SAR #14150

“In the end, it’s culture that’s broken.” Quinn Norton.

Not So Fast: The NSA is building a “pre-crime” computer analysis system that will use factors such as ethnicity, gender, breathing, and heart rate, as well as webcam videos taken inside your house when you thought the computer and cell phones were turned off, to "detect cues indicative of mal-intent." That is, they want to know if you are likely to commit a crime in the future. The system is called “Future Attribute Screening Technology.”

Innovation: All winter the real estate shills kept saying the weather was holding back buyers. Now, with a seventh consecutive month of declining y/y sales, that 'pent up demand' has gone awol. The same experts claim the increase in 'inventory levels' ( ie unsold houses) will cause prices to rise. Hmm, oversupply leads to increases in prices. Interesting.

Re-enactment: Homeowners are hitting the Heloc ATMs again, as both home-equity loans and home-equity lines of credit are up 8% from a year ago. Its only $13 billion, but you have to start somewhere.

A Shift In The Wind? The House of Representatives has voted to force the DEA to stop raiding legal medical marijuana operations. If the states authorize the sale of marijuana for medical purposes, the federal government should not interfere. Besides, “Marijuana does not make people commit crime. It makes them overeat.” And even though it is not a crime, perhaps it should be.

Sticks And Stones: The ever thoughtful and well informed American public is far more woried about global warming than they are about climate change. Y'know, the climate's always changing, but it is getting hotter and that's a problem.

Protecting and Serving: An autopsy showed that the homeless man executed – shot in the back - by Albuquerque police was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. During a no-knock drug raid in Habersha County, GA, a SWAT team officer tossed a flash-bang grenade into a baby's crib. The baby is hospitalized in a drug-induced coma. In Oakland a school security guard dumped a handcuffed student with cerebral palsy out of his wheelchair. In Tulsa, a cop shot at a young man's car after the cop caught him making out on school property. 
 
Free Advice: If you get stopped and roughed up by a cop, call the NSA and see if they happened to catch the whole thing via your cell phone's camera. They can turn it on, and do.

Dog/Homework: Citi has acknowledged that it was way off in its guess as to what was happening in the economy and may have inadvertently caused you to lose money because they were flat wrong about where interest rates were going, but they are real sure they are right this time, so they've just changed the dates. 
 
Serving and Protecting: Acting on the deepset Republican belief that if someone can make a buck screwing the public, they should be allowed to, Bob Latta of Ohio has introduced a bill in the House that would prohibit classifying the internet as a public utility. Because utilities have restricted “flexibility” in pricing their services and making ever greater profits while providing ever poorer service. Like cable TV.

Unclear on the Concept: Sheri Few, a Republican running to be South Carolina's top education official, wants the schools to teach “the scientific theory of intelligent design.” Okay, but “intelligent design” isn't science, it's religion and it is not a theory, it is a belief. In her favor, this is South Carolina.

The Parting Shot: