Geometry needs at least two points for a line. This being our second gathering in so many weeks (and second point) of must-read anglofritzed online goings-on, we should have enough points for an actual curve this time next week. Have you read something interesting on the trans-Atlantic scene this week? Do let us know. As for now, go ahead, jump in and get edified:

A new study on the ageing challenge and labor migration in the European labor market, Mind the Gap by Randstad and SEO Economic Research of Belgium (and fourth largest staffing company in the world), is being widely read and discussed by European policy wonks. Several of its conclusions, such as blaming the European social system for low-skilled guest workers staying on after their jobs have long disappeared, have been called provactive.

Joerg at the Atlantic Review takes blogs like Davids Medienkritik and SuperFrenchie to itemize mutual obsessions in what "remains weird and unfortunate that the German media is soo obsessed with the United States and that the US media is soo obsessed with France."

The Economist asks, Is Germany's Economic Boom Bypassing Its Eastern States? "To close the gap, eastern Germany must grow by more than the rest of the country, points out Karl-Heinz Paqué, a former finance minister in Saxony-Anhalt. This is already being done in areas around Magdeburg (car components), Dresden (electronics) and Jena (optics). The rest of Eastern Germany has only 12 more years to discover more such lighthouses."

Computers to Solve Stasi puzzle [BBC] "When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, panic-stricken Stasi officers had mountains of classified files to destroy. Unluckily for then, the shredding machines could not cope with the sheer volume of paper and broke down. So the Stasi resorted to ripping files up by hand. But the secrets did not die. More than 600 million scraps were recovered, put in sacks and stored. ...it would take them more than 400 years to finish the job by hand. Now, though, computers may speed up the solution."

Spiegel International reports Bush 'Plan' Likely Torpedoes G-8 Climate Agreement "Bush's plans are likely to be seen as a setback for Merkel, who wanted to reach an agreement on climate change at the G-8 summit. The timing of the speech, coming just days before the start of the June 6-8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, is seen as significant."

Europe Pushes to Get Fuel From Fields [NYT] “New and increasing demand for bioenergy production has put high pressure on the whole world grain market,” said Claudia Conti, a spokesman for Barilla, one of the largest Italian pasta makers. “Not only German beer producers, but Mexican tortilla makers have see the cost of their main raw material growing quickly to historical highs."