Author: nick

Victims of U.S.-Israel airstrikes on Enghelab square, Tehran. Tasnim News Agency. CC BY 4.0 Like most of America’s wars in West Asia, the current joint U.S.-Israel attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran is about securing control over the region’s energy resources and preserving oil currency policies; practices that have fueled its expansive economy since the end of the Second World War. Ultimately, this conflict, which has sent shockwaves through the global economy, boils down to who will reign in West Asia, control the world’s energy lifeline, and dictate the rules of global finance. Beneath the veneer of geopolitical diplomacy…

In short order, a fresh crop of candidate will be vying for our votes for the right to face the GOP presidential nominee. Here’s what we’ll be asking in return. Source link

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the Ten Commandments case that should be appealed to the Supreme Court this summer. Very few people alive today can remember a world before the Warren Court established the separation of church and state. Likewise, prior to Dobbs, very few women of reproductive age could remember a time before the Burger Court established a constitutional right to abortion. The Supreme Court often considers how longstanding a legal tradition is. But many of the traditions established by the Warren and Burger Court stretch back five, six, and even seven decades. In a new Civitas Outlook,…

Joshua Scheer For weeks, the world stood on the edge of a wider regional war as the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran, threatening to ignite a conflict that could engulf the Middle East and destabilize the global economy. Now, with Washington announcing that a deal has been reached with Tehran, the question is no longer whether the fighting will continue—but whether this agreement represents genuine peace or merely a temporary pause before the next crisis. In this conversation with Glenn Diesen, economist and geopolitical analyst Jeffrey Sachs argues that the war achieved none of its stated…

Date of sighting: June 15, 2026Location of sighting: Salt Lake City, Utah, USAThis report just in from my son in SLC, Utah. He states: “I was outside by my car holding up my sunglasses to clean off the lenses when I noticed these white objects in the sky.” I have to say this is very similar to some of the Dept of War files dropped in the second file set. Often UFOs will shapeshift and even many smaller UFOs will unite into a group, but there is almost always a single UFO section that remains disconnected from the group, as you…

In medical education we have a concept called longitudinal care – interns and residents need to follow a case through to its conclusion, or at least long term, so that can learn the entire process. This is why on-call work hours used to be so horrifically long (up to 36 hours), to allow doctors in training to follow an acute case to see the effects of the decisions they make. Training also includes continuity clinics where residents can follow the same patients for months or even years. I feel that skeptical science communicators serve this role as well – we…

The payments giant said the approval supports its push into stablecoins and blockchain-based settlement infrastructure. What to know: Mastercard has secured a New York BitLicense, allowing it to conduct digital asset activities under one of the toughest crypto regulatory regimes in the United States. The approval advances Mastercard’s strategy to build blockchain-based payments and settlement infrastructure, with a particular focus on stablecoins and tokenized deposits. The move highlights how major payment networks are preparing for a financial system in which blockchain-based rails operate alongside, rather than outside, traditional banking systems. Mastercard has received a BitLicense from the New York State…

Believe it or not (I certainly have a hard time believing it!), it has been three decades since the publication of Carl Sagan’s famous essay “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” incorporated as chapter 12 in his The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995). I therefore thought it would be a good idea for skeptics to reconsider Sagan’s essay and see how it has stood up to the passage of time and how it might be improved as we move toward the middle section of the twenty-first century. Let’s begin with a bird’s eye view of…

Staff shakeups at ’60 Minutes’ – and the reaction to them – reveal the ingrained bias of legacy media and the resistance to even acknowledging it. Source link

There have been so many claims about the Iran War ending that it’s hard to believe this one. After the April ceasefire, the United States and Iran repeatedly claimed that a full peace deal was around the corner, only to continue firing in hopes of better terms. But that cycle might actually be over for real now. U.S. President Donald Trump, the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (who was mediating) all confirmed on Sunday night that the parties had agreed to a memorandum of understanding to move forward with the peace process. The…