RSF: Ecuador's new media law — mix of good principles and bad provisions.

Ecuador's new election law bans media from promoting candidates for 90 days before an election. If interpreted strictly, this could chill coverage of the campaign and the candidates.

The CPJ has many criticisms of Ecuador, some of which are valid while others seem exaggerated based on the facts I have found.

Jeremy Forrest's girlfriend says their relationship was her initiative, she still loves him, and she wants to visit him in prison and marry him after he gets out.

I would not bet on their relationship's lasting till he gets out of prison. Forrest has not been good at making relationships last, and most 16-year-olds aren't either. However, she is doing her best to defend his name against the legal fiction that he kidnaped her.

The dishonest basis of the prosecution shows clearly in the rebukes of the judge, the detective, the mother, etc., that Forrest (actually both of them) perturbed their families. That could equally well have been said about Romeo and Juliet, which is a reductio ad absurdam. (The refutation does not depend on assuming that this couple is like Romeo and Juliet in any other way. It's enough that the same argument would have applied to those two.)

The court pretends, contrary to all the facts, that Forrest did something wrong to his girlfriend, while in fact punishing him for how their relationship made her parents and other people feel.

After the two were captured, she was forcibly returned to her parents, and while the articles claimed they were giving her some sort of support, it is clear they tried to brainwash her into supporting their way of seeing things. It is good for her that they failed.

She should demand a conjugal visit in prison. That will give those cruel prudes apoplexy.

In Wales, everyone will be an organ donor unless he says no in advance.

This is a good policy and we should copy it. Meanwhile, if you live in a place which doesn't have this policy, please fill out the form to be an organ donor, as I have done.

I don't think a person's relatives should have any say in the matter. What happens to that person's corpse might affect their feelings, but nothing else, and their hurt feelings don't count for much compared with saving lives.

Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, says Bradley Manning deserves one.

The Japanese government was unable to decontaminate an area near Fukushima to the planned safety level, so it told the inhabitants to go home with dosimeters to see if they are getting dangerous amounts of radiation exposure.

The idea is not necessarily misguided. The purpose of decontaminating the ground is so people don't get high exposures of radiation. If the ground isn't decontaminated, but people lower their exposures to the same intended level by staying indoors, they will be just as safe.

However, some may be rather unhappy about having to spend their lives indoors. Perhaps Japan should pay nonathletic geeks to move to Fukushima, because they will stay indoors and not mind it.

Meanwhile, we should stop making plans that suppose it is feasible to decontaminate areas covered with fallout from reactor explosions, because apparently that can't really be done.