Rahm Emanuel: Symbol of a Sick America.

Boycott, Divest and Sanction Corporations That Feed on Prisons.

According to the article, corporations currently exploiting prison labor include Abbott Laboratories, AT&T, AutoZone, Bank of America, Bayer, Berkshire Hathaway, Cargill, Caterpillar, Chevron, the former Chrysler Group, Costco Wholesale, John Deere, Eddie Bauer, Eli Lilly, ExxonMobil, Fruit of the Loom, GEICO, GlaxoSmithKline, Galxo Wellcome, Hoffmann-La Roche, International Paper, JanSport, Johnson & Johnson, Kmart, Koch Industries, Mary Kay, McDonald’s, Merck, Microsoft, Motorola, Nintendo, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Quaker Oats, Sarah Lee, Sears, Shell, Sprint, Starbucks, State Farm Insurance, United Airlines, UPS, Verizon, Victoria’s Secret, Wal-Mart and Wendy’s.

I'm not going to boycott all of them, but I will boycott some of them which have easy alternatives. (Of course, many of them I would never do business with anyway.) You can probably boycott those oil companies, clothing companies, food/beverage companies, and stores.

It might be a good idea for the campaign to focus on a few of those targets first, and help boycott participants inform those targets.

Fargo Café Praised After Banning GOP Lawmakers in Fight for Gay Rights.

South African writer Zainub Priya Dala says she was forced into a mental hospital by her Muslim relatives to coerce her to withdraw her praise of Salman Rushdie.

This comes after fanatics tried to stab her on the street.

There is a strong current among Muslims of believing that people have no right to criticize their religion, or even talk about it lightly which is what Rushdie did. People who think that way are the enemies of human thought and human rights. They deserve the disgust of every decent person.

The same applies to some Christians who hold similar views. Even the Church of Emacs is not entitled to be immune from criticism.

"Hate speech" laws in many countries, that ban insults to religion, encourage fanatics to believe they are entitled to suppress criticism of their beliefs. These laws not only infringe freedom of expression directly, they encourage fanatics to go further.

Republicans push to control how poor people spend their government benefits, but there is no push for such controls on how the rich and the middle-class spend their larger benefits. Many Americans don't even understand that those are government benefits.