bits of news

-- In France, middle-class homeless people have taken up residence in an abandoned office building. As why not? Economies being what they are in the wake of the financial collapse whose foundations no government has seen fit to rectify, it makes some sense ... poverty has its demands and those demands need to be met.

-- In Ecuador, apparently, people eat guinea pigs with the regularity that Americans eat hamburgers. But what happens when an American is confronted by a guinea pig on his/her plate?

-- In a case of shutting the barn door after the horse got loose, contracting firm Booz Allen Hamilton said today it had fired Edward Snowden for "violations of the firm's code of ethics and firm policy." Snowden, 29, is apparently holed up in Hong Kong after releasing information about the National Security Agency's and Central Intelligence Agency's farming of America's phone and Internet data. Snowden left the hotel he was staying in on Monday and his whereabouts are unknown, though he is believed to still be in Hong Kong, which has laws protecting individuals from extradition when that extradition is being exercised for reasons that exceed the breaking of law ... as for example, punishing those who exercise a critical posture towards government.

A petition posted on the White House website calling for Mr Snowden's immediate pardon has gathered more than 30,000 signatures.
However, an opinion poll commissioned by the Washington Post suggests a majority of Americans think government monitoring of phone records is acceptable if the aim is to fight terrorism.

"If the aim..."

Where is the proof to buttress the word "if?"