The UK's prime minister wants to ban encryption and establish a total digital police state.

Islamism in France attacks a mostly secularized Muslim community, perhaps tempted in response to racist exclusion from opportunity.

Here are some examples of opposition to racism and colonialism in Charlie Hebdo.

Why did fundamentalists attack Charlie Hebdo, whose principal target is the Muslim-hating right wing, rather than the right wing Muslim-haters? Clearly the fundamentalists are not thinking in political terms. Political circumstances may have caused them alienation, but they rebuilt themselves around irrationality.

A small house construction project could cause the extinction of a rare spider.

The UK has streamlined planning so that projects can't be stopped by niggling considerations like extinction of a species.

Obama's proposed "cybersecurity" law endangers privacy by making it easy for companies to "voluntarily" give personal data to the government.

This idea was tried before under the name of CISPA, and defeated.

However, if we really want privacy, we should not let those companies have our data.

Microfinance can help the poor in some circumstances, but it is not automatic.