Franรงois the head is certainly ready to party. Daily Mail writer Dominick Sandbrooke presents an interesting, though rather bleak and depressing, article paralleling the political and economic framework of the year to come with that dark period eighty years ago.
Saturday 31 December 2011
never brought to mind or party likes it's the year 1932
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ซ๐ท, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐, economic policy, foreign policy, philosophy, revolution
siss boom bah!
Aside from the risk it could pose at such heights to aircraft, apparently the second-stage ignition is unreliable and as likely to fire off the rocket another forty metres horizontally or straight back into the ground. Though such revelry is tolerated only at New Year’s, maybe the practice ought to be expanded, as a way to keep the middle-distance of the sky free of the coming aerial drone race, when corporations and law-enforcement, encouraged by drone-manufacturers, get in on the patrolling, and there are traffic-control drones, meter-maid drones, news reporter drones, ambulance-chasing drones, etc. I hope such patrols don’t come with the new year, but maybe the booms, bangs and bams can chase away those bad portents too. In the meantime, we’ll celebrate and have some fun. Happy New Year! PfRC wรผnscht allen ein besonders frohes neues Jahr und guten Rutsch!
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ฅธ, holidays and observances
Thursday 29 December 2011
like disco lemonade
catagories: ๐ฌ, ๐ถ, ๐ก, holidays and observances
year end fall-in or out with the old
The archivists and historians are tasked with giving a thoughtful and complete recollection of the year’s file, and here are a few events (by no means complete or exhaustive) that I thought were particularly noteworthy, from the vantage point of the calendar:
January – The revolutionary movement that would become known as the "Arab Spring" began in earnest with escalating civil unrest in Tunisia that lead to the abdication of the country’s long-time ruler. The movement grew and more tyrants were toppled—including Egypt and Libya, like the cavalcade of caricatures from Phil Collins' Land of Confusion music-video, making deposits, regional and elsewhere nervous—on either extreme, either charitable or more prone to crack-down on insurrection, and squarely saddling the freedom fighters with the responsibilities of democratic governance.
April – A monstrous storm system battered extensive parts of the US south and mid-west—all as part of the year that seemingly broke the weather, extensive flooding follows. The American military is deployed to the border with Mexico, partially in response to increased incidents of gang violence seeping into the US. NATO forces aid Libyan rebels in overthrowing Qaddhafi, cornering him and supporters to a few strongholds.
May – A team of US Special Forces locate and kill Osama bin Laden in a compound in Pakistan. The US dollar continues to lose value against global currencies as the repercussions of the burst housing market are still being realized. The EU, amid ongoing financial coming-clean and protests against austerity measures from Spain, Greece and Italy, approved a prophylactic bailout loan for Portugal, to staunch the panic. Drought conditions not seen in two decades cause widespread famine throughout Africa. Queen Elizabeth II makes the first official visit of the monarchy to the Republic of Ireland since independence was declared. The latest in a series of predicted raptures did not occur.
June – Tension grows stemming from street protests in the UK, Spain and Greece over proposed economic austerity measures, including cuts in social services and raising the retirement age, meant to balance national budgets. Hundreds of extrasolar planets are being discovered, piquing the imagination and broadening scientific horizons. Unemployment and stagnant business growth continue to haunt the United States, as insults are swapped as aspirants are preparing for the presidential election session.
July – NASA and the US government retire the Space Shuttle programme, hoping that, laissez faire, private industry will close the science chasm that has left Russia and ESA scrambling to service. Norway was visited by a horrific domestic terrorist attack. There were bouts of courage and bravery in this tragedy, which was not perpetrated by the usual suspects, religious radicals that fit the profile of our stereotypes, but rather by a lone individual trying to punctuate his conservative and xenophobic ideas. Europe’s lurching towards more socially conservative platforms became a much discussed topic, in response to the earlier best-seller status of a tract assaulting integration by Thilo Sarrazin, the pronouncement by Angela Merkel herself that "multi-culti" has failed, and the killing spree by a band of neo-nazis that went under the radar and all but unnoticed for months among other emerging trends.
October – The UN announced that the world’s population has just surpassed seven billion people. Credit rating agencies continue their reign of terror, nudging markets this way and that with their verdicts on credit-worthiness. Italian Wikipedia shuts down in response to proposed changes in national copyright and fair-use laws that would severely curtail how the site could operate—prescient of a similar maneuver later in the US to denude the internet. The UK is gently sidling away from EU participation over fear-mongering of German overlordship, and this creep will express itself later with more heated exchanges and a repairing towards nationalism and protectionism.
