Tday

Consequence of increasing knowledge of the extent of U.S. government spying: "Brazil awarded a $4.5 billion contract to Saab AB on Wednesday to replace its aging fleet of fighter jets, a surprise coup for the Swedish company after news of U.S. spying on Brazilians helped derail Boeing's chances for the deal. ... The timing of the announcement, after more than a decade of off-and-on negotiations, appeared to catch the companies involved by surprise. Even Juniti Saito, Brazil's top air force commander, said on Wednesday that he only heard of the decision a day earlier in a meeting with President Dilma Rousseff. Until earlier this year, Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet had been considered the front runner. But revelations of spying by the U.S. National Security Agency in Brazil, including personal communication by Rousseff, led Brazil to believe it could not trust a U.S. company."
 You can't expect to play God over people's lives and not reap repercussions from your actions.

Push Back...
"A board set up to review the NSA's vast surveillance programs has called for a wide-ranging

overhaul of National Security Agency practices while preserving 'robust' intelligence capabilities. The panel, set up by President Obama, issued 46 recommendations, including reforms at a secret national security court and an end to retention of telephone 'metadata' by the spy agency. The 308-page report (PDF) submitted last week to the White House and released publicly Wednesday says the US government needs to balance the interests of national security and intelligence gathering with privacy and 'protecting democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law.' Panel members said the recommendations would not necessarily mean a rolling back of intelligence gathering, including on foreign leaders, but that surveillance must be guided by standards and by high-level policymakers."

How some of YOUR Christian brothers and sisters are surviving...

  What in 1983 would have required a professionally equipped animation studio was accomplished by a couple of north-central-Kansas farm kids in a week’s worth of spare time.

When I expressed my astonishment, my nephews shrugged. To them, the things they could do with their iPad—watch movies, shoot videos, mix music, animate cartoons, Skype their cousins in Hong Kong—felt normal.


 The reindeer travel to the sea in the north to calve, where they must sometimes cross the water to give birth on an island. “There’s nothing you can do,” says Clanet. “It’s instinct. They have to go there.” Whole herds can be lost to drowning, so the Sami rent boats and shuttle hundreds or thousands of reindeer across the expanse. The reindeer are harvested for skin, bones and meat (which is a luxury item), but wealth is not the Sami’s sole motivator. “They’re doing it not just for the money,” says Clanet. “They do it to exist.”