The main driver of the Internet of Stings may be to help insurance companies control people.

The article has the artificially light tone which, in today's mainstream media, is the obligatory substitute for standing for people's rights. But it ends by identifying a series of technologies that contribute to oppressive surveillance: portable phones, activity trackers, "smart watches", Internet of Stings, and cars.

I don't own any of those, and I don't tolerate them in my home or my office.

Children need to spend lots of time playing with other children, with no adults to interfere, in order to develop personal and social strengths. Today's controlling treatment by parents denies them this opportunity.

This article made me realize something about myself. I find myself at a loss for what to say to children, because I am disinclined to speak to them in the way adults usually do. The article says that the usual discourse of adult Americans towards children is dishonest and phony. I think a vague perception of that is what makes me reluctant to do it.

Diesel engines may be banned from UK cities to reduce pollution there.

The manufacturers lied to the public, including the purchasers of these cars. Will they have to compensate those victims for the costs of replacing these cars with non-diesels so they can drive into cities again?

Two Moroccan girls face criminal charges for kissing each other.

Sometimes it's Moroccan, but right now it is less rockin'.

Thugs are cracking down hard on pipeline protesters, and the US Army (under Obama's command) is backing them.

Obama said wants to let the pipeline advance "play out" for more weeks, but since his own men are joining the attack on protesters, those words misrepresent his actions.

Meanwhile, the US government is looking at "re-routing" the pipeline. That might avoid the secondary problem of destruction of archeological sites. It might alter the danger of water pollution, but can't eliminate it -- the pipeline will still have to cross the same rivers.

Re-routing certainly won't do anything to curb global heating. It won't get us off the path to defeat for civilization and the natural world. That's Obama in a nutshell.

"Why do we punish Dakota pipeline protesters but exonerate the Bundys?"

My conjecture is, because the Bundys are selfish bastards and the pipeline protesters are not.

That answer might seem flip, but it is actually a serious conjecture stated in flip words.