Holyshit, what's going on with my reality?

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

Know i'm just imagining what those trees will do to koalas.*pictures koalas with blinged out teeth*

[Reginald Ret]

....and some biology craziness:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rosspomeroy/2013/10/23/money-cant-grow-on-trees-but-gold-can/

Plants as heavy metal accumulators are a fascinating option. I would think they are more useful for cleaning up toxic heavy metals because there their limited uptake has a real effect.

[Junkenstein]

Im not sure this would be any more efficent that current bioremediation methods

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioremediation (If you care)

What I can see this being used for more would be drill-less prospecting. Several trees over X area would reliably indicate a deposit of various things if I read this correctly. I say drill-less, you'd still have to bring in equipment to ensure the deposit is substantial enough to be worth mining.

There's also a touch of concern here that this is going to be used as quick justification for prospecting resulting in huge areas being cleared/mined for minimal gains. I'm just guessing there, but I doubt the forests in South America or Africa are going to get out of this finding untouched.

[Reginald Ret]

Im not sure this would be any more efficent that current bioremediation methods

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioremediation (If you care)

What I can see this being used for more would be drill-less prospecting. Several trees over X area would reliably indicate a deposit of various things if I read this correctly. I say drill-less, you'd still have to bring in equipment to ensure the deposit is substantial enough to be worth mining.

There's also a touch of concern here that this is going to be used as quick justification for prospecting resulting in huge areas being cleared/mined for minimal gains. I'm just guessing there, but I doubt the forests in South America or Africa are going to get out of this finding untouched.

Oh trees are horrible for this sort of thing, they grow too slow. I was thinking more of Algae and Herbaceous plants.

I care, thanks.

Well there's a horrible idea, fukken humans, stripmining my planet. Time to call the exterminator.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/28/21209499-us-coping-with-furious-allies-as-nsa-spying-revelations-grow?lite

The United States is scrambling to soothe some of its closest allies, angered as one report after another details vast American spying — including gathering data on tens of millions of phone calls in Spain in a single month.

The latest report, published Monday in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, said that the National Security Agency had collected information on 60 million calls in that country last December.

It followed reports in the last week that the United States spied on leaders of at least 35 countries, and even bugged the personal cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

German intelligence chiefs are preparing to visit Washington this week to demand answers, and the German Parliament on Monday called a special session for Nov. 18 to talk about NSA spying.

President Barack Obama has had to apologize to Merkel and to the presidents of France and Brazil. The Brazilian president was so angry she canceled a state visit.

The Obama administration and its defenders say that most of the spying is legitimate, for the protection of the United States and its allies.

In a statement Sunday night, U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said that a White House review is examining "the way that we gather intelligence to ensure that we properly account for the security concerns of our citizens and allies and the privacy concerns that all people share, and to ensure that our intelligence resources most effectively support our foreign policy and national security objectives."

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the administration should not apologize or be defensive. (more)

And then AND THEN AND THEN AND THEN

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/28/21212948-obama-americans-can-trust-fbi-director-to-balance-laws-and-liberty?lite

Obama: Americans can trust FBI director to balance laws and liberty

By Michael O'Brien, Political Reporter, NBC News
Americans can trust the FBI's new director to balance law enforcement against civil liberties, President Barack Obama said Monday.

The president's comments about James Comey, the new director of the nation's top law enforcement agency, came at the formal installation ceremony for Comey at FBI headquarters.

Obama lauded Comey, a former Justice Department official during the Bush administration, amid mounting scrutiny of the federal government's far-reaching law enforcement practices, specifically to counter terror threats.

"Jim has dedicated his life to defending our laws, making sure that all Americans can trust our justice system to protect their rights and their well-being," Obama said.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Spineless goddamn corporate media.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Spineless goddamn corporate media.

I dunno.  They stacked one headline directly over the other.   

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I've been doing a lot of thinking about Tiberius Gracchus.  His murder was the "one additional rat" that began the rather fast transition of the Roman republic into the imperial system.

Republics are delicate things.  Maybe a single assassination can do it, as in the case of Gracchus, or  maybe the revelation that the government no longer has any concerns for ANYONE'S rights anymore.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I keep saying that things are getting interesting, and people keep telling me that no, it's actually just business as usual and everything's going to die down without undue attention, as usual.

But I don't think so. I think things are getting interesting.

[Telarus]

I would agree with that...

Spineless goddamn corporate media.

I dunno.  They stacked one headline directly over the other.   

(I saw Kai post this on FB):
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/hunting-group-auctioning-off-the-right-to-kill-an-endangered-black
Hunting group auctioning off the right to kill an endangered black rhino
Hunting the endangered animal is about 'saving' it, says the Dallas Safari Club.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I would agree with that...

Spineless goddamn corporate media.

I dunno.  They stacked one headline directly over the other.   

(I saw Kai post this on FB):
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/hunting-group-auctioning-off-the-right-to-kill-an-endangered-black
Hunting group auctioning off the right to kill an endangered black rhino
Hunting the endangered animal is about 'saving' it, says the Dallas Safari Club.

Texas.   

Really, it's very difficult to explain Texas to someone who has never been there.  It's the place where logic and reason go to DIE.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I keep saying that things are getting interesting, and people keep telling me that no, it's actually just business as usual and everything's going to die down without undue attention, as usual.

But I don't think so. I think things are getting interesting.

I think we just had two very close calls.

The default, for example, which we missed by only a few hours.  Don't think "Great Depression", think "The Fall of Rome, writ larger".  There's a reason the GOP chickened out, and it had nothing to do with approval ratings.  It had more to do with the fact that wealth and power mean NOTHING if the world's currencies go tits up.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I would agree with that...

Spineless goddamn corporate media.

I dunno.  They stacked one headline directly over the other.   

(I saw Kai post this on FB):
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/hunting-group-auctioning-off-the-right-to-kill-an-endangered-black
Hunting group auctioning off the right to kill an endangered black rhino
Hunting the endangered animal is about 'saving' it, says the Dallas Safari Club.

Texas.   

Really, it's very difficult to explain Texas to someone who has never been there.  It's the place where logic and reason go to DIE.

HUNTIN IS BIDNESS.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I keep saying that things are getting interesting, and people keep telling me that no, it's actually just business as usual and everything's going to die down without undue attention, as usual.

But I don't think so. I think things are getting interesting.

I think we just had two very close calls.

The default, for example, which we missed by only a few hours.  Don't think "Great Depression", think "The Fall of Rome, writ larger".  There's a reason the GOP chickened out, and it had nothing to do with approval ratings.  It had more to do with the fact that wealth and power mean NOTHING if the world's currencies go tits up.

The part that makes me think things are getting interesting have nothing to do with financial crises or budget standoffs. The part that makes me think things are getting interesting have everything to do with the little countries that the US has always shat on, like Mexico, Spain, and France, publicly calling out the US for invasive spying. It's not the spying, it's the calling out. Because I think it's just the beginning of countries saying no, and the US isn't used to all these countries saying no. Usually when countries say no to the US, it responds by straight-up fucking them over, but right now it can't, and that is a bit of a paradigm shift that probably isn't going away because the US, despite its massive military spending, simply isn't the economy-setting world power it used to be.

[Demolition Squid]

I think you're probably right.

Its a part of the narrative the news is incapable of capturing. People say 'why are they acting surprised, this is business as usual?' OR 'Oh my gosh how terrible, this is completely unacceptable!'

But its even fairly large and powerful allies (despite what we'd have you believe, Germany is far more influential on the world stage right now than the United Kingdom) turning around and sending a message to the United States. Whilst the US was keeping everyone who mattered happy, they were willing to overlook such petty indiscretions - because I do not seriously believe that Germany, with a long history in surveillance technology, needed Snowden to tell them about Merkel's phone being tapped.

But what has the US done for us lately, right? The rest of the world is looking at the American two-party system pretty much devouring itself and the military floundering around, requiring mercenaries to prop it up... and I think they're starting to ask why they should let the US throw its weight around abroad when it can't even keep things together at home. There's also a lot of resentment that the current recession was largely brewed in the US, and a feeling they need to get their house in order so the rest of us can get back to business as usual. Which, nobody seems capable of managing.