform could, unfortunately humanist and engineer Herman Sörgel's grandiose plans were overcome by other events. Perhaps public distrust of demagogues would have served the world better in some instances.
Sörgel's movement was based on the prescient warning that governments must keep pace with technological developments or else risk becoming merely an instrument or a nuisance for innovators. The most significant change that the native of Regensburg on the Danube had experienced personally was that the sluices and dams along German waterways had successfully harnessed the rivers for commercial use and looking toward the example of the nautical empire of Venice and other port cities, Sörgel proposed no less than damming the Mediterranean at the Strait of Gibraltar to the Dardanelles in the Black Sea in order to reclaim fertile and productive lands (Neuland) from the Mediterranean basin and selectively flood the Sahara Desert, making the African continent more self-supporting, in his view, and undoing geology and reuniting the land-masses as Atlantropa plus getting a surplus of hydro-electric power in the bargain. I am not sure if this project was feasible, but he went as far as deploying a security detail to Gibraltar to stave off attempts of sabotage by jealous Anglo-Saxons should the building ever get underway. Projects like the Aswan High Dam and enormous wind parks or even the monumental engineering effort to save Venice itself from flooding were perhaps less lofty but probably also neither assailable without Sörgel's vision. The project failed and the regime that came into power prevented his further work, although the engineer contributed a great deal to the electrification of Germany and expanding the network of river traffic. There is an institute dedicated to his study and publications in Bad Homburg, not so far away, that I plan to visit.

ellis island

Although there is no political agenda behind the Pope's visit to the immigration processing centre on the remote Italian island of Lampedusa, the Pope's decision to make his first excursion outside of the City of Rome is nonetheless an important reminder that there are countless less visible refugees and asylum-seekers no longer being covered by the news. Refusing to allow any politicians tag along, the Pope will go to the tiny island, the one of the closest European Union territories to northern Africa, to weep for those who lost their lives in the dangerous sea-crossing, to greet new arrivals and show gratitude to the local population that have done much to help the immigrants with their passage, treating their guests with dignity, considerations that were not always continued by the migration authorities here and elsewhere. Since the height of the revolutions that punctuated the Arabic Spring, the pace has slowed somewhat, but given recent events, is expected to increase soon.

if these walls could talk or windows to the soul

In probably the boldest and most shameless assault against the consuming public since—the last, a German marketing firm has announced its ability and plans to deliver, for a willing sponsor, advertisements to a captive audience through cranial conduction.
The company proposes that clients' messages be distributed on public transport, shaken into the passenger's skull when inadvertently or purposefully leaning against the windows of a bus or a subway or any chosen surface. It's a lot worse than regular commercial breaks spammy pop-unders while navigating websites, and if anything people who take mass-transit ought to be rewarded for not contributing to congestion, not submitted to focus-groups involuntarily. I am sure these beamed messages could be tailored to particular passengers and it is scary hoone's head.
w quickly this might escalate.  Chatty, shuddering coffee mugs or singing beer and wine glasses?  Such skeletal transmissions are not new but relatively novel things, but perhaps the means to speak with disembodied voices should not be first surrendered to marketers and demographers, who would always like to get into

siss-boom-bah or vital spark

The fireworks have not ceased altogether, to be sure, and the ever excellent antiquary, Bibliodyssey, features a scholarly, beautifully illustrated essay on the the development of gunpowder and pyrotechnics in the Western world through the lens of an extensive German manual, Büchsenmeister und Feuerwerksbuch (Master Gunsmith and Fireworks Book—to show how it was impossible to divorce awe from practicality), from the last years of the 1500s, and how an evening's entertainment became more sophisticated and acclaimed much sooner than the substance could be harnessed for more destructive applications.

The alchemist with the ability to make a spectacle was regarded by his audience, it seems, in the early Renaissance, not as an entertainer or magician but rather as an educator who was able to make laboratory-style demonstrations of astral phenomena—lightening, comets—the moon, the stars and the sun, rather than mastering some strange new wonder of chemistry. Conjuring up the power of Nature through through carefully prepared potions became at that time also a literal understanding for the figurative, but not so inaccurate, investigation into the animating principle of life, believing that reawakening a fire from basically organic sources was evidence for the the vital spark, not the body electric (as I am sure electricity was looked at philosophically, theologically before being put to mundane use), but rather one that coursed and burnt with the stuff of skyrockets and sparklers.

tween

Considering the on-going disclosures that monitoring of commun- ications is not a bailiwick reserved for the world-police and is a common commodity, I wonder if the story might not be watered down to the extent where all outrage is put on the level of a mopey adolescent who feels devastatingly violated after discovering his parents thoroughly rifled through his belongings and contacts out of concern and for his own good. Of course, that's a very parental thing to do and usually advisable despite whatever angst or wrath is incurred—but I think it's not the job of the government to put its wards who've reached majority in such an uncomfortable situation—regardless whether their own up-bringing saw such awkward moments of tension or not, no matter how this tactic might defuse cries of fascism and unfairness.  Being made to relive teenage traumas shouldn't deflect from the gravity of being talked-down to.