SAR #13212

Cost-effectiveness depends which costs you care about.

Half A Loaf: PFC Bradley Manning has been found not guilty of 'aiding the enemy' but faces over 100 years in jail for the 19 lesser charges - half of which he has plead guilty to. Send him a Thank You note.

Gimmie Shelter: Case-Shiller reports that house prices have risen 12.7% y/y - and that was less than expected! Prices, not values. Sucha price rise is "not normal, not sustainable, and... not very believable." The price rise reflected by the C/S index over the last three months is the fastest pace of annual price acceleration since 2006. At the same time, US home ownership has fallen to 65% from the 69.2% reached in 2004. Y'think this movie'll come out the same again this time?

Just Do It: Over the next 5 years the US needs to spend about a trillion dollars on repairing and replacing the nation's infrastructure. Given incredibly low interest rates and incredibly stubborn unemployment, now might be a good time to do something useful all the way 'round.

Goose, Not Gander: American Robert Lady, who helped kidnap a man from a Milan street and send him off to the CIA archipelago to be tortured, has been convicted by an Italian court and an international warrant for his arrest has been issued. American Edward Snowden released information revealing how extensively the government was spying on its citizens. Guess which one the US government is hiding from prosecution.

A Nation of Laws: The nation's eavesdropper in chief, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, has admitted that agencies under his direction have ignored “court orders on phone record collection.” Among other things...

Roll Model: In the last two years Jamie Dimon's JPMorgan has paid nearly $7 billion in fines for the various crimes it has mostly gotten away with. [$7 billion is chump change to the too big to flail banksters.] Most recently they paid the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission $420 million for rigging electricity rates. No one has gone to jail and no one has had to give back their bonus money.

Crocodilian: BP warns that the cost of the “Gulf accident” will eventually exceed $42 billion, which will eat into its profits (even after it writes it all off its taxes, which it doesn't pay anyway). So they are turning to the courts to toss out many “fictitious” and “absurd” claims. And they'll drag claimants through any legal process available the get the injured to accept pennies on the dollar. Or just go away.

Testimonial: Florida's education chief, Republican Tony Bennett, has ordered his staff to find grounds he can use to “wiggle myself out of the repeated lies I have told over the past six months” about charter school client Christel House.

Porn O'Graph: Picture/words.