Law, politics and society

"To have [the law] revised, I accept, on the condition that nothing changes; or to keep it the same, I accept, but for minor changes here and there, namely in the essential points." — I.L. Caragiale

Highlights

• Rebels, Please Join Me in Wishing Emperor Palpatine Well (5 October 2020)
• Legalize It All (April 2016) How to win the war on drugs.
• Watch a Jaw-Dropping Visualization of Every Protest Since 1979 (26 August 2013)

Transportation policy

• Transport Isn’t Technology, It’s Politics (17 February 2017)
• How Washington Derailed Amtrak (17 April 2015)

Intellectual property / freedom of speech

• 15 Universities Have Formed A Company That Looks A Lot Like A Patent Troll (10 June 2021)
• I’m Being Censored, And You Can Read, Hear, And See Me Talk About It In The News, On The Radio, And On TV (26 January 2021)
• Publisher or Platform? It Doesn't Matter. (8 December 2020)
• Economist Detained for Doing Math on an Airplane (May 2016)
• What You’re Saying When You Use the Phrase “Politically Correct” (14 October 2015)
• Julia Reda – “Prison is a bit like copyright”, says jailed Pirate Bay founder (August 2014)
• Axe of Reason: You are not allowed to read this blog (May 2014)
• "Free" Does Not Mean "Exempt From Criticism" (11 November 2013)
• Children given lifelong ban on talking about fracking (5 August 2013)
• Why Sharing News About Solutions Is a Revolutionary Act (11 May 2013)
• When did locks become more important than the things protect (27 January 2013)
• RIP, Aaron Swartz (12 January 2013)

America

• Black Lives Matter protests have saved lives, study finds (26 May 2021)
• Los Angeles 1974: When America's culture war was won (30 March 2021)
• Bi Den (7 November 2020)
• America’s Next Authoritarian Will Be Much More Competent (6 November 2020)
• I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There (26 September 2020): Living in Sri Lanka during the end of the civil war, I saw how life goes on, surrounded by death
• A New American Manifesto (24 September 2020): a translation of America's original Declaration of Independence into modern English.
• We Don’t Know How to Warn You Any Harder: America is Dying (30 August 2020) We Survivors of Authoritarianism Have a Message America Needs to Hear: This is Exactly How it Happens, and It’s Happening Here.
• The Unfathomable Stupidity of Rich White Men (24 June 2020)
• ‘Under water or under a knee, we can’t breathe’ (11 June 2020)
• I Don’t Think a Woman Is Electable In 2020 Because Last Time Around the Female Nominee Only Got Three Million More Votes Than Her Opponent (30 December 2019)
• Jesus Wades Into Seattle Politics (29 September 2019)
• America, the Gerontocracy (3 September 2019)
• U.S. to leave global postal union next month barring last-minute action; exit could send global parcel rates soaring (3 September 2019)
• Amnesty joins countries issuing US travel warning over mass shootings (6 August 2019)
• Mauna Kea protests: what’s at stake for Native Hawaiians (24 July 2019)
• Quebec Bans Religious Symbols (July 2019)
• California AB5: State Assembly passes employee misclassification bill (30 May 2019)
• Ecuador legalized gangs like the Latin Kings. Murder rates plummeted. (26 March 2019)
• Call immigrant detention centers what they really are: concentration camps (9 June 2019)
• Welcome to ‘Zombieland’: A former US Army base rots in the hands of overwhelmed Afghans (1 March 2019)
• How the baby boomers — not millennials — screwed America (20 December 2017)
• What Explains U.S. Mass Shootings? International Comparisons Suggest an Answer (7 November 2017)
• It's time for a BLUEXIT (9 March 2017)
• Twilight of the Technocrats? (23 February 2017)

• Many school shooters, one common factor: a warped view of masculinity (2 October 2015)
• How we'd cover Ferguson if it happened in another country (15 August 2014)
• America Fails the 'Rule of Law' Test (July 2014)
• Kansas Republicans Want to Outlaw Any Free Speech They Don’t Like (10 March 2014)
• Della Wolf is B.C.'s 1st child with 3 parents on birth certificate (11 February 2014)
• Libertarian ‘Utopia’ Styled After Ayn Rand Book Spectacularly Falls Apart Almost Immediately (15 September 2014)
• New York City Agrees to Pay Occupy Wall Street $230,000 for Destruction of Library (4 September 2013)
• Self-Regulation: American Schools Are Failing Nonconformist Kids (3 September 2013)
• Detroit Receives Less Federal Money Than All Of These Foreign Nations (INFOGRAPHIC) (22 August 2013)
• Science and gun violence: why is the research so weak? (26 February 2013)

• Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy (29 December 2012)
• Michael Moore: Celebrating the Prince of Peace in the Land of Guns (24 December 2012)
• Corrections Corporation of America Used in Drug Sweeps of Public School Students (November 2012)
• A Holy Thursday (25 September 2012)

