Some indigenous Australians criticize Western Australia's bill to change the rules meant to protect the sites containing ancient indigenous art.

I support protecting them, but the AHAA seems to say that the destruction of ancient indigenous art is acceptable provided that the "holders of this cultural heritage give consent." I do not agree with that. Those sites include some of the oldest art in the world; it is part of the heritage of all humanity. No one group should be authorized to give consent for their destruction. On the contrary, we should make it very hard for anyone to get legal permission to do that.

We should not romanticize indigenous humans. They are humans, and susceptible to corruption by money or power like other humans. Just now an indigenous group in Canada opposes efforts to protect the remnant old growth rainforest in British Columbia, because it gets paid for the trees that are cut down.

I think logging is legitimate and useful -- as long as it doesn't go too far. In particular, we must preserve the small old growth forests that remain.

*Study Warns of Severe Drying for Amazon Rainforest.*

Companies that store data about users in China are required to cooperate unquestioningly with Chinese surveillance, and must not send the data to anyone outside China without China's approval.

This protects people in China from non-Chinese surveillance and profiling, while making all of them totally vulnerable to China.

The proposed British law to restrict the right to protest — even alone — says this is in the name of avoiding noise!

Right-wingers say the law is good because the thugs like it. Duh! I say that confirms it is bad.

The UK's tax system allows people to own second homes, rent them out part time, and pay no tax on them. The result is more homelessness.