SAR #14152

“Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours.” Carl Sagan

Let's Review: Things you know now that you didn't know before Mr. Snowden told you: The NSA intercepts computers and servers in order to insert Trojan horses. It can and does get into your computer, even if it is not connected to the internet. Its analysts can watch you as you type your emails – they don't have to break your encryption. They can track you through your cellphone and can turn on your phone's mike and camera whenever they want to do so. They now have a database that tracks your credit and banking information. And they are gathering huge numbers of images of people from all over the world and putting them through facial recognition programs. Yes, Big Brother is watching you. Ever more closely.

Hold Your Water: The Turkish government, taking a break from trying to crush popular dissent at home, has cut off the flow of the Euphrates River into Syria and Iraq. A little friendly persuasion, much like Hagihon, an Israeli water company, which has cut off running water to 80,000 Palestinians in Jerusalem for three months. An Israeli court has given them 60 more days to settle things. 
 
Prescience: This week the administration is going to announce regulations aimed at lowering the amount of carbon dioxide US power plants spew into the atmosphere. Republicans and businesses have already decided that these moves – whatever they might be – are not needed and too expensive. Same old song. 
 
Introspection: Neither capitalism nor consumerism made the progress and pathologies of the last few centuries possible. It was fossil fuel; first coal, then oil and now gas. Our economic ideologies pretend to explain and justify the system that all that excess energy made possible. Once the accessible fossil fuels have been burned, our social, economic, and political systems will collapse. As will our immense population. That era is fast approaching. Despoiling the Amazon rainforest and polluting great stretches of Africa and eventually the Arctic will not prevent this from happening. New reserves solve nothing. They do not end our hunger for resources; they exacerbate it and will simply make the disaster worse and more assured. The inescapable failure of a society built upon continuous growth and its concomitant destruction of the Earth's living systems is our future.
 
Bully: Given that Country A wants to fine a company in Country B $10 billion for doing business in Country C, your job is to morally justify Country A's behavior, with “Because we can.” being disallowed. 
 
Porn O'Video: Big Brother is, in fact, watching you.

The Parting Shot: