January 2015 – Page 2 – Amalgamated Contemplation

Shocking: CIA clears CIA in Senate hacking brouhaha | Ars Technica

CIA snooped on Senate staffers investigating CIA torture practices.

The review board concluded there was simply a misunderstanding, that the CIA believed it could search the computers being used by staffers of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. … The review said that the CIA’s position was that it had “obligations under the National Security Act” and a legal duty to scour the computers “for the presence of Agency documents to which SSCI staff should not have access.”

Source: Shocking: CIA clears CIA in Senate hacking brouhaha | Ars Technica

The ‘most compelling data set I’ve seen’ shows The Kalamazoo Promise works | MLive.com

A middle-class student who graduates from Loy Norrix High School is more likely to complete the first year of college than his or her middle-class peers at Mattawan, Portage Northern or Gull Lake high schools.

Source: The ‘most compelling data set I’ve seen’ shows The Kalamazoo Promise works | MLive.com

What Happens to a Woman’s Brain When She Becomes a Mother – The Atlantic

From joy and attachment to anxiety and protectiveness, mothering behavior begins with biochemical reactions.

Source: What Happens to a Woman’s Brain When She Becomes a Mother – The Atlantic

The Tragedy of the American Military – The Atlantic

The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can’t win.

A people untouched (or seemingly untouched) by war are far less likely to care about it,” Andrew Bacevich wrote in 2012. Bacevich himself fought in Vietnam; his son was killed in Iraq. “Persuaded that they have no skin in the game, they will permit the state to do whatever it wishes to do. to do.

Source: The Tragedy of the American Military – The Atlantic

I think this is a very important point, possibly the most important point in the article. Those men, women, and students who actively protested the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were largely those who cared a lot about the lives and wellbeing of those in *other* countries. Their numbers would surely have been much higher had the average American personally known someone who had a significant chance of becoming a combat casualty.