Just as I was wrapping up the last roundup, I saw news that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had passed away. Here’s a video report from Human Rights Watch about his record on civil liberties, which – despite some small improvements – is still somewhere between terrible and horrendous.
I happen to be reading Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court“, a book about how a 19th century American goes back in time to 6th century England to discover a backwards monarchy that celebrated brutality and used religion to exert control over a superstitious population. If Twain had lived long enough to see modern day Saudi Arabia, he could’ve written something similar without any need for time travel.
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