Author: nick

The happenings of the political elite have an incredible habit of morphing into pieces of fiction. From the comedy of Yes Minister to the dark, sordid tales of one George R. R. Martin, this monstrous fiction morphs into one gargantuan sketch that repeatedly defies reality. How you believe a scenario should play out in a private setting is the opposite of how they play out within government institutions. The people are adjusted to a reality that is not real at all. Fakery is widespread, and applying the rules of reality to politics is simply unfeasible. This seems awfully coincidental. The…

Photo by Marija Zaric As World Press Freedom Day (May 3) nears, it’s a good time to step back and assess how journalists and news outlets are faring in our current media climate. President Donald Trump came back to the White House and picked up right where he left off, insulting and attacking the press on an almost daily basis, suing media outlets, and taking a number of concrete actions to restrict press freedom. Against this backdrop, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) will release its 2026 World Press Freedom Index on April 30. Every year, RSF scores and ranks 180 countries and territories…

“Tell me how this ends,” a young General David Petraeus asked early in the Iraq War, after Saddam Hussein’s army had largely been defeated. The United States is extraordinarily good at the first half of wars and far less capable in the second. So how does this one with Iran end? The Gulf War was fought on mostly contrived grounds. Saddam thrived in power in Iraq in part due to U.S. support; he certainly survived the 1980s Iran–Iraq War due to behind-the-scenes U.S. involvement. But by 1990 Saddam had morphed into a bad guy invading Kuwait, and the U.S. went…

I WANT FREE MINDS AND FREE MARKETS! Help Reason push back with more of the fact-based reporting we do best. Your support means more reporters, more investigations, and more coverage. Make a donation today! No thanks I WANT TO FUND FREE MINDS AND FREE MARKETS Every dollar I give helps to fund more journalists, more videos, and more amazing stories that celebrate liberty. Yes! I want to put my money where your mouth is! Not interested SUPPORT HONEST JOURNALISM So much of the media tries telling you what to think. Support journalism that helps you to think for yourself. I’ll…

Here are three separate instances of generative AI being used to promote propaganda for the U.S.-Israeli war agendas. Deep Fake. (ApolitikNow/Flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) By Caitlin JohnstoneCaitlin’s NewsletterListen to Tim Foley reading this article In the last few days I’ve seen three separate instances of generative AI being used to promote propaganda for the U.S.-Israeli war agendas which are worth paying attention to. Firstly, an Israel-based company called Generative AI for Good has been creating deepfakes of supposedly real women who say they were sexually assaulted by government forces in Iran. The Canary reports: “An Israel-based AI firm, Generative AI for Good,…

No need to settle for mediocrity – the Daily Grail news briefs are always quality! ‘Stonehenge of the Amazon’ reveals secret of who lived in the rainforest before colonisation. The hunt for extraterrestrial life enters a new frontier: Scientists are using advanced telescopes, models and AI to help them look for signs of life beyond Earth, including in distant solar systems. (Archived page link) “Never talk about goblins“: OpenAI instructs its new model to not mention a number of supernatural creatures. MIT experiments show plant seeds can ‘hear’ the sound of rain. ‘STAGED’: Conspiracy theories are everywhere following White House…

Greetings and welcome to the latest edition of the Injustice System newsletter. It was a big day yesterday at the U.S. Supreme Court for Fourth Amendment buffs, as the justices heard nearly two-and-a-half hours of oral arguments in a case that pits digital privacy and the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure against a cutting-edge technology that can tell law enforcement officials about the unique location histories of millions of cell phone users. You’re reading Injustice System from Damon Root and Reason. Get more of Damon’s commentary on constitutional law and American history. At issue in Chatrie…

It is tempting to argue that Israel’s new military doctrine is predicated on perpetual war – but the reality is more complex. Not that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would object to such an arrangement. On the contrary, his relentless drive for military escalation suggests precisely that. After all, his openly declared quest for a “greater Israel” would require exactly this kind of permanent militarism – endless expansion and sustained regional destruction. However, Israel cannot sustain an open-ended fight on multiple fronts indefinitely. Israeli officials boast about fighting on “seven fronts,” but many of these are, in military terms, largely…

Some called it “Operation Grim Beeper.” That may seem clever to adolescents, but there is nothing funny about the promiscuous mutilation of human beings. On the afternoon of September 17, 2024, thousands of handheld pagers exploded simultaneously across Lebanon. Their purported target? Hezbollah operatives. Forty-two people, including children, were killed by the indiscriminating devices. More than 3,500 were injured in an instant, the booby-trap blast blowing open abdomens and claiming fingers and eyes. Although purchased from a Taiwan company, the pagers were produced by a shell company that was part of a Mossad operation, packed with powerful plastic explosives and a…

Photograph Source: Fahim Fadz – CC BY 2.0 The tentative agreement United Teachers Los Angeles signed with the Los Angeles Unified School District on April 12 has been approved by UTLA members with a 92% “Yes” vote, with almost 27,000 members voting. This is similar to the result of our May 2023 vote on the tentative agreement we won in the wake of our March 2023 strike. Service Employees International Union, our ally in both contract battles, begins voting on their TA with LAUSD this week. ‘Extortion’ & ‘hostage-taking’ The right-wing media is not happy. The Washington Post calls our…