The world is full of corrupt oligarchs looking to smuggle their money out of their countries and put it somewhere where the rule of law that they have helped to dismantle at home still reigns; a favourite safe asset class is luxury housing in major cities, which is viewed as easy to sell on short notice due to the large supply of other money-laundering oligarchs. Read the rest

Bernie Sanders' brother Larry is a longtime UK politician in the Green Party (I was a UK Green Party member until I emigrated to the USA last year); he's now running in a by-election triggered by David Cameron taking a shit on the UK and they running away from it as fast as he could. Read the rest

In 2010, after years of bitter fighting, the French National Assembly passed "Hadopi," the worst copyright law in history, which provided for disconnecting whole families from the Internet if their network connection was implicated in an accusation of copyright infringement. Read the rest

Jeremy Buckingham, a Green Party MP, took a dingy out on Queensland's Condamine River, about 220km west of Brisbane, and set the river on fire with a barbeque lighter. Read the rest

Protonmail is a Swiss pro-privacy email provider that offers end-to-end encyption to its customers. When the Swiss government proposed the Nachrichtendienstgesetzt -- a bill to create a "mini NSA" with the power to effect warrantless mass surveillance, including hacking residents' computers -- the company called on its users and supporters to petition the government for a referendum on the law. Read the rest

Ed says, "After the twitter-sphere recently exploded with accusations about the UK Green Party's copyright policies, here is a reasoned response by Tom Chance, the former IP spokesperson for the Green Party, about what their policy actually is, and the reasoning behind it." Read the rest

I've got a new Guardian column, Internet-era politics means safe seats are a thing of the past, which analyzes the trajectory of Internet-fuelled election campaigning since Howard Dean, and takes hope in the launch of I'll Vote Green If You Do. Read the rest

Andrew writes, "The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand has launched their Internet Rights and Freedoms Bill.

The Bill was launched on a crowdsourced platform where members of the public are given the opportunity to shape these emerging rights and freedoms.

This is the first time a Bill has been crowdsourced by a political party in New Zealand.

The Internet Rights and Freedoms Bill proposes:" Read the rest

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is a terrible world leader among terrible world leaders: a xenophobic bigot and homophobe, committed to resource extraction economies and the destruction of social programs, who denies climate change. He's planning a visit to the state of Western Australia, and to send him off, WA Green Party Senator Scott Ludlam gave him some campaign advice -- and hope for people who despair of a world grounded in something other than kleptocratic corporatism. This is no Julia Gillard rant, but it's in the same league. Say what you will about Australian politics, they do love a fine rant.

Neoliberalism Dressing-Down: Australian Senator Ludlam on Prime Minister Tony Abbott Read the rest