statecraft or goodwill ambassador

A faction of the US congress is revisiting the idea of ransoming the UN and guide its outreach and peace-keeping initiatives through leveraging, withholding its contribution to the UN operating budget. Although not a very original idea and all parties have not gone without disputes and disagreements, the language of the threat is desperate and uncouth--and highly selective. The UN is not a world-government but rather a mechanism to ensure that no one's sovereignty infringes on the sovereignty of another, and by begrudging its dues and citing certain activities, paints the organization with some monstrous authority it is not laying claim to. Such a proposal, if it goes any further, could only court retribution and could not end well. It is humiliating enough when there is no spirit of cooperation and compromise and budgets are slashed for the arts, science, social services and stabilization in one's own backyard, and the US embassy should not be exporting that sort of ill-will and discouragement. America's balance of influence is waning, especially when exhausted over something as petty as a pre-election competency-hearing and slander, and may very well need some day the support of such institutions to protect it from itself and narrow-interests.

denkmale, denmäler

Wikipedia for the next month is hosting a photography competition and open call for submissions for pictures of monuments and memorials in Germany and across Europe. The project has garnered a lot of interest and I am sure will add more depth to the catalogue of wonders that Wikipedia has. We have collected a lot of snapshots over the years and I am going through albums to see what I can find to contribute. Oddly enough, there’s one glaring omission in who can take part, since Italy has recognizes no provisions for freedom of panorama (Panoramafreiheit) that allows for taking pictures of works of art on public display and publishing them with no risk of infringement.

I had heard of tourists being bullied for taking pictures in London--for reasons of national security, and of the veiling of Michaelangelo’s and da Vinci’s statues along the promenade of Florenz from casual photography. Such gaps in documentation, should they spread into copy-fight, I’m sure, encourage in a round-about way more people to see such sites in person and patch these holes.

ball and chain or pigs in space

Politicians, justice officials and security experts across several German Länder are meeting to explore the possibility of establishing a base of operations in Hessen that will be able to track newly released prisoners from satellites in space, using ankle bracelets (elektronische Fußfessel) and Global Positioning technology. Many places are already doing this, with varying success, and I suppose that many of us, jailbirds or upstanding citizens, are already doing this too--submitting to tracking--voluntarily with our mobile phones, updates and announcements.

These developments reminded me of a story I saw on the superb site Neat-o-Rama (originally via Gizmodo) about an individual in Britain who eluded the authorities by tricking the wardens to attach the tracking device to his prosthetic leg. The proposal does not aim to release dangerous criminals into the population or commute sentences to house-arrest but to monitor individuals that pose a risk as repeat-offenders, recidivists (Rückfälligkeit). This sort of probation does not replace half-way houses or true interaction, since whereabouts are not always telling of what's a-foot. Once they catch and try the culprit, I think the robber who recently held-up a casino in Bad Karma, our fair city, would make a good candidate for this pilot-programme. There has been such a flurry of casino (Spielhalle), depressing and chintzy with slot- and plinko-machines and not glamourous like Monte Carlo, building here lately, it's almost as if one could rob a gambling hall by accident without even realizing it.

reagent and chemical kinetics

Just as regulatory decisions, with moaning and feet-dragging, possibly apt, and once set for a far, distant future which phase out production of the familiar incandescent light bulb for more, debatably, efficient models, come into effect in Germany, a production facility for organic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) (DE) has been inaugurated in Regensburg (Ratisbon) on the Danube. The process is still being perfected since the discovery of this property in the 1950s, but in application, these electroluminescent membranes can be stretched and spindled across larger surfaces and maintain contrast and visual integrity without a back-light. Manufacture is also less energy intensive, since unlike with current display screens that require a housing be prepared, organic LEDs can be printed onto any suitable surface, flexible or rigid. LEDs bulbs are also among the alternatives touted to old-fashioned light bulbs, whose longevity and durability (and lack of toxic gas wafting off the circuitry when in use) could not previously overcome their high cost, but now, with factory expansion, maybe that price will come down. Technology always outpaces good governmental intent, perhaps making the proclaimed next generation of lighting already obsolete, and the future a less friendly territory for green-washing and impostors.