speaking with forked-tongue

Well, that escalated quickly. In the latest revelations to come out of the NSA scandal, it has been revealed that not only does the American intelligence service snoop on German communications to a much higher degree, the NSA has also utilized America's outposts, within and without, to spy in the old-fashioned sense on European Union institutions.
Not only were the diplomatic safeguards of EU business violated to conduct in the US subject to bugging but also back at home in Brussels by safe-houses within the neighbouring American controlled portions of the NATO Supreme Command. It would not be surprising if all such outposts, the lingering bases and consulates, were not retrofitted for the same purpose, since the attitudes of younger and older veterans remain, Cold War thinking and opinions that judge Germany's immigration policy as too liberal and too forgiving and made the country the locus of the 9/11 terror attacks in some minds. The spying on the EU and Germany cumulatively, however, suggests that America wants to head-off more than terror and anticipate policy and business changes, especially taking into account where such listening-posts are situated. Such a valuable upper-hand is not easily surrendered, despite the shrinking footprint of occupation and its public rationale for staying.

sunday drive: a jury of one's peers or next exit

Seeing that there was going to be a fleamarket in the town of Linsengericht on the way back to my workweek apartment, I decided to stop and find out what there was to discover in that place with the funny name.

Although the name probably refers to a “dish of lentils” like the biblical cookbook for surviving in the wilderness, I had heard of medieval ad hoc tribunals held in other towns and villages in this area in groves—called Zentgericht—and there's another place not far from here called Freigericht, which I don't think suggests something not a la carte. So I took Gericht for its other meaning, court, as in one has the right to trial by jury of one's lentils.

The fleamarket was a sad affair and it seemed that all roads led out of town and to the more picturesque city of Gelnhausen—I did not try very hard and I apologize to the Linsengerichters for not finding all what their town had to offer.
Discouraged I returned to the Autobahn but got off again at the next exit to marvel at Burg Ronneburg, dominating the gently ascending foothills that it lends its name to. The castle, first documented in 1231, played an important role in the protestant reformation for the region but also hosted the persecuted from other confessions, and ownership is still being swapped among royal houses to this day. Next time passing by, I think that this is another place for H and I to explore together.

the whole point of a doomsday machine is lost...if you keep it a secret

While there is word that US government computer systems are set on blocking access to this newspaper for fear that soldiers and bureaucrats might become a bit more informed or inadvertently participate in spillage (network-hygiene, it's called), undeterred by this potential loss of readership, the Guardian is reporting on how the former number-two in rank of the US Army leaked to journalists the methodologies behind an open-secret, admitting that the American cyber-offensive colluded with Israeli forces in order to sabotage Iran's nuclear programme.

To show that Justice can be a slow and deliberative process for one's own, these events first unfolded in 2010. This disclosure, unsourced beforehand, was a major scandal for both prosecuting governments, although all involved employed some very bellicose rhetoric—regardless what was behind the words, and instigated a regular witch-hunt among the press-corps and individual reporters were harassed with less indiscriminate and sweeping (not protected by the herd for protecting their sources) tactics in retaliation. These heavy-handed techniques, trying to out the sieve, resulted in a pointed diminishing of US standing in the eyes of the rest of the world in terms of press freedoms and transparency. Intelligence did not trickle down but came in a torrent from the top of the Pentagon, it seems. Deciding autonomously to share manoeuvres is of course a perilous and potential compromising choice, and not without the hubris that one sees the big picture, but the officer's rationale, while not all would agree it was right or sound, held that such weapons were not very useful as a deterrent if such abilities are kept incognito.

neudeutsche or bahnglisch

Sometimes I get very frustrated, after trying to formulate how to translate something in my head, only to have it paraphrased by a native speaker as, “Ja—das Meeting würde gecanceled.” Aber hatte ich schon das Satz gegoogled...
There was initiative taking place in the hallowed halls of the national German railway network, die Deutsche Bahn, to standardize signage and spoken terminology, insisting on consistency for in-house jargon on the pain of being written-up and for dealing with the public, to cater to international travelers with a mix of English and German, which seems to play out as a disservice to speakers of either or both languages. First, there was the newly labelled ,,Counters” as opposed to Schalter or Theke and ,,Service Points” are something different—Auskunft spots, I suppose but guests in the train station were put in a position to guess. There are hybrids like ,,Ausgang – City,” exit to the Stadt or complete inventions like Rail&Fly. Fortunately, the ministry of transportation is reclaiming much of this pidgin language and has ordered the reversion to proper German and less pseudo-English phrases. Not juried by linguists, I suspect, this constructed language was rife with inconsistencies and a source of confusion but it was interesting nonetheless to see how different conceptions, under the lesson of your grammar called “At the train-station,” were presented and understood.

the long now or end-station mellrichstadt

After decades of protest focused around the rallying point of Gorleben in Lower Saxony, a commission has been appointed to seek out other candidate locations to host this onerous and unending olympiad of atomic waste.
One place being considered among a list of many is the sleepy town of Mellrichstadt, on the border with Thuringia and not very far away from us.

The town is being considered because of its relatively sparse population and similarly geologically constituted for long-term stability. Besides the fact it's in our backyard, consideration probably discounts the fact that the Rhön mountains here are a range of extinct volcanoes, and, as with virtually any spot in Germany that may appear like a suitable place for the long-term sequestering of spent nuclear fuel, that surety is threatened by the ambitions of prospectors who peddle American-style fracking as a solution to help meet the goals of the Energy Reform mandate. Germany will not simply export its problems but dealing with not inconsequential by-products takes foresight and commitment, not necessarily to be conduced into accepting this toxic burden but also looking further down the line towards legacies that are hard to imagine or keep in perspective.

painting the roses red or mezzoamerica

Though not necessarily enjoying the moral high-ground due to their own speculative surveillance practices, China and Russia have little reason to dignify threats from the US over harbouring a fugitive from Justice.
Ecuador's bold and unflinching withdrawal, however, from a export regime, instituted to curb cocaine production, with America in response to sabre-rattling over its willingness to grant Snowden asylum is an act of standing up to bullies and the system deserving of one of those slow claps that gallop to a round of applause. The US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee has moved to deny the South American country preferential treatment in trade—something like a Most-Favoured status which is accorded to some 130 nations. The defiance is more than symbolic, since though they will find other willing buyers for their oil and other natural resources, the vegetable and cut-flower industies will take a hit. Ecuador even does its tormentors one better—not only rejecting this framework to end the blackmail but offering to repatriate or render the equivalent millions of dollars it has realised in benefits to the US to fund institutions and programmes in support of transparency, civil liberties and protecting the right to privacy.