Europe

• Mental health ’emergency’ among child refugees in Greece (11 February 2021)
• Why Is the Netherlands Rioting Over COVID Now? (27 January 2021)
• Julian Assange: condemned by his own actions (18 August 2020)
• EU launches its own shock and awe campaign early (10 July 2020)
• Căpitanul Sea-Watch, arestat după ce nava a acostat forţat la Lampedusa (29 June 2019)
• German Locals Purchase Town's Entire Beer Supply Ahead of Far-right Music Festival: 'We Wanted to Dry the Nazis Out' (24 June 2019)
• The European Banking Authority Leaves London (31 May 2019)
• Italy Holocaust survivor Liliana Segre under guard amid death threats (7 November 2019)
• Likely next EU chief says she wants to end member states' veto on foreign policy (16 July 2019)
• DON'T TRY TO BREAK US–WE'LL EXPLODE : The 2017 G20 and the Battle of Hamburg: A Full Account and Analysis (8 August 2017)
• Anarchists Fill Services Void Left by Faltering Greek Governance (22 May 2017)
• UK tabloid reports of sexual assault by refugees in Frankfurt were ‘completely made up’ (February 2017)
• Mass sexual assaults by refugees in Frankfurt ‘completely made up’ (14 February 2017)
• Jürgen Habermas: The players resign (July 2016)
• Humanity adrift (1 January 2016)
• Marș și miting în Capitală pentru condamnarea violențelor împotriva femeilor (23 October 2015)
• Hein de Haas: Europe's disgrace (September 2015)
• This is Paris (14 January 2015)
• A cop in Ukraine said he was detaining me because I was black. I appreciated it (2 January 2015)
• Italian Far-Right Lega Nord Activists Almost Drown Attempting Stunt To Prove How 'Easy' Illegal Immigration Is (7 April 2014)
• Ces 10 cartes vont vous aider à comprendre la situation en Ukraine (21 February 2014)
• Poland and Lithuania Haunted by Their Involvement in Hosting CIA Torture Prisons (1 February 2014)
• Iceland grieves after police kill a man for the first time in its history (3 December 2013)
• Could more immigration compensate for Europe’s low birthrate? (13 March 2013)

United Kingdom

• Rotting fish, lost business and piles of red tape. The reality of Brexit hits Britain (23 January 2021)
• The moral hazard of the United Kingdom casually breaching the Political Declaration (February 2020)
• EU gives Boris Johnson ultimatum: Show us Brexit plan in 12 days or ‘it’s over’ (18 September 2019)
• Our political system is to blame for what's happening in Parliament (5 September 2019)
• Parliament suspension: Queen approves PM's plan (28 August 2019)
• Parliament to be suspended in September - BBC News (28 August 2019)
• No Deal Brexit will mean "dark, dystopian UK" (26 February 2019)
• Letter From Nanette — Or How Brexit Came Home (4 February 2019)
• Flash forward to Boris Britain (23 July 2019)
• The time has come to revoke Article 50 (21 December 2018)
• This fantastic response to Theresa May’s Brexit letter is going viral (26 November 2018)
• Dear Theresa May (25 November 2018)
• As a British EU negotiator, I can tell you that Brexit is going to be far worse than anyone could have guessed (28 July 2018)
• PPE: the Oxford degree that runs Britain (23 February 2017)
• Brexodus has begun. We EU nationals know staying on is too big a gamble (29 June 2017)
• Britain’s politics and politicians are unhinged and the economy is in trouble (18 June 2017)

World

• This Is What It's Like to Live in a Country ‘That Doesn't Exist’ (24 March 2021)
• Akihito to become first Japanese Emperor to abdicate in 200 years (30 November 2017)
• It’s ever so simple: a tribal map of the Middle East (March 2013)
• Two Swedes Renditioned To The US, Possibly To Death Penalty, In Secrecy And Without Lawyers’ Knowledge (4 January 2013)
• Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US (4 December 2006)
• THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: WEAPONS SEARCH; Iraqis Removed Arms Material, U.S. Aide Says (29 October 2003)

Ethics

• Justice (1 September 2021)
• On seafaring, frameworks, and ethics (5 March 2021)
• The future as a lock, futures as the key (2 March 2021)
• Law is not magic – and lockdown regulations are not spells (19 December 2020)
• You Have No Obligation To Conform To A Wildly Sick Society (14 December 2020)
• 6 Ideas for a Cop-Free World (2 June 2020)

Democracy

• Fighting Fascism One Spray at a Time (18 June 2020)
• Democracy isn’t working: five ideas that are already helping to fix the problem (10 June 2020)
• Why we need to reinvent democracy for the long-term

Liberalism

• The Dangers of Elite Projection (July 2017)
• The People You Won’t Meet (15 March 2017)
• 6 Big Differences That Turn City Dwellers Into Liberals (18 February 2017)