Getting a driver's license in the US takes a lot of time — and poor people often can't afford to do that just to vote. The point of voter ID laws is to take advantage of this.

After a marijuana legalization campaign meeting in Australia, the thugs arrested 86 people for driving under the influence of marijuana, on the pretense that doing so is dangerous.

There is no evidence for that claim, no indication that marijuana makes driving less safe.

Raif Badawi has been sentenced to 1000 lashes of the whip, and ten years in prison, for starting a web site to discuss (i.e., question) the role of religion in Saudi Arabia.

I am not sure whether a sentence of 1000 lashes is fatal, or whether it is meant to be fatal. Does anyone know?

Saudi Arabia needs regime change.

Update: 1000 lashes are usually not fatal if they are done 50 per week. But you might wish you were dead.

An increasing level of CO2 makes many food crops less nutritious in iron, zinc and protein.

This won't affect the world's rich; we get plenty of iron and zinc and too much protein. But it will be a disaster for billions of poor.

Although Seattle has approved a $15/hr minimum wage, greedy bastards in business are still fighting to delay and undermine the policy.

Measures to help working people (more generally, regulation of business) can backfire, but often they are very helpful. However, each time a measure is proposed, the greedy bastards will always come up with an excuse to claim that it will backfire. Occasionally the claim is valid; usually it is bogus.

They construct a bogus claim by cherry-picking the evidence and the arguments, adding some lies when they think they can get away with it. When it becomes clear, later, that the claim was bogus, they pay no penalty.

Therefore, we must never believe claims by a business or its mouthpieces that regulating the business will hurt the public. They are inherently untrustworthy on the matter,

To find out which measures really might backfire, we must get advice from someone they have not corrupted.