hen party or turkey in the straw

In response to the fires that have ravaged the country side and to record droughts, which in part some claim were perpetuated by laxer fire services than in Soviet times, Russia has stopped all exporting of grain. This I imagine will send shudders through the markets, raising the price of beef, beer, and sundry. Such gossip, like the price of tea in China, makes me always wonder what the common currency that it is financial people barter with. Meanwhile, criticism may have been fairly leveled over the response, but temperature extremes are unprecedented, even in Soviet times, though neither record-keeping nor the Soviet Union are not so long-lived as the weather. The preternatural may become the mundane controlling factor for money, as if previously disasters like flooding and famine were only marginally counted in terms of relief and rebuilding and charity portfolios.

Environmental soundness, above and beyond keeping the alive and sustainable for future spending, will be the biggest thing going and will soon outpace the military-industrial complex and defence spending.  Big Green, however, I hope would be incorporated on more sound and friendlier principles and not exploited as a means to influence and orchestrate sovereignty and choice. It took businesses eons to froth up the clout to dicate policy to people and governments, and I hope that genuine ecological stewardship won't be abused in the same way. Some augeries that world economies are verging towards a period of deflation.  The scholarly embellishments that go with a seemingly simple direction are very ornate, like a wind-rose.  Among other things, like making money worth more, deflation also, because it dampens the collective risks and rumours of risks that dissuade people from saving and expend their nervous energies on chancy schemes, could put an end to the gossip and back-biting.

mass-transit

Almost as refreshing as honest-to-goodness flying cars and loads better than a superfluous monorail, a couple of months back at the Beijing High-Technology Expo, a new concept for public transportation, a sort of straddle bus, had its premiere.  As China Hush reports, this high clearance chassis speeds passengers over the top of regular traffic without the need for a dedicated lane, displacing property alread curb-side, and at a fraction of the cost of digging subway lines.  This alternative means of getting around, besides being generally non-intrusive, passive unlike underground tunnels or ever-expanding ride share lane schemes, the busses further could realistically be made to run off solar-power.  Still, I think it is an impressive feat of civil engineering for German trolleys to share the road with cars.  I think that this is pretty keen and may help cut down on urban congestion, especially in the suburbs that have become launching pads, flyaway zones into the snarl.

pen-pals

After reading about how the US Federal Bureau of Investigations issued a take-down notice to Wikipedia--possibly confusing the web site with Wikileaks--to stop using its departmental logo in its article on the FBI, to which Wikipedia politely but firmly refuted by disabusing the FBI of its wrong interpretation of copyright law and public domain, I thought again about how stretched thin resources and bloated ambitions must be in the intelligence services.  Now the EU has been pressured to adopt a less-fortified version of the treaty to exchange banking data with the US, and analysts may be monitoring and archiving the length and breadth of all transactions soon, all in the name of fighting terror.  This dragnet will maybe nab some tax-dodgers, saving Germany from paying for another ill-gotten CD-ROM from a Swiss bank.  In conjunction with repeated volleys at the slouching towards Bethesda administration and reduplication of the US intelligence services overall, I wonder how useful this new mission could possibly be or is it just buring more shortcomings under other heaps of raw data.  Curious, I examined, through Wikipedia's article, the FBI's charges as compared to its successes:

Currently, the FBI's top investigative priorities are:

1.Protect the United States from terrorist attack
2.Protect the United States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage
3.Protect the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes
4.Combat public corruption at all levels
5.Protect civil rights
6.Combat transnational/national criminal organizations and enterprises
7.Combat major white-collar crime
8.Combat significant violent crime
9.Support federal, state, local and international partners
10.Upgrade technology for successful performance of the FBI's mission.

In August 2007, the top categories of lead criminal charges resulting from FBI investigations were:

1.Bank robbery and incidental crimes (107 charges)
2.Drugs (104 charges)
3.Attempt and conspiracy (81 charges)
4.Material involving sexual exploitation of minors (53 charges)
5.Mail fraud – frauds and swindles (51 charges)
6.Bank fraud (31 charges)
7.Prohibition of illegal gambling businesses (22 charges)
8.Fraud by wire, radio, or television (20 charges)
9.Hobbs Act (Robbery and extortion affecting interstate commerce) (17 charges)
10.Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)-prohibited activities (17 charges)

