US citizens: call on Congress to expand Social Security Benefits and tax rich people to pay for it.

If you sign, please spread the word!

Can someone please try traveling on Amtrak with a seat reservation and not giving a name? Or at least, not giving your real name? I would like to know if it is feasible to do this; specifically, whether the reservation requires a name and whether it requires ID.

China is taking over the business of building underwater communications cables. That means China can spy on the data.

I expect that the US also spies on that data. During the cold war the US used submarines to attack snooping devices to the Soviet Union's cables. Perhaps both countries are attaching such devices now to the cables made by the other country.

One should not make an excessive fuss about state espionage against hostile states, but these countries could well be listening to you and me.

If transmission on the cable is encrypted across the cable's whole communication system, such spying would be futile, but I'd be surprised if such encryption is in use.

If the atmospheric CO2 level reaches 1200 parts per million, which could happen with a century if unabated, it would trigger a positive-feedback cycle by eliminating stratocumulus clouds. That could cause an additional 8C of heating.

(satire) … Benjamin Netanyahu defended … his new alliance with the country’s far-right Aryan Supremacy Party.

Here are the facts being satirized: Netanyahu is making alliances with Jew-supremacist parties.

Jews have a long tradition of opposing bigotry, which is why some US Jewish groups condemned his move.