poor-mouthing and paradigm-shift

The rather myopic policies adopted and expressed in various ways throughout the European Union threaten to reintroduce much longer-lasting consequences from internal and external pressures across the economic landscape. Once lauded as the most ambitious and effective ways to curb climate change and promote good stewardship for the environment, the cap-and-trade scheme and carbon-emission is failing and a united-front is reverting to nationalistic policies.

Allowances for polluting have become affordable to the point of investing in further innovation no longer makes good business-sense. Much of the decline is due, of course, to a slow-down in demand and production and the relationship is not without reciprocation but in the longer term, such splintering and attitudes represent a very big set-back in terms of solidarity. What do you think? Is reform something negotiable in the face of immediate perceptions—or is it something to sacrifice, to recalibrate? Environmental policy should not be driven solely by the dictates of the markets, but consumers also have a choice to make.

stirring the cauldron or strongly-worded letter

The a reporter on the International Desk of Der Spiegel spied a curiously counter-productive example of outreach on the public website of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Demonstrating the work that the FBI’s Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit does, the website depicts an image of hieroglyphs that make up a simple substitution cipher, which when cracked, gives instructions for preparing the toxin ricin—a protein of the castor bean (Rizinussamen, the German word does not hide its source very well either), which can be decoded without much bother. The example image is even captioned “Enciphered instructions for making ricin poison found in the notebook of a lone bomber in Virginia.” The methodology set forth is apparently basic but complete and an interested party could produce, with some easy kitchen-witchery, a deadly concoction.

smart suzy-sunset and i are on the case

Demonstrating that hindsight is sometimes the sharpest lens, the Washington Post has a curious article about an Iranian factory with strangely potemkin qualities in a town called Dinslaken in the Ruhrgebiet, an industrial area near Essen.

Although the quiet day-to-day operations may have been completely innocent and above-board (as Iran says of its nuclear ambitions, perhaps unfairly sullen), since being month-balled just late last month, the closing inventory and performance record has again caught the notice of inspectors and authorities, believing that the factory may have been a front for developing the nuclear programme of their home-country. Iran has been quite forthcoming with concessions and transparency, it seems and more so than is expected of other members of the nuclear club—to whatever purpose. Everyone is entitled to whatever threshold of scepticism that suits them but a coalition of preconceptions do not establish nefarious behaviour nor the strictures of imagination that may have contributed to past oversights—sins of omission. What do you think? Is the suspicion justified or should every do-nothing Döner stand or under-patronized enterprise stand be subject to the same kind of scrutiny?

real and present oder perspektiv

One major news service, incidental to the reporting on the Boston Marathon finish-line bomb attacks, raised an interesting, if not back-handed, sociological question by entertaining one report’s questions concerning the whether the event and terrible carnage were staged as a false-flag operation.

Conspiracy theories pander to the lower denominator, in accordance with the theme of the article and citing terrible school-shootings that seem to proceed at their own accord and without the prompting of policy and agendas, and as historical precedent, the sabotage of the Reichstag in Berlin during Nazi times—overlooking Hawaii or the Gulf of Tonkin Invasion that were too close for comfort. What do you think—are such suggestions (since they’re begging the answer) out-of-line and too raw for the present or does a sort of fearful patriotism and solidarity dismiss questioning?