The UK is developing a data base of the citizenship or immigration status of everyone in the UK. This is presumably meant to extend the "hostile environment" to more areas of life, in combination with identifying people more often.

The EU just voted to do the same thing. This will surely be used for repression.

China is taking over the business of building underwater communications cables. That means China can spy on the data.

I expect that the US also spies on that data. During the cold war the US used submarines to attack snooping devices to the Soviet Union's cables. Perhaps both countries are attaching such devices now to the cables made by the other country.

One should not make an excessive fuss about state espionage against hostile states, but these countries could well be listening to you and me.

If transmission on the cable is encrypted across the cable's whole communication system, such spying would be futile, but I'd be surprised if such encryption is in use.

The Swiss bank UBS will be fined over 4 billion dollars for helping rich French clients hide their wealth from taxation.

Note how the article suggests that making rich people pay taxes could be disadvantageous to a country in competing to attract the favors of powerful international capital.

Participating in that competition is surrender to the arrogant power that lost this case, and makes that power stronger and more oppressive. This case is a small step towards taking away its strength.

Almost any Democrat could defeat the bullshitter, but it won't do much good unless that Democrat is a credible change agent.

Trump can't legitimately win in the electoral college, but the Republicans might steal that election, as they stole the 2016 election.

The head of Salafi Arabia's state oil company warns that the expectation that the fossil fuel industry is likely to shrink endangers its certitude of rushing us off the climate cliff without any slowdown.

If oil prices go down, that encourages users to use oil rather than switch to renewables or reduce energy use.

If oil prices go up, that encourages planet-roaster companies to build more oil wells.

But if we put a heavy tax on use of oil, we get the best of both possibilities: a high selling price that encourages users to use less oil, and low income for oil companies that discourages planet-roasters from drilling for more.

To achieve this goal, it needs to be a heavy tax — a small tax would have a small effect. Weak measures of any kind won't achieve the goal.