A prominent Kurdish human rights defender was assassinated while talking to the press.

We don't know whether the Turkish state was responsible for the Elci's assassination, but we know it was responsible for his completely indefensible prosecution. The Turkish state has often engaged in violence, even fatal, against opposition political groups; this has gone on for decades.

Erdogan's party seems to have got PISSI to help out with a couple of handy bombings of Kurdish rallies. That doesn't prove it arranged the assassination, but I doubt it would have scrupled to do so.

The NSA's legal authority to collect everyone's phone call records in the US has just expired.

Will the NSA really stop?

I don't think phone companies should be allowed to keep records of all of everyone's phone calls, either.

Now that the EU has stopped Israel from passing off products of colonies in Palestine as "Made in Israel", Netanyahu has retaliated by cancelling EU participation in the "peace process".

The joke is that the "peace process" involving the EU is pure theater, just like the one that the US tried to broker. Netanyahu used them to pretend he wanted peace. Now he has "canceled" the remaining one, pretending that that makes a real difference and that it is a real punishment for the EU. Who knows, he may fool a few dumb klucks.

Netanyahu is pretending to have sabotaged a real peace process as an act of blackmail. If he had really done that, it would be despicable of him — but since it was a sham anyway, he hasn't really done anything. Somehow he claims that his pretense puts the EU in the wrong.

All this would be risible if the occupation and its effects were not so tragic.

The sham "peace process" shielded Netanyahu effectively from pressure for peace, while he made sure it would never get anywhere. Its demise is one shield stripped away.

People are already trying to spin failure in Paris as the start of a "long road" to curbing global heating in the future.

If only we had that much time to do the job! Slowness now will make doom come faster and harder. This article seems to reach for self-delusion to avoid despair.

Some of the New Atheists have become supporters of right-wing Christianist policies.

I am disappointed with them.

For the most part, in the West, Christianity is willing to coexist with non-Christians. But Christianism, as a political movement, is dangerous. There are plenty of Christian fanatics who are prepared to lie to stir up terrorism against abortion providers.