The initially peaceful protests in Kazakhstan may have been seized as an opportunity for political factions to fight.

It won't be easy to get to the bottom of this.

An ex-smoker argues against New Zealand's plan to make it illegal to buy tobacco.

I never intentionally smoked tobacco, because I saw from my grandfather when I was 9 years old that tobacco means death. I wish that tobacco would cease to exist. But making it a crime is a foolish reaction to the problem.

I apply this principle to nonfree software also. It is unjust and nasty, and should not exist. But we should not make nonfree software as such illegal.

I do think we should make malicious functionalities illegal.

A speculation: Omicron may have evolved in someone who has an HIV infection and was not given the drugs to control the infection.

If we treated everyone that has an HIV infection, that disease would no longer be transmitted. It would eventually disappear. And perhaps, in the mean time, we would avoid new, dangerous variants of Covid-19.

Covid's spread is causing food shortages in two Australian states: * "Critical" or "essential" workers who are asymptomatic no longer required to self-isolate if job is essential for growing, manufacturing or transporting food.*

California is considering a universal medical care system. This could be a great step forward.

Of the three funding methods proposed, a payroll tax is a bad choice, because it creates an incentive to have fewer employees in the jurisdiction. We would be better off if we replaced all payroll taxes with other taxes.

A gross receipts tax with a fixed tax rate has drawbacks too: businesses could easily pass that along to customers, as they do with sales tax. That's why I've proposed a gross receipts tax with a tax rate that is higher for large companies.