Tuesday Miscellany! (#Syria #NSA #FISA #Oil #Zimmerman #Spiri #Kickstarter)

[maxomai]

• Syria has apparently agreed to Russia's deal and the United States is cautiously embracing it. Hopefully this means that we can avoid further American entanglement in the Syrian civil war.


• The NSA is, reportedly, going to release some of the secret FISA court opinions to the ACLU. I'm taking this with a grain of salt, since the NSA is apparently not obligated to disclose all the rulings, even in heavily redacted form. Meaning, the ACLU will probably end up with an incomplete and possibly misleading picture instead of no picture at all.


• The oil choke collar is asserting itself again.


• Why are the major news media so uninformative, and often seem so clueless? The depressing reason why is here.


• Shellie Zimmerman now claims that her husband George did not threaten her. Hence no charges will be filed. What remains unchanged is that he's still an idiot and the pro-gun side should still disavow him.


• The Spiri kickstarter has met its funding goal. I'm getting a robot! Yippie!

Comments

Unresponsive

[arkham4269.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the little interest in 'big events' is history since the 1980's has been one of powerlessness. Too often people demonstrate, get involved, try to make a difference and nothing happens.

Take, for example, that prior to Gulf War II we had the largest anti-war protests EVER (even over Vietnam) and we marched off the cliff anyway. People have been screaming for change and the GOP turns a ideologically tin ear away and continues to obstruct.

So I think a lot of people of a certain age have sort of given up while the younger people have enculturated the idea that their voice doesn't matter much. Sad when we see that change can be brought about by things like the Occupy Movement...before forces worked to margilize it.

Frankly I think the biggest story of our age is the subversion of the Fourth Estate. When they were their own self-service agencies, they at least competed with each other by trying to be the first to report the news. Now they are all just arms of corporations who not only want to keep us stupid, they just want ratings so they can generate ad dollars. Who cares what people are watching as long as they're watching...

...and what we should be watching (like sinkholes in Louisiana or tar sand fires in Canada) are being kept from even making it to the crappy "news" organizations we have.