Late last month:

Indonesia has responded with outrage after Saudi Arabia executed an Indonesian domestic worker who was convicted of killing her Saudi employer — even though an activist group says the maid had been defending herself from being raped.

Kabar duka kembali datang dari Arab Saudi. Tuty Tursilawati, pekerja migran Indonesia asal Majalengka, dieksekusi mati pada 29 Oktober 2018 kemarin.
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Eksekusi hukuman mati ini lagi-lagi dilakukan tanpa ada notifikasi kepada Pemerintah Indonesia.#RIPTuty #stophukumanmati pic.twitter.com/pg5i52IY2Y

— Migrant CARE (@migrantcare) October 30, 2018

The case highlights the tough position of many of the estimated 11 million foreign workers, from more than 100 nations, who reside in Saudi Arabia. An estimated 2.3 million of them work in households, often

Oh, hold the phone, I was wrong, he’s got it all figured out. This is great.

"You gotta take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest,very important…I was with the President of Finland…he called it a forest nation and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem." pic.twitter.com/f6aD37B3KA

— ᴿealfarmacist (@real_farmacist) November 17, 2018

The floors. Cleaning them. You have to clean them. If you clean them everything will be fine; no more fires. It’s all a matter of hygiene.

He was with the president of Finland who lives in a farrest nayshn, he called it a farrest nayshn. “They spend a lot of … Read the rest

The UN says the UK government has immiserated its people with “austerity” policies.

Philip Alston, the UN’s rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, ended a two-week fact-finding mission to the UK with a stinging declaration that levels of child poverty were “not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster”, even though the UK is the world’s fifth largest economy,

About 14 million people, a fifth of the population, live in poverty and 1.5 million are destitute, being unable to afford basic essentials, he said, citing figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. He highlighted predictions that child poverty could rise by 7% between 2015 and 2022, possibly up to a

The sleazebags…

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, in its final days in power, is planning to issue subpoenas to former FBI Director James Comey and President Barack Obama’s attorney general Loretta Lynch, according to a source with knowledge of the subpoenas.

The source said the committee chairman, Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, plans to issue the subpoenas on Monday for Comey to appear for a closed-door deposition on November 29 and for Lynch to appear on December 5. The interviews are part of the House Republican investigation into the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email probe and the Russia investigation.

Comey’s lawyer, David Kelley, told CNN on Friday that, “We have not heard from them since October 1

One of the profound questions of our time – is a campaign of personal harassment on social media Free Speech or just plain common or garden personal harassment?

A lawsuit accusing the publisher of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer of coordinating a “terror campaign” of online harassment against a Jewish real estate agent cannot be dismissed on First Amendment grounds, a federal judge in Montana ruled this week.

In his ruling denying a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Dana L. Christensen, the chief judge for United States District Court in Missoula, Mont., wrote that the real estate agent, Tanya Gersh, was a private citizen, not a public figure, and that the publisher, Andrew Anglin, incited his followers to harass her

Did Trump just spill the beans?

“The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess,” tweeted President Trump this morning. But why would the president have access to the inner workings of the Mueller investigation, which is supposed to be firewalled away from his influence?

There’s a strong chance Trump is just making this up, of course. On the other hand, over the last week, the Mueller investigation has been supervised by acting attorney general Matt Whitaker, who would have access to the investigation’s inner workings. It might be the case that Trump actually has access to the inner workings of the Mueller investigation because he finally has somebody running the Justice Department who is pliant and unethical

Apparently the police in the UK have issued a new law saying everyone has to recognize everyone else’s Innate Gender Identity or else expect a knock on the door.

The police have launched their National Trans Tool Kit — a portfolio of definitions, policies and best practice recommendations developed in partnership with Stonewall, the National LGBT Police Network, and the Police Superintendent’s Association.

Most of it is about trans colleagues on the force, but some of it is about everyone.

And what is gender identity? There’s a glossary.

Where did they get that? From Stonewall.

What I want to know is, how do they think they know this “innate sense of their own gender” is in fact … Read the rest

Wo. NBC reports:

The White House is looking for ways to remove an enemy of Turkish President Recep Erdogan from the U.S. in order to placate Turkey over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to two senior U.S. officials and two other people briefed on the requests.

Trump administration officials last month asked federal law enforcement agencies to examine legal ways of removing exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen in an attempt to persuade Erdogan to ease pressure on the Saudi government, the four sources said.

So…they want to hand over Gulen to be persecuted by Erdoğan so that Erdoğan will stop putting pressure on the murderous Saudi regime, which they (Trump “officials”) are so cozy with and fond … Read the rest

This is where people are getting themselves when they make wild claims about “identity.”

Comic Relief firmly believes every individual has the right to be who they are and to define their own identity.

— Comic Relief (@comicrelief) November 15, 2018

Comic Relief firmly believes every individual has the right to be who they are and to define their own identity.

Oh come on now. Think before you say things like that. We don’t have “the right to define our own identity” in general. We can play, we can fantasize, we can pretend, we can imagine, in some situations and contexts, but not in all of them. We can make some changes to our identity, but we can’t just make … Read the rest