The article about the danger of "counterfeit" goods makes false arguments.

The word "counterfeit" is sometimes used for inferior imitation products. But nowadays it is used also as propaganda by the copyright industry to smear copies it does not authorize. These copies are normally in no way inferior to the authorized copies, and often much, much better because they don't mistreat people as authorized copies do.

As for manufacture in sweatshops, we have no reason to suppose that the "real" products are not made that way. If we want to ensure that products are made by well-treated workers, trademark enforcement won't do the job; we need rather to establish laws to hold importers responsible for how suppliers in other countries treat their workers.

The gilets jaunes in France are denouncing more or less the same problem that the US suffers: life is getting harder for all but a wealthy fraction, because there are not enough good jobs.

I support them wholeheartedly, except for their demand for low prices for gasoline and diesel fuel.

To be seen as making society safer and better, rather than as an occupying army, thug departments need to win the public's trust. The only way to do that is to behave in a way that earns that trust.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with editing germlines.

The reason this method of genetic editing affects the germline is that it affects the whole body — which therefore includes the germline. It can be done early in development.

To cure genetic problems that result from genetically-guided incorrect fetal development can only be done in this way. Once you're going to do something so fundamental, there is no benefit in leaving the problem uncorrected in the germline, to spring up again in the next generation, even if that could be done.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the approach, but in the present state of inexperience, there are risks that things will go wrong. But I suspect that many of them could be avoided by aborting fetuses that are developing visibly wrong.

Whether to require back doors for the state in encryption has become one of the paramount political issues in Australia.

Alas, Labor's criticism of the law is based on secondary issues — that parties other than the state might break security using the back door — rather than mentioning that the goal itself is dangerous and unjust.

Look at how Australia has treated the refugees it has dumped into prison on Nauru and Manus. Look at the prosecution of the whistleblower who revealed that Australia was snooping on the diplomats of East Timor during a negotiation. One cannot presume that the Australian government will not act with cruelty and oppression.

Some day someone might find a way to reliably limit a back door to real state agencies. That will invalidate the secondary argument, but it won't make the spying requirement acceptable. If Australians want to defend their country's freedom in the long term, if they don't want their country to become like China, they must move beyond the weak argument about unintended consequences and focus on the injustice of the intended consequences.

Australians, why wait? Please spread the word.