There seems to be a bit of a disconnect, and I doubt that deputizing every second US citizen as a spy and informant and being able to comprehensively and seemlessly babysit every hobgoblin could result in a decisive victory over terrorism.  How was public corruption fought or civil rights protected?  After all, it was not the work of a glamourous, glancing of Hollywood agent that foiled the Shoe Bomber or the Underpants Bomber but the slight viligance, attentiveness of the passenger sitting next to them.

double-rainbow

Though the heat en route was oppressive, I am glad that H and I were able to enjoy the sun and the sand and the summer weather last month, since it seems that Sommer ist vorbei—or at least delayed on account of rain. It has been a real shock to the system, this mercurial heat replaced by sultry dampness stock-still, and people are struggling with summer colds. The weather needs to be redirected to Russia where fire-fighters are battling encroaching flames on the periphery of Moscow and countless villages have been grazed by uncontrolled fires. I hope they can curry some relief. Meanwhile, undetered, we are planning a few get-aways nearer to home, planning maybe to visit the ancient city at the confluence of rivers, and aptly-named, Regensburg, and seeing the monument at Valhalla or perhaps some tamer river-rafting on the Danube.

location scout

Hollywood is in the pre-production phases of a period adventure, a new version of the Three Musketeers starring Orlando Bloom, Christoph Waltz and Milla Jovovich, which will be at least in part filmed in the nearby cities of Würzburg and Bamberg, both beautiful and rich in history. Later this week, there will be a casting-call for extras. I am pretty excited about the exposure and augmented appreciation this will bring for this part of Franconia, but at the same time, I have a protective instinct for these places. I have remarked that both Würzburg and Bamberg have some excellent and authentic shoots to offer, and these places are not exactly undiscovered but neither are they over-run with tourism and too-common parlance.

I had wanted these streets as back-drops for independent movies or at least to tell the stories that Würzburg or Bamberg have to tell, and not some transplanted, ersatz swashbuckling in three-dimensions: the Peasants' Revolt, political intrigues with the Electoral College of the Prince-Bishops, the castle and the keep, Celtic monastics, the discovery of the x-ray, the invention of radar, the fire-bombing post Dresden, the US occupation, the art and architecture. I ought to work up a treatment myself, though H and I can be the perfect wall-flowers in the meantime.

skullduggery

Failure to adapt to changing economic conditions, both on the part of predators and prey, give license for a lot of failed schemes to stick around like blots of quicksand: pawn shops, bail-brokers, pay-day loan offices and other lending sharks intent on unending swim.  This too has made those forces determined to glean whatever profits they can from one's privacy even more firmly entrenched and desparate to try the most distasteful and tactiest of tacits.  I imagine that tombstones (pepperoni and cheese) of the future will be equipped with USB ports where visitors can plug in and download the archives of departed loved ones' tweets and other exhaustively monitored cyber spasms.  Reminscing, of course, will be peppered with targeted advertizing.  The interwebs will be a very poor executor and not many secrets will be secreted away.

minority report or farce protection

As Wired Magazine reports, Google and the CIA are exploring a partnership with a cyber-security firm, which I am sure was already double-dipping and in the rolls of the Washington Post's revealing exposé on US intelligence's poorly-constructed parade float of an operation, that promises to deliver reconnaissance on future crimes. By trawling blogs, tweets and other social networking sites, the firm hopes to project and predict potential threats before they happen through examining the broader network of connection and links. I was under the impression that intelligence analysts fight crimes by looking at these same context clues and making projections. With all the other surplus and redundancy, it is a challenge to imagine that these techniques could produce anything original and would only reduplicate different drafts of the same information already in circulation. I am not sure what Google's interest in this enterprise is. Besides the role of technical advisor, as the company reinvented Project Keyhole as Googlemaps and makes it freely available though with possible, I can only think that such prognostication could maybe catch future file-sharers and copy-fighters. For the intelligensia, possibly the biggest benefit could be in plugging leaks and nabbing the snitches.

Oedipus Rex or was not was--everybody do the dinosaur!

The Sphinx challenged Oedipus on the road to Thebes with a riddle: what creature walks on four legs, then two, then three? Paleontologists have found themselves confronted puzzle, as New Scientist reports, and this is really mind-blowing and disabusing. Certain specimens that researchers have always held to be examples of different species may actually be the same animal at different stages of growth and development. If people did not have the experience of frogs and butterflies contemporarily, who would have thought to connect them to fossil evidence of tadpoles or caterpillars?