SAR #14328

Facts are irrelevant, this is about politics and money.

Your Slip Is Showing: Private computer security specialists have discovered a “highly sophisticated piece of spyware” - thought to be a key element in electronic intelligence-gathering - that was developed and deployed by NSA and GCHQ over the last decade, targeting government and industrial computers in Russia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Ireland, India, Afghanistan, Iran, Belgium and the various elements of the European Union. It has also targeted individuals, small businesses, telecommunications firms, energy firms, airlines, and research institutes. This is not malware, it is not there to disrupt (like Stuxnet did with Iran's nuclear program), it is there to collect information and send it home.

Tiddlywinks: When Texas says it has new history books, it is the history that is new.

Belief You Can Change In: Saintly Pope Francis has named a US priest who previously hid reports of sexual abuse by Chicago area clergy to be the Vatican's prosecutor of sex crimes. Takes one to know one? Turning the other cheek?

It's Not Over When It's Over, Part 6: The House Intelligence Committee Benghazi investigation report finding the administration did nothing wrong should be the end of the nonsense from the rabid right. But no. Just like the six previous government investigations, they came up with the wrong answers. Don't worry, Trey Gowdy (Rottweiler, SC) - head of John Bohner's select committee to pick at the Benghazi scab - says the current report “will aid the select committee's comprehensive investigation to determine the full facts of what happened in Benghazi.” Unless – once again – nothing is found, in which case an eighth investigation will be undertaken.

Laissez-passer: The Obama administration has released five Guantanamo Bay prisoners after an administration task force determined that, having been reduced a drooling, catatonic state by ten years of torture, solitary confinement and forced feedings, they no longer posed a threat.

Divine Right of Clings: Vladimir Putin says he does not want to be President of Russia for life, only until 2024. Optimistic fellow.

And The Winner Is: Over the past five years, the citizens of Utah were most likely to be killed by 1) gang bangers, 2) druggies, 3) child abusers, 4) spouses, or 5) police. Well, 'intimate partners', but just marginally more than the cops. And over the five years, only one of the police killings resulted in criminal charges – which were subsequently dismissed.

Lesser Included Charge: A Memphis gang leader, indicted by a grand jury for robbing other drug traffickers, is being charged with “interfering with interstate commerce.”

On The Order Of Things: The visceral, irrational hatred of Barak Obama is not based on anything he's done but on what he is a symbol of: he is not part of the acceptable pool of political leaders. It matters not that he is a mainstream Republican in action, he is not white, he is not upper class and he is not part of the established power establishment. He is a threat. He represents the other, them, those who want to take away white privilege. He does not represent an alternate, liberal political trend – he is the devil incarnate, come to ruin the land that God gave to rich white men.

More, And More: Britain's Home Secretary, claiming that the nation was under even more threat from “Islamic radicals”, is threatening to take away even more privacy from the proletariat in order to protect them. If only they'd been as concerned about home-grown pedophiles.

Porn O'Graph: Happy days are here again!