Putin remains, in spirit, a Soviet secret policeman who watched watched the East German tyranny collapse. He is determined to attack any challenge to the regime pre-emptively, to prevent protesters from winning.

Nothing will convince Putin let go, but sooner or later he will die or become incapacitated. Economic sanctions against Russia may convince Putin's successors not to continue his tyranny.

Facebook now allows people to use aliases, but only if they are generally known by those aliases.

This is not much better than the previous "real names" policy. You can't have one account to show your boss and your parents and another for your friends.

Israeli fanatics, aided by soldiers, forced a Palestinian family out of its apartment in Jerusalem.

The army regularly helps them establish outposts that the government says it has not authorized. (It is misleading to call only these colonies "illegal", since they are all illegal under international law.)

The army demolished an apartment building in Abu Dis, a Palestinian town just across the annexation wall from Jerusalem, not giving the inhabitants time to remove their belongings.

The Palestinian Authority had given permission to build additional three floors, but Israel treats those permits as invalid as an excuse to practice systematic harassment of Palestinians.

Small satellites, "cubesats", are being placed in long-lived orbits thus increasing the danger of collisions that generate space debris.

The disaster shown in the movie Gravity is in fact happening, though far more slowly than in the movie. The question is whether we can find a way to stop it.

In the mean time, we should not do stupid things that are likely to speed it up.

Ireland will have a referendum on abolishing the crime of "blasphemy".