The "New Normal"

Some Call It Conspiracy Theory – Part 1

Iain Davis There are certain assumptions that are applied to anyone labelled a “conspiracy theorist”—and all of them are fallacies. Indeed, the term “conspiracy theory” is nothing more than a propaganda construct designed to silence debate and censor opinion on a range of subjects. Most particularly, it is used as a pejorative to marginalise and …

US testing “Emergency Alert System” later today

Kit Knightly The Federal government will be testing its nationwide “Emergency Alert System” (EAS) and “Wireless Emergency Alerts” (WEA) today – Wednesday October 4th – at 2.20pm Eastern time. The WEA allows the Federal government to send a simultaneous message to every cellphone in the country, regardless of network, supposedly to notify people of emergencies. …

Online Censorship: Canada Continues Crackdown

Kit Knightly On Friday the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission published new guidelines requiring media outlets to register with the service so their content can be “regulated”. Under the new regulations all streaming services, social media companies and platforms that host podcasts would be [emphasis added]: required to provide the CRTC with information related to …

Where Have All the Lanternflies Gone?

Michael Lesher Remember the spotted lanternfly? Barely a year ago, this colorful winged insect was supposed to be a harbinger of national disaster. Native to China but increasingly visible in border-jumping swarms in the eastern United States, the spotted lanternfly’s activities in this country had been well known since 2014 – and until recently hadn’t provoked any …

Inside Russia’s “digital transformation”

Riley Waggaman Things are getting very digital in Russia. For your reading convenience I have decided to compile important updates about Russia’s “digital transformation” into a single blog post. Thank you for reading and have a relaxing Friday. Putin signs decree on creation of a “digital” domestic passport Last Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a plan that will …

A Nation of Snitches: DHS Is Grooming Americans to Report on Each Other

John Whitehead “There were relatively few secret police, and most were just processing the information coming in. I had found a shocking fact. It wasn’t the secret police who were doing this wide-scale surveillance and hiding on every street corner. It was the ordinary German people who were informing on their neighbors.” Professor Robert Gellately, …