Chechnya plans to get rid of human rights activists. One leader is on trial for possession of marijuana.

It is wrong in general to punish people for having, smoking or growing marijuana. But it is even worse when the charges are used for more important kinds of repression.

The UK's new porn censorship system doubles as a surveillance system that will study each person's tastes.

Today's typical porn gives teenagers misleading and/or unhelpful ideas about sex. Rather than making them work harder to get access to porn, it would be better to do some social engineering that would lead them to porn that would show sex that is more realistic, pleases women as well as men, and includes relationships.

(Defining "porn" to exclude such videos is counterproductive, unless censorship and repression are your goals.)

Iran tries to intimidate BBC journalists by punishing their relatives.

We need to treat the fanatical Christianist jihadis like the fanatical Islamist jihadis.

It will not be easy to do that when they have control of the US government and several others.

The Christianist jihadis use similar tactics and methods of radicalization, and they are a lot more numerous in the west.

ALEC has led various oil-state legislatures to propose bills to put heavy punishments for protests that coe near oil facilities and power plants.