SAR #13235

The cost of salvation is often too high; ask any addict.

Drip, Drip, Drip: The latest Snowden 'leak' details a secret internet surveillance base run by the UK in the Middle East, where it taps into and monitors underwater fiber-optic cables to intercept emails, telephone calls and web traffic on behalf of Western intelligence agencies. It is, of course, part of the war on the terror of private citizens having any privacy terror.

Misnomer: Turns out that trading options on NASDAQ Thrusday afternoon was not an option, nor was trading stocks. 
 
Here's A Plan: Instead of working to extend access to health insurance to the citizens of Wisconsin, Republican Gov. Scott Walker plans to cut more people from Medicaid under ACA – over 90,000 - than any other state. This is not a refusal to extend Medicaid to those intended to benefit under ACA, this is kicking 90,000 people off of the program. Wisconsin is one of only four states that will reduce their Medicaid eligibility. This is not a mater of money, for Wisconsin is turning down millions in ACA funding. This is simple meaness. Republican, self-righteous meanness. 
 
Paragraph 47(b) Subsection 381: Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America says that the Affordable Care Act will require gun owners to undergo electroshock therapy. And just in time, too.

Let Me Count The Ways: Here are a few relatively new feedback-loop candidates that will be drifing up the rate of global climate change: methane hydrates bubbling up from Arctic Ocean. Rapidly growing methane vents in Siberia. Methane release in the Antarctic. Warming permafrost. Warming peat bogs. Forest fires in Siberia and North America feeding ever more soot to come settling down on the Greenland Ice Cap. Warm Atlantic waters keep pouring into the Arctic, melting ice from below. The slowing of the thermohaline conveyor belt. And so on, possibly leading to a climactic Heinrich Event in Greenland, where it all falls apart in a massive surge.

Caveat: Investigators report that a baby in India "almost surely" is not spontaneously combusting. Almost surely.

History Lesson: A Kentucky theater owner has banned showing 'The Butler' because Jane Fonda, 'the enemy' aka 'a person of treason' protrays 'patriotic lady' Nancy Reagan in the movie.

Welcome to the Age of Denial: Today it is politically effective and socially acceptable to deny scientific fact. Long ago it was this way, too. Then we had a few hundred years of science and progress and now we're back to irrational beliefs and wish-fulfillment fantasies , lost in denial and seeking salvation through myths and blind faith.

On Math: Math is the language of nature, can predict the future, and its mastery is true power. It is also fun. And it can be abused. Is. 
 
Again: Between 2000 and 2012, working Americans wages did not grow. Not a bit. 
 
The Speed Zone Ahead: While geology sets the final limit to oil recovery, the effective limitation is primarily financial. The recent history of oil exploration and extraction is one of every scarcer resources ever more expensively found and extracted. The expense is both in monetary terms – it simply costs more – and in energy terms – it simply costs more. This is a one way street of every more expensive diminishing returns that will inevitably cripple our economy. No one knows what the downslope will be like, just that it is inevitable and no adequate (financial cost, energy cost, or energy effectiveness to replace liquid fuels) is in sight.

Asked &Avoided: Are the rich getting too much of the economic pie?  Define 'too much'.

The Parting Shot:

Chicory, Cichorium intybus.