thor's hammer or dilithium

A Connecticut research and development consortium is building on the ideas of a concept car teased out a few years ago to reinvent the internal combustion engine and bring it to the automotive market.
The principles remain the same, only the atomizer is different—instead of spritzing diesel, carefully calibrated lasers are focused on miniscule particles of the dense metal thorium to produce heat to, latent but with amazing potential. Once common in street lamps and the brilliant glow of gas lights, the element fell out of favour due to (mostly) exaggerated concerns over radioactivity and with burgeoning interest as an alternative to uranium for nuclear reactors, one gram of the substance, finely chopped, could potentially yield the equivalent output of some thirty-thousand litres of traditional petroleum fuels. Motors designed to harness this energy have been already shrunk to a size that would fit under the bonnet of most cars. Though fairly abundant and easily harvested, there is still a finite amount of Thorium available, but could prove a cleaner and more efficient source of energy—especially when prospectors begin to mine asteroids and comets.

genossenschaft oder working-class hero

H and I took a weekend trip to the town of Delitzsch, not far from Leipzig, and while it was a very casual, relaxing trip and we even stayed indoors, rather than caravaning (it was a curious feeling to be in a hotel) , and took in some of the sites (the Altstadt was well preserved and dominated in close-quarters, the entire town surrounded by a moat with this high defensive tower and Baroque palace built as a retirement home for dowager-princesses and later used as a women’s correctional facility), there are certain quirks of history that have shaped this region, which are not always apparent by what has been curated.
Though always rich in natural resources, arable land and industrious people, it was not until the Saxon province was ceded to the Prussian empire by a mandate of the Congress of Vienna that administratively recreated Europe after the defeat of the armies of Napoleon.
Production, which formerly had not risen above the levels of cottage-industries, were suddenly objects of interest for Prussian robber-barons (the entrepreneurial geniuses who ended the Chinese monopoly on china through sheer determination and alchemy and the manufacture of textile and the growing of tobacco and sundry became more and more organised. Of course, wage, life-style and handicraft itself became diluted in the process. In response, a generation, some forty years into this new relationship native son Hermann Schultze (nee Schultze-Delitzch) founded many charitable organisations to look after the families who found themselves conscripted into this corporate entity, including hospitals and survivors' pensions—however, his most enduring and helpful establishment was a concept now known as the credit-union, a financial institution by and for its members. Such organic means were invaluable ways for workers to better understand the environment that they had become part of, and I wonder if going forward, similar community institutions by trial and error might prove instructive.

pot to kettle or once bitten

The US Treasury scolded Germany's economic policies and growth model with a barrage of seemingly well-crafted but empty soundbites that smack of some quasi-political, talking-head segment content-generator. The response of the German minister of finance of “incomprehensible” seemed more than apt, as the EU economic powerhouse suddenly found itself elevated above China and Japan as the usual prime targets of America's lecturing, pummeled with flowery-phrases the strongly criticised their apparent reliance on exports rather than concentrate on increasing domestic consumption.
Some how, this shift is supposed to help the rest of the Euro Zone pull out of its malaise, but I believe that Germany already is tapping its surpluses and success—albeit maybe not to the right degree—by helping to finance the burdens many European debtor nations have been saddled with, thanks in part to the tantalising, easy credit of US policies. One could argue that Germany's windfall comes at the expense of partner nations, but it seems to me that the complaint, considering the source—a former exporter that has out-sourced and off-shored most of that talent in favour of trying to oversee trade, that this forum is becoming more of an overture to malingerers (the EU having already been burnt by a flirtation in earnest with collapse and devolution), to adopt dissolute debt, which already shy to such schemes the EU is strongly against. Euros are awarded an effete and scholarly regard, unlike the dollar, and can neither be created nor destroyed by the constituency. Compounded with the unresolved conflicts over espionage and its creative justifications, it seems the US should not venture further.

vulgate or under lock and key

There are reports circulating that American intelligence services monitored and profiled the Pope during the highly secretive and sequestered Conclave, in order to assess the candidate's views on human rights and international relations and postures on US financial interests and overall direction of leadership.

Others among the suffragans and fore-runners were apparently targets of interest as well. It is already enough that there's spying on the mangy masses and secular leaders, friend and foe whether goals are mutual, compatible or at odds, but elevated to this level invites the audacity to imagine, whether or not implied, that observation smugly includes influence on the outcome. Other contests seem fixed and faked and only an elaborate exercise to appease the public, only undermined by such intense and covert scrutiny, but the perpetration at this height is too bold with its attributed paternalism. What do you think? Is this finally one step too far?

