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, A Lost Letter

Media sources:

• Vox — Understand the News
• McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Daily humor almost every day since 1998.

Highlights

First, an Intro to politics (24 September 2022).

Then, some thoughts on policing...

• On a world without police (17 June 2020)
• 6 Ideas for a Cop-Free World (2 June 2020)

...And related to that:

• 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)

Ethics

• Imprisoned for Your Safety (13 February 2022) — via Melanocarpa
• Justice (1 September 2021)
• On seafaring, frameworks, and ethics (5 March 2021)
• The future as a lock, futures as the key (2 March 2021)

Intellectual property / freedom of speech

• Opinion: I don’t think you should have rights, but that’s no reason to be mean to me (28 April 2022)

What the New York Times doesn't get about free speech and "cancel culture" (18 March 2022) In a editorial, the board equates book-banning with "social silencing" people for bigoted opinions

• 15 Universities Have Formed A Company That Looks A Lot Like A Patent Troll (10 June 2021)
• 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)
• Why Sharing News About Solutions Is a Revolutionary Act (11 May 2013)
• RIP, Aaron Swartz (12 January 2013)

And a really old link: Why Copyright & Patent Laws Go Against How We Create (12 August 2012)

America

The oldest government in history America’s gerontocracy is disconnecting Congress from the rest of the country, an Insider data analysis reveals.

Only Fools Replay Doomsday (21 January 2022) William Astore says the rise of a new Cold War must revive the push for nuclear disarmament.

• Los Angeles 1974: When America's culture war was won (30 March 2021)

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 S*****ity of Rich White Men (24 June 2020)
• 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)
• 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)

Twilight of the Technocrats? (23 February 2017) Technocratic liberalism prides itself on having no ideology to speak of — which is itself the most dogmatic ideology of them all.

• The Future Is Not American (26 October 2015)
• Many school shooters, one common factor: a warped view of masculinity (2 October 2015)
• Kansas Republicans Want to Outlaw Any Free Speech They Don’t Like (10 March 2014)
• New York City Agrees to Pay Occupy Wall Street $230,000 for Destruction of Library (4 September 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

• Julian Assange: condemned by his own actions (18 August 2020)

Don't Try To Break Us–we'll Explode (8 August 2017) The 2017 G20 and the Battle of Hamburg: A Full Account and Analysis

• This is Paris (14 January 2015)
• 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)

Refugee crisis

• Căpitanul Sea-Watch, arestat după ce nava a acostat forţat la Lampedusa (29 June 2019)
• Humanity adrift (1 January 2016)
• Hein de Haas: Europe's disgrace (22 September 2015)
• Italian Far-Right Lega Nord Activists Almost Drown Attempting Stunt To Prove How 'Easy' Illegal Immigration Is (7 April 2014)
• 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)

EU launches its own shock and awe campaign early (10 July 2020) For some weeks the British government has been planning a “shock and awe” campaign to warn British businesses that they have less than six months to prepare for Brexit; but the EU has beaten them to it.

• 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)
• Brexodus has begun. We EU nationals know staying on is too big a gamble (29 June 2017)

World

• This Is What It's Like to Live in a Country ‘That Doesn't Exist’ (24 March 2021)
• 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)

And a very old link:

• Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US (4 December 2006)

Democracy

• I led the campaign that helped unseat Slovenia’s right-wing prime minister (4 May 2022)
• 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)
• Italy Holocaust survivor Liliana Segre under guard amid death threats (7 November 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)
• Why we need to reinvent democracy for the long-term (18 March 2019)

The City Corner

"We have laws to ensure sufficient parking, but no laws to ensure sufficient parks."

Publications to read:

• Weelz.fr: Le web média vélo leader de pignon!
• Shareable People-powered solutions for the common good

Highlights

• Bucharest - Asymptote (April 2016)
• Panorama of the City of New York (November 2013)
• The city with grand designs
• Carsystem Technology - model building - model railway Hamburg

Transportation

• Accidentally On Purpose (14 April 2022)
• Street pedestrianization in urban districts: Economic impacts in Spanish cities (December 2021)
• The O-bahn Busway – Obscure Transit For The Masses (10 September 2020)
• Barcelona is redesigning 21 downtown streets to prioritize people, not cars (13 November 2020)
• The Magic of Red Painted Bus Lanes (7 June 2019)
• “Birmingham isn’t a big city at peak times”: How poor public transport explains the UK’s productivity puzzle (31 January 2019)
• Gratuité des transports publics : une idée pas si «stupide» (12 October 2018)
• Uzbekistan's Secret Underground 📷 (16 August 2018)

And an older one: How to Restore Walking as a Way of Life (14 October 2014)

Urbanism

People On This Group Are Sharing Examples Of ‘Urban Hell’ That Look Like A Dystopian Movie But Are Sadly Real (40 Pics) (24 June 2021) I have comments on so many of those photos.

• Revealed: the insidious creep of pseudo-public space in London (24 July 2017)
• Why even driving through suburbia is soul crushing (10 June 2016)
• Lessons of DIY Urbanism in a Syrian Refugee Camp (18 July 2014)
• Shared Space and Slow Zones: Comparing Public Space in Paris and New York (14 May 2014)

Cities

• Forest Foundation: The 10,000,000 Underwater Logs that Hold up Venice (26 June 2018)
• Ghost Streets of Los Angeles (4 December 2015)
• A New York Writer's Take on How His City Has Changed (15 November 2015)
• London opens a bar where you can pet owls (26 February 2015)
• Scenes From The World's Northernmost Big City—A Polluted Hell On Earth (24 June 2014)
• The Depressing Industrial City of Norilsk (21 June 2014)

And a handful of too-old links:

• The (Secret) City of London (23 July 2012)
• Never-before-seen photos from 100 years ago tell vivid story of gritty New York City (24 April 2012)
• The Ghosts of Old London 📷 (26 December 2010)
• A visit to the electronics markets of Shenzhen (3 March 2009)