“Honestly, I don’t think we really get it yet. Let’s face it. It’s going to be hot, hot, hot. Or do I mean hotter, hotter, hotter, or even hottest, hottest, hottest, or someday, for all we know, beyond any words we might now have to describe it. Though it seldom seems that way in the daily news, we’re talking about a genuinely apocalyptic possibility. Give us human beings full credit. Somehow, we’ve managed to come up with not one but two distinctly apocalyptic ways to potentially destroy ourselves and this planet—one a relatively speedy way to go and the other already operating in world-destroying slow motion—and that, believe me, is no small thing. Here are just a few examples of that slow-motion version of our self-destruction on this increasingly extreme planet of… well, can I really say ‘ours’ anymore, or should I say theirs?” (09/10/26)
“Abdul El-Sayed and his wife prosper by treating their medical credentials as private goods. Now he campaigns against the system that made it possible.” (09/10/26)
“In a world where great-power competition is intensifying, a revealing test of foreign-policy acumen is a country’s ability to avoid costly conflicts or other endeavors that waste resources, divert attention, and ultimately leave them weaker rather than stronger. In other words: staying out of quagmires. Great powers are often happy to see their rivals stumble into strategic quicksand and may even try to encourage such developments, but wise leaders try to stay out of this kind of trouble. In recent decades, China has done a far better job of avoiding quagmires than either the United States or Russia.” (09/10/26)
“In Washington DC, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant buffs his nail on his shirt as he intervenes in support of the Japanese yen. Well, Japan is the leading foreign creditor of Washington’s borrowing. It holds $1.2 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities, and a country like ours, the world’s largest debtor, depends on the kindness of foreign lenders. Any meaningful liquidation of those holding would be a market shock that would drive interest rates higher. So, Scott Bessent is protecting the strained Treasury market with clever currency machinations. The secretary, like the president he serves, must be a stable genius.” (09/10/26)
“Tragedy has a way of unifying movements. For the Right, no recent event seemed more likely to generate such a galvanizing effect than the assassination of Charlie Kirk exactly one year ago. Kirk was the most famous conservative activist in the country, and his killing — sudden, bloody, and splashed across social media — was an act of staggering evil. Here was a man, by all accounts a decent husband and father, engaging college students in patient dialog, only to have his arguments answered by bullets. Yet the event didn’t bring the American Right together. Rather, it triggered infighting that persists to this day. To understand why, we have to be willing to honestly reassess the legacy left behind by the departed. We must even speak ill of the dead (for if we don’t, as Christopher Hitchens asked, who will?).” (09/09/260
“While the Treasury forces money changers to report on suspected immigrants, Homeland Security is having police pull people over for suspicious transactions.” (09/09/26)
“While much attention is given to Ukraine and Russia’s use of drones, just south of the United States, Mexico’s cartels are using drones in significant numbers, some of which surveil the United States and move drugs and cash across the border. They are also used to attack Mexican government and army organizations and competing cartels. According to one source, in 2025 the cartels flew more than 42,000 drones near the U.S. border. Around 1,000 drones each day try to cross the U.S. border, and most are not intercepted. Most of the drones used by the cartels are Chinese, and a large number have been modified either to carry explosives or drugs. The major source is the Chinese company DJI (Da Jiang Innovations), based in Shenzhen. It is the world’s biggest producer of drones, holding more than 80 percent of the world’s market.” (09/10/26)
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Jillian C York & Eva Galperin
“The term ‘digital sovereignty’ has become ubiquitous. European officials invoke it in debates about cloud infrastructure, AI, semiconductors, and platform regulation. Governments throughout the global majority use it to argue for greater control over data and communications infrastructure and boost their economies. Companies market ‘sovereign cloud’ products designed to reassure their customers that their information stays under local jurisdiction. But digital sovereignty could be something more: an opportunity for users around the world to build more resilient, open systems and the skills and infrastructure to maintain them.” (09/09/26)
