SAR #11267

Leverage works both ways.

The Future is Cancelled: The GOP's latest moral stand is to skimp on disaster relief, kill the government's efforts to develop clean cars, and increase 'donations' from Big Oil. If they put the government out of business along the way, that's a bonus.

Magic Act: Bahrain is holding an election to 'democratically' eliminate the leading Shi'ite opposition party from participation in the government. The opposition is resisting this Washington-approved charade to "maintain order and usher in genuine reforms."

Once Upon A Time: The NYPD's use of excessive force to disband the Wall Stareet protesters (who had already been herded into a compound park some distance from their targets) is but the latest devolution of what once was the right of the people to peaceably assemble in designated "Free Speech" protest zones behind chain link fences. The media, both print and electronic, including twitter, internet and cell phone providers, have cooperated with the authorities in regulating destroying the right to peaceful assembly.

Syrian Cyberwar: Running out of easy targets to gun down in the streets, Assad's forces are now using electronic means - cell-phone intercepts and tracking, surveillance of social networking such as Facebook and Twitter, and plain old internet monitoring to identify anti-regime individuals for arrest and disposition.

Beggar Thyself! Germany says it will be a decade before the Greek economy will become competitive. Will the German taxpayer support the Greeks that long? Will either populace accept a decade of suffering?

The Other Guy:The Pentagon's main mission is to prevent any significant cuts to the money it funnels to defense contractors - most of whom are clever enough to spread their operations across as many Congressional Districts as possible. The needed cuts must come from non-important, non-defense areas, such as veteran's benefits and public education.

Six Of One... In Alabama you get your choice, go to jail or go to church. In Alabama there's often not a great deal of difference between the two.

The Others: The world is in for a serious resource crunch. Never mind supposed supply-side salvations. It's the demand side that demands more attention than it gets. Populations in places like China and India want to be middle class – and there simply isn't enough stuff to go around. By 2035 China's 1.38 billion will use 80% of today's supply of paper – leaving but 20% for the other 84% of the world's population. How many more trees can we cut every year? And those same Chinese would gobble up 70% of today's grain production, again leaving 84% of the world snacking on 30% of today's production while waiting for... for supplies that are not going to be there. And so on. But don't panic. Thing's that cannot happen, won't.

Principal Principles: The US has agreed 'in principle' to lease or sell drones to the Turks to help them in the resolving their Kurdish problem.

Eunuch, Already: GOP Wannabe Rick Santorum says that "any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military." Rick should check out the birth rate at a nearby Army base.

This Little Piggy: Portugal has the highest number of expressway miles per capita in Europe. This has led, inevitably, to the population becoming increasingly dependent on their cars even though the country has good public transport systems. Does this have anything to do with their current debt problems? Probably.