November – Greece and Italy get new leadership over failed stewardship of their economies. Before resigning, Silvio Berlusconi releases a record album of himself crooning love songs. Thousands of students descend on London, angered over tuition hikes. Other Britons shudder over the first steps in privatization of public health care schemes. Police in New York forcibly clear Occupy Wall Street protesters after months of rallies, but the movement has spread to urban-centres world wide. Doctors and engineers develop a 3-D bone scaffold printer to help patients with broken bones in emergency situations.
catagories: ๐บ๐ธ, ๐, ๐ก, ๐ญ, ๐ฅธ, holidays and observances, Middle East, networking and blogging, revolution, Wikipedia
Wednesday 28 December 2011
orchestra baobab
There are a lot of traditional uses for the plant's seeds and produce, but the fruit apparently has an acquired taste and even local lore has it that the gods were so revolted by the taste that they cursed the tree to grow topsy-turvy, crooked and ratty.
catagories: ๐ต, environment, lifestyle
Tuesday 27 December 2011
six geese a-laying
catagories: holidays and observances, Wikipedia
Saturday 24 December 2011
oh tidings of comfort and joy
catagories: holidays and observances, Star Wars
Thursday 22 December 2011
cool yule or psychopomp
Like Ghost Riders in the Sky, the Wild Hunt is a tapestry of ethereal huntsmen under the leadership of Nordic gods or sometimes Krampus (Santa's bizarro-world opposite who punishes the naughty) and was foreboding of different things: a psychopomp is such a parade of spirit guides, like astral reindeer.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐, ๐ง , antiques, myth and monsters
taxiway
catagories: environment, Europe, transportation, travel
Tuesday 20 December 2011
the trend is towards the bourgeois-smug
With the fomenting of the delicate succession in North Korea and rampant speculation about the elections in Russia, politicians and reporters perhaps ought to be a bit more gracious in their commentary--not censored and restrained but on the contrary, using the voice and platform they have to speak for the oppressed and as well as admonishing their audience about their own tenuous state of affairs, how their ability to voice those opinions is under constant threat and due vigilance is never out of bounds.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐, ๐, ๐ฅธ, economic policy, foreign policy, revolution
Monday 19 December 2011
o du frรถhliche or shutter-speed
I suppose there is no bigger challenge for amateur photography than a lively Christmas Market (Weihnachts-markt, Christ-kindlmarkt) in its native setting, the festive glow of the booths under an icy sky and many attractions quite kinetic, like the giant Pyramid of the Leipzig, sort of a wooden carousel with Christmas figures that's propelled by the heat of flames. Leipzig's fair is among the eldest traditions in Germany, along with nearby Dresden and Bautzen, and decorated with the holiday trappings and influence of the Ore Mountains' (Das Erzgebirge) arts and crafts.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ป, holidays and observances, lifestyle, travel
navidad or chili incarnate
• 1 can of diced Tomatoes (with peppers)
• 1 can of Kidney Beans
• 1 can of Garbanzo Beans
• 2 cups (about 500mL) of Vegetable Broth
• 2 teaspoons ground Cumin, 2 teaspoons Chili powder, 1 teaspoon salt
One small chocolate Santa, about one ounce (50 grams)
catagories: ๐ซ, food and drink, holidays and observances
Thursday 15 December 2011
paperwork reduction act or schwarzgeld
Der Speigel (auf englisch) reports that in response to the reporting burdens coming with the enforcement of the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), starting in 2013, many European banks are barring or dropping their American clientele. Brokerage services, small business with American partners as well as accounts with assets of more than $50 000 must be identified and reported back to the US Internal Revenue Service.
