US citizens: ask your congresscritter to support an amendment to ban the US from spending Pentagon money to arm Syrian rebels.

A spending ban is not airtight. When Congress banned spending money to aid right-wing rebels in Nicaragua, Reagan arranged for private arms dealers to ransom American hostages by selling arms to their terrorist kidnappers, then used the "private" profits to fund those rebels. Obama might try the same thing.

Still, the spending ban is a good step forward.

The SEC is prosecuting an underling who was involved in a massive fraud, but shows no interest in prosecuting the higher-ups.

I don't think it is wrong to prosecute Fabrice Tourre if he knew what he was doing. (I don't need to try to judge, for myself, whether he did.) The wrong is in letting the others off the hook, and failing to change banking law so it can't happen again.

A study confidently predicts 2.3 meters of sea-level rise per degree of increase in the global average temperature.

Thus, two degrees rise would mean many coastal cities are in big trouble. And it will require vigorous efforts to avoid even worse trouble.

'You Can Trust Good Guys to Spy on You': The Difference Between Bush's Spying and Obama's Spying, as Explained by 'Obama'.

US citizens: call on your senators to approve Gina McCarthy as head of the EPA.