orient express

This week saw the inaugural train-ride under the waters of the Marmara Sea at the Straits of the Bosporus, linking the European and Asian parts of Istanbul with submerged tube line.
This ambitious project, engineered with the assistance of Norwegian and Japanese planners, has taken a decade to complete and opens several years behind schedule—due almost exclusively, however, to preservation efforts to safely retrieve the trove of artefacts, ancient finds from Roman, Byzantine and earlier eras, including shipwrecks and the sunken ancient harbour of the city. There have been other means of bridging the continents since, including the poor nymph Io, a victim of one of Zeus' many liaisons, who he turned into a cow in order to hide her from his jealous wife. Hera, however, saw through this deception and condemned the shamed nymph to wonder the earth, tormented by a relentless gadfly that prodded her onwards, never resting.
Io came to Asia at these narrows, whose name signifies her crossing, like Oxford (oder Oschenfurt)--that is where a cow could ford the waters, and eventually met another unfortunate, Prometheus, punished for giving mankind the gifts of foresight and fire. The tortured god told Io to travel to Egypt where she regained her human form.  The city, straddling both worlds, continued to represent a limit and a point of transition—more recently, a grand hall of a former railway station on Istanbul's modern harbour stands as the remains of the end-station of the fabled Orient Express, beginning in Paris. To travel further east, passengers would disembark here and take ferries to board trains of the Ottoman railways across the straits.

eagle's nest

The relative silence by the American media regarding its native intelligence agencies and their forays abroad is deafening. There are bits of domestic coverage that are mostly of an apologetic nature—other Anglophone outlets are understandably taciturn as well—but nothing of a hard-hitting or challenging nature from very pedestrian news sources.

There is an element of back-peddling, downplaying who knew what and when, the postulate that all nations conduct themselves in the same way—or would like to, that Europeans ought to be grateful to the US for keeping them safe or that the German chancellor uses in fact more than one mobile device—like many, and continued (justified) criticism that the chancellor, upon the premature advice of her intelligence chief that the scandal was over, was not overly concerned about the spying on regular hoi polloi until it got personal. Der Spiel (DE) with significant contributions from the Reuters service (EN), however unnoticed by US journalists presents a very comprehensive piece on the background and latest developments. Despite whatever graceful exits that might be suggested, the fact that the US Mission to Germany, its embassy in Berlin (built in 2008) just beyond the Brandenburg Gate from the Chancellery and consulates in Frankfurt am Main, Bonn and Leipzig, are outfitted with roof-top signals and reconnaissance stations seems rather indisputable. Even after the revelations of Cable-Gate, I was under the impression that diplomacy was not to be a den of spying, to whatever end, and that there were serious consequences for the violation.

poker-face or encephalisation quotient

Around a century ago in Berlin, local audiences, including scientists and emperors and the international public was coming to terms with what the latest object of fascination, much more than a side-show curiosity meant in terms of not only intelligence but for psychology. Around a decade prior, a school teacher, amateur phrenologist and some what of a charismatic, Wilhelm von Osten, bought a horse to hitch to a carriage he had had his eyes on. The stall available to him in the working-class neighbourhood of Berlin where he lived was too narrow to accommodate both beast and buggy and it turned out it the area was not the best to prance about, and so not discouraged, he undertook to teach his horse arithmetic, after repeated and at first accidental displays of precocity.
The world, still reveling from the recent publication of Charles Darwin's theories, had become engrossed with the idea of animal intelligence, and Mr. von Osten was more and more convinced that he had discovered the genuine article. With outstanding accuracy, the horse, Clever Hans (der Kluge Hans, after the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale), amazed audiences by clopping out answers to unscripted mathematical problems. The duo were a sensation and once learning that the Prussian emperor would have private audience, a scientific commission was called in order to avoid any royal embarrassment. The group, which included a top professor of psychology, a circus director, veterinarians and biologists, could find no explanation to the mysterious prodigy but also were convinced no trickery was involved. Besides, although he gained much fame, Mr. von Osten never charged admission or any other fees for his demonstrations.
The show continued, although, sadly Mr. von Osten died, under a new proctor, a business man who had studied von Osten's stage-presence and was enjoying some success in soliciting correct answers from Clever Hans. Hans' new owner even gathered a menagerie in a sort of equine classroom so Hans could impart his knowledge to others. The professor, however, who participated in the first commission was still mystified and launched a second investigation, this time with his students. Eventually termed the “Clever Hans Effect,” they slowly determined that the animals were quite clever though not in the ways the questioners had hoped, but rather became very good at reading body-language and non-verbal cues too subtle for audiences or skeptics to notice otherwise in order to get praise and rewards. It was a bit of a let down and Hans and his classmates were conscripted as war-horses and their fate is unknown. This effect, of course, affects all sorts of investigations and our ticks and tells give away a lot. It is funny to think also how well pets have their owners trained.

conspicuous consumption oder bishop of bling

Just on the heels of the Pope's overtures to Church leaders that culture must change and priests must rather be engaged with their communities and demonstrate charity, rather than living in Ivory Towers, it was revealed that the price for new residence for the Bishop of Limburg had swelled to some thirty-one million euro and included several architectural vanities. Of this extravagance and complaints of the bishop's autocratic, stand-offish leadership style, the Pope moved to place the bishop on indefinite administrative leave, while this matter could be sorted out. The Church has announced that the building will either be used as a home for refugees (Flüchtlingslager) or a soup-kitchen (Suppenküche) for the poor.