the holly and the ivy or plant hacks
catagories: health and medicine, holidays and observances, lifestyle
Tuesday 13 December 2011
chef surprise or old-new world cuisine
- About 800 ml of whole, peeled tomatoes (28 oz can)
- 6-8 corn tortillas
- 2+ teaspoons of chili powder, oregano, salt and pepper to taste
- 3+ tablespoons of cooking oil
- 2 garlic cloves and a large onion
- 2 small to medium sweet potatoes
- 500 g shredded cheese (Cheddar or a spicy mix)
- 450 g of black beans (14 oz can)
catagories: environment, food and drink
fennec fox
catagories: ๐, environment
Monday 12 December 2011
modular text or cabinet shuffle
Nine months or so after his self-imposed exile in the States, Germany’s former Economic and Defense minister, with the affectionate moniker zu Googleberg (EN/DE) has returned but this time on the board of the European Commission as the advocate for protecting freedom of the internet, especially from oppressive regimes who would quash the voice of revolution and insurrection.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, networking and blogging
titanomachy or primus inter pares
In a dispatch from the Swiss edition of thelocal, the central government of the Helvetic Confederacy in Bern is reluctant to share (otherwise befriend America) access to its electronic criminal records database with the United States. The arrangement is not reciprocal, mutual as Switzerland isn’t taking on the whole onerous burden of America’s security apparatus but Swiss authorities are expected to surrender all the vital information of its citizens, in case a native ne’er-do-well ever decides to visit the States, and the only thing that the Swiss people are getting in return for this openness and trust for the US to safeguard its information better than the US can keep track of its own is the right to travel to the States under the Visa-Waiver program, a government web-site that supposedly announces one’s plans and intentions well ahead of time but despite the publicity, one is asked the same stock questions by countless airport personnel coming and going, prodded and frisked just the same.
catagories: ๐ช๐บ, ๐ฅธ, America, economic policy, foreign policy, transportation
Sunday 11 December 2011
blue-plate special or everything’s up-to-date in kansas city
Friday 9 December 2011
london bridge or two turntables and a microphone
catagories: ๐ช๐บ, ๐ฌ๐ง, economic policy, foreign policy
Thursday 8 December 2011
patteran or tacit knowledge
catagories: ๐, ๐บ, language, networking and blogging
Wednesday 7 December 2011
kitchen-witch or jahresendflรผgelfigur
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, holidays and observances, language
show-boat diplomacy
catagories: ⚖️, ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐ณ️๐, foreign policy
Tuesday 6 December 2011
top bonitรคt oder ansteckungsgefahr
Monday 5 December 2011
vindaloo
This picture was not properly setup, but I wanted to capture the latest chef-surprise in case it turned out good and my camera has a setting specifically to capture images of food, "Saturation is higher to make food look more appetizing," which is an under-utilized feature. I tried making a broccoli curry and improvised a little and voila:
- One small bunch of broccoli chopped into small pieces (about 2 cups)
- 2 tea-spoons Hot Madras Curry Powder (or less to taste)
- 1 can of Garbanzo Beans
- A few handfuls of dried cranberries or raisins
- 1 ⅔ cups of couscous
- fรผr 4 Personen, Etwa 500 gram Brokkoli, fein geschnittenen
- mit 2 Teelรถffel scharfes Currypulver abschmecken
- 1 Dose Kichererbsen
- einige Handvolle getrockneten Preiselbeeren oder Rosinen
- 400 mL Kuskus (und 500 mL Wasser oder Gemรผsebrรผhe dafรผr)
catagories: food and drink
Sunday 4 December 2011
sopapilla oder net neutralitรคt
catagories: ๐ช๐บ, ๐ฅธ, America, language, networking and blogging
x-mas pageant
catagories: antiques, holidays and observances, revolution
archive photos
catagories: antiques, environment, lifestyle
Friday 2 December 2011
booster-shot
catagories: economic policy, Europe, labour
Thursday 1 December 2011
the other shoe
The last and latest insult is the natural consequence of unrelenting attacks on the arts and sciences in the States but is now assuming its final form with the failure of the Congressional Super-Committee to trim the government budget. I suspect that no one had much faith that the Super-Committee would succeed, so some analysts saying that the failure was a good fiscal outcome as automatic reductions have been put into motion is not a very genuine endorsement. Perhaps brute enforcement will force some choices and some discipline but programs targeted on contingency of this breakdown are, besides social programs, funding for art programs and research and development. Squandered inspiration and neglected imagination are intolerable wastes, and these proposals, in triplicate, even if overstated, are dangerous and would generate little in return, regardless who champions them. What gain, anticipated and delivered, could even begin to replace what's been lost? The torment in the end, like an overbearing and favoured step-sister however, may be just as listless and a paper-tiger as the tormentor.