Alexander Aan, imprisoned in Indonesia for saying he was an Atheist, has been released from prison. He still faces the threat of murder from Muslim fanatics.

Punishing the victims of religious hostility for "instigating" it is like punishing women for "instigating" rape. Oh right, these religious fanatics would probably do that too.

Before his sentencing, Aan let down the cause of religious freedom in Indonesia by apologizing for his "crime" and officially converting to Islam. Like Chelsea Manning's apology, that gave the enemy a victory that it could never have got on its own.

A summary of what the US is in for if global heating is not curbed.

The Mozilla Foundation proposed a weak halfhearted network neutrality: to declare ISPs' connections to servers a common carrier but not the connections with users (the ISPs' customers).

The intended result of this is to block one specific abuse -- discrimination by ISPs among web servers -- without blocking other abuses directly against internet users. For instance, ISPs would still be allowed to punish their customers at the request of the copyright industry.

No thanks, Mozilla Foundation.

Legalization of prostitution in Germany has not ended mistreatment of prostitutes by their employers, including forcing them to work too much, stealing their pay, and stopping them from quitting.

We should see this in the context of a general pattern of abuse of workers in fields ranging from fast food to manufacturing to construction to domestic service

It should not surprise us that this happens in prostitution also.

I don't think this is a reason for criminalization of prostitutes or their customers, any more than it is a reason to criminalize factories or their customers. Rather, governments must do more to prevent abuse of all kinds of workers. In some cases this requires additional regulation of employers designed specifically to prevent abuses.

Food Defenders Protest Corporate Takeover of 'Organic' Standards.