Your Free Apps Feed Big Brother

Free Apps come to your phone at great personal cost to yourself. Most free apps suck information from your mobile phone, tablet, or laptop without your permission or knowledge. And this includes information you really would prefer to stay with you.

Police Vultures (The Animal Kind)

No, I’m not talking about the human vultures that you will find in any human organization. I’m talking about flying vultures that are under training with German police. It is planned, as should be quite obvious when reading any vulture’s job description, to use them in the search for dead persons in rugged terrain.

Wine For Christmas: Gum Arabic Vintages

You might be considering giving away some good bottles of wine as Christmas presents. Any wine aficionado will be thrilled by such a gift. On the other hand, you might want to reconsider once you know what is really inside a bottle of wine.

Was Eye Candy For Mojo

This post used to be about a play called Mojo by a guy called Jez Butterworth. Due to circumstances out of my control, this no longer is so. The content of this post has changed and to find out more you will need to read it further down. Please accept my apologies, but all shall be revealed.

Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde

Richard Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde (variously spelled as Tristan and Isolda, Tristan and Yseult, or Tristan and Ysolt) is the Romeo and Juliet of German opera. The mere mention of the names gives the connotation of unhappy lovers in a secret relationship with an unhappy ending. There are many versions of the story available that almost everyone has at least some idea of what is going on which makes it one of the ‘easier’ works by Richard Wagner to watch and actually know what is happening on stage.

Homosexuality Grounds For Granting Asylum

Homosexuality may be a reason to grant asylum to fugitives coming to the European Union. This was decided by the European Court of Justice. Three men from African countries had filed charges against the Kingdom of the Netherlands for recognition as refugees with the right to apply for asylum. Their home countries are known to punish homosexual acts with heavy prison sentences or even life imprisonment.

Refusing to Grow Up: Justin Bieber

2013 has not been the year for Justin Bieber. From beginning to end, he was intent on living his bratty phase to the fullest, probably something he missed doing at 15. Now, you would expect him to grow up, but he just showed that he is not yet ready to behave like a 19-year-old.

Intersex Children Allowed in Germany

Tradition demands that a child is born as a boy or a girl. Tradition ignores the fact that one in 2,000 children is born with characteristics of both sexes in varying degrees. Germany's government and parliament have listened to these people. It is now to become Europe's first country to allow babies with characteristics of both sexes to be registered as neither male nor female. There are good reasons for doing this, and some consequences that have yet to be sorted out.