They can't do that to "legal" agents. "Legal" agents are US Embassy employees recognized by the host government as diplomats with immunity. "Legal" agents usually have some silly, trivial sounding titles, like, "The Under-Secretary for Cultural Exchange". But their real job is gathering intelligence, and the host country knows that and tolerates it. These folks are quite easy to spot: Just look for someone who is obviously way to intelligent and clever for his job. Like someone with a Ph.D. in international affairs from Harvard and Yale who is doing clerical work at the embassy.

Lots of intelligence work is actually quite boring, and not the James Bond stuff that you expect. The agents collect and assess political sentiment and economic developments and trends in that country. The CIA gives the President of the US a short briefing every morning for breakfast, and informs him if something is amiss somewhere in the world that needs his immediate attention. During this meeting the President also instructs them which areas he thinks need their "special attention".

When countries who aren't quite on the most friendliest of terms get in a huff, like Russia and the US . . . they will take turns tossing out some of each others' small fry "legals" described above.

The CIA Station Chief is not an occasional persona. That's usually taboo among allies. Russia knows who the CIA Station Chief is in Moscow. But they do not toss him out. The US knows who the SVR Resident is in Washington, as well . . . and leave him alone.

Tossing out the CIA Station Chief is a serious diplomatic escalation, which is why it is getting so much press coverage.

Oh, here's an interesting Pro-Tip: If a foreign diplomat wants to hand you a piece of paper with an explanation of why their country just did something very nasty . . . you don't touch it. You instruct him to read it out loud. If you put your hands on it, his country will report that you "accepted" the explanation. If you don't, you will only hear in the news that the diplomat "read out load" or "recited" the explanation. This is the next thing that you will hear about this, as the professional diplomats from Germany and the US try to paper over the cracks left by the spooks.

When the Germans discovered that the NSA had bugged Angela Merkel's phone, Obama kinda sorta said, "sorry", and it looked like the whole matter would have been forgotten. I would have thought that Obama would have told his spooks to lay off for a while. But instead, it seems that he has racketed up the spying on Germany.

Can someone tell me what Obama is trying to achieve by this? I mean, there must be some purpose behind all this. I just can't figure it out.

Awesome! Fryer University, as in bacon!

. . . do they fry up weed along with your bacon in Holland . . . ? That would be a formidable combination:

"Eggs, bacon, weed and Spam . . ."

Beavers are the Koch Brothers. They directly cause global warming by cutting down trees that safely sequester greenhouse gases. When they eat and digest the trees, the greenhouse gases are released again as beaver flatulence.

Beavers build dams blocking our natural beautiful rivers, which make our own hydroelectric facilities less efficient. This makes us more dependent on Big Coal, and forces us to build a nuke In Your Backyard.

Beavers build low-cost sub prime mortgage McMansions, which will cause another Savings & Loan bailout crisis recession.

Beaver rhymes with Bieber, and The Bieber is ripped to his tits on cough sirup most of the time.

Save the whales, nuke The Bieber.

I think it would be more appropriate to say, "It's a Sicilian Message. The first class sleeps with the fishes."

Not soft drinks, again, but maybe someone from LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy).

Apple is transforming itself into a luxury goods conglomerate.

Now what are they planning to counter Google Glasses . . . ?

. . . if you spy on your allies enough . . . you can make them your enemies.

. . . and if you spy on your own citizens enough . . . read "The Open Society and its Enemies"

This 4th of July, there might be some impromptu fireworks displays in France . . . or in Germany . . . but not in both. They are playing against each other on the evening of the 4th of July in the World Cup Tournament , and the winner team's fans will probably stage spontaneous celebrations . . . with fireworks.

. . . yes, sometime companies, do you, their customer . . . or in the case of Facebook, their product.

That seems like a wacky comparison to me.

Ok, but maybe Gravity made more money than their launch?

Or, maybe they didn't actually do the launch, but just faked it in a film, like those folks who claim that the Apollo landings were fake films made by Stanley Kubrick in Area 51 . . . ?

It reminds me of a quote from The Godfather II:

Frank Pentangeli: Your father did business with Hyman Roth, he respected Hyman Roth... but he never *trusted* Hyman Roth!

. . . just replace Hyman Roth with The Internet . . .