A Bahraini human rights campaigner was sentenced to prison for attacking two thugs. That's what the thugs generally say; more likely they attacked her.

The effect is to keep her in permanent exile.

The Spanish right-wing government cut off funds for finding and identifying the graves of people massacred by its predecessor, the dictator Franco, during the Spanish civil war.

Franco was a general, and tried to stage a military coup, but ran into resistance from the people so that it took him three years to conquer all of Spain.

Friends in Spain told me a few years ago that Franco's supporters still occupied positions of power. It is no surprise, therefore, that right-wing politicians want to Franco's crimes to be forgotten.

The Iraqi army, trained by the US, had 50,000 "ghost soldiers" on its payroll who were not really acting as soldiers.

This alone does not explain PISSI's triumph. The 10,000 real soldiers in Mosul greatly outnumbered PISSI, and could easily have held the city — if they were inclined to fight.

Where to draw the line between online death threats and jokes or self-expression?

A just criterion can't rest on the subjective understanding of either party. It has to be based on what is reasonable in the situation.

In addition we must stop publicly posting our private musings. Web sites such as Facebook that encourage that practice are harmful.

Obama plans to somewhat limit the militarization of US thugs.

Why is this program "popular in Congress"? Probably because of the money of the companies that make the equipment, which have arranged to divide the work around nearly all congressional districts.

We must reject the idea that an elected official's proper job includes pulling jobs to their districts from other parts of the US, or getting the government to do misguided spending in their districts.