SAR #14080

We want people to like us unconditionally, without knowing who we are.

Manners: Don't you feel better knowing that Obama doesn't think going to war with Russia over Crimea would be “appropriate”, even though NATO defense planners view it as "no longer unthinkable."

Essay Question: Why do high frequency traders never lose money? ( Play our theme song while composing your answer.)

Where's Waldo? Facebook says it has a program that can accurately match a photo of you to any other photo of you – alone or in a group – 97.25% of the time. Just imagine what some evil government agency could do with that. And will. Or already does.

Bossy: Uganda's First Lady says that she is not personally acquainted with any gay cows which – to her mind – proves there is no such thing as homosexuality. Obviously this lady has never watched a herd of milch cows very long. 
 
Dragnet: According to the LAPD and LA County Sheriff's Department, owning a car in the LA area is reasonable grounds to suspect you are involved in criminal activity, even though the cops don't know quite what it is that you've done. Yet. But they're sure that if they watch you long enough, they'll catch you at something.

#censored: Upset that people keep posting recordings of his government's corruption on social networks, Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan is making good on his threat to ban access to Twitter in the country.

When You Gotta Go... Billy Graham’s daughter suggests that the missing Malaysia Airlines plane disappeared in a ‘small snapshot’ of the Rapture

Making Tracks: Caterpillar continues to disappoint, making it 15 consecutive months of declining sales as February's sales were down 8% from February 2013 (which had been down 13% from February 2012). Says something about the heavy construction and resource extraction industries, no?

Chinese Fire Drill: Goldman has joined other major banks in cutting its 2014 GDP growth forecast for China, expecting both export trade and internal consumption to fall as the world's second largest economy encounters “a bumpy road.” Bumps like megawealthy Chinese liquidating the luxury houses they bought offshore as tax dodges – in order to raise money against their borrowing, large firms defaulting on billions in bonds resulting in a 'bear raid' on the Hang Seng and a sudden drop in the value of the Yuan large enough to trigger tens of billions of losses for speculators bankers.

Ooops: Merrill Lynch has sent an appology to the Irish for underestimating the cost to the citizenry of nationalizing the losses of their four largest banks - by €47 billion. Or 800%, whichever seems smaller. And it wasn't their fault, because, because... But they did not offer to give back the 7.3 million euros they were paid for the advice.

Dominoes: There are 55,000 electrical power substations in the nation. If nine of them (properly selected) were to go out at once, the entire US electrical grid would collapse. And would be down for about 18 months – which is how long it would take to replace the big transformers (which are not made in the US anymore).

Next? How concerned should we be that Putin is “concerned” ethnic Russians in Estonia have to learn Estonian - which really does seem to be a hardship?

Porn O'Graph: They've got yours.

The Parting Shot:

 Ocean Surgeonfish, Acanthurus bahianus.