Eggs-propriation

How to blow an egg:

1. Gently swirl the point of your scalpel into the end of the egg, pushing as you go slightly, until it pierces.
2. Repeat at other end but continue to widen the hole at the other end by swirling the scalpel around so it chips away at the sides. Make it large enough to just insert the skewer.
3. Insert the skewer and jiggle it around a little to break up the yolk.
4. Place your mouth over one end, the other end over a bowl and gently blow into the egg. It might take a few puffs before it starts to come out, but once it gets going it will all come out with a few blows. If the yolk appears stuck, shake the egg and try the skewer again.
5. Now hold a finger over the bottom hole and place the top one under running water so the egg catches a little water. Shake it around a little and blow out again.
6. Leave to dry.
The result is an empty egg. It still looks like an egg, essentially unbroken. But the content has been blown out of it.

Taking for a change a slightly serious look at the broken/unbroken theme... and reeling from the awareness that so many governments in countries usually termed advanced seem at the moment incapable of dealing with with grim economic realities... I wonder if the problem might be that governments have become 'hollowed out', with just an empty shell remaining.

Globalisation is a widely discussed phenomenon in politics and international relations today. It is a wide and far-reaching subject, having many different effects on different types of states. The state itself is a widely contested notion in modern day international relations, the very existence and power of the state under wide scrutiny in the globalising world of today. There has been a claim by contemporary economists and writers such as Susan Strange that globalisation has reduced state sovereignty and power in decision making, leading to the 'hollowing out' of the state and the pooling of state authority in multinational organisations, transnational corporations and entities rising to global internet dominance. Her view is that states have lost their command over outcomes and their authority has diminished.

The reduction of political power; for example, of a member state on joining a supranational body, such as the European Union; of a local authority by national government; or of a state by global organizations such as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund.

Our Western democracies... empty shells? How fragile! Almost egg-splosive!