Australia is offering to end lockdown if 40% of the people carry a contact-tracing app.

Under ordinary circumstances I would refuse to carry any such thing; no need to bother investigating the details.

Nowadays, due to the epidemic, I feel an obligation to cooperate with contact tracing. But that does not mean I would accept anything whatsoever under the rubric of contact tracing, regardless of what else it really does.

And that goes double in Australia, due to its law that authorizes the state to order the developers of any product or service to secretly sabotage it.

A judge ruled that one of the Keystone XL planet-roaster pipeline's environmental review was not properly done. Construction across water has been put on hold.

No wonder the saboteur in chief wants to get rid of environmental reviews for large projects (the ones with the potential to do really big harm).

Imagine if instead of renaming the Department of War to "Defense", the US set up a department really for defense.

*Will coronavirus shock the global economy into long-term thinking?*

Noise pollution from roads drives away bats.

Many bat species are endangered; this may be part of the cause.