The Justice Department's Inspector General released a report about how the FBI can bypass new "guidelines" about getting journalists' phone records and other data, but the FBI censored it so badly that all we know is that it's a secret.

In the US: hold a rally for network neutrality.

The US rate of job generation fell to a new low, less than ever since the 1970s.

The 1970s is the last time we had a government that represented Americans other than the elites.

Violent religious fanatics are a real danger, but there are no violent atheist fanatics nowadays. The closest thing you can find are a few Communist dictatorships. They are cited to create a false appearance of moral equivalence between secularism and religion.

People do not need religion in order to treat each other well. Humans (except sociopaths) have a conscience as a matter of instinct, and can train it through reflection. It can even have the strength to prevail over religious immorality.

A story from Samoa (*) says that the religious practice of human sacrifice was ended when the son of the Malietoa (one of the top-level chiefs) saw that the woman he loved was going to be sacrificed, and presented himself for the sacrifice in place of her. The Malietoa, rather than sacrifice his son, banned human sacrifice thenceforth. Whether or not this really occurred, the repetition of the story shows that a human society can value conscience over religion, and it makes an instructive contrast with the story of Abraham and Isaac.

* From Les religions du Pacifique et d'Australie by Nevermann, Worms, and Petri.

US citizens: support the Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act.