https://www.sott.net/best-of-web Signs of the Times: The World for People who Think. Featuring independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events. en-us Original content Copyright 2026 by Signs of the Times/Sott.net. For other content, see our Fair Use Policy at www.sott.net. Tue, 21 Jul 2026 20:41:19 +0000 https://www.sott.net/images/sottlogo_rss.jpg SOTT.net https://www.sott.net https://www.sott.net/article/507533-Debasification-Iranian-Air-War-Strategy Over the past few days, the US/Israeli/GCC ("US Axis" from here on) war against Iran has reached a pace not seen since the opening hours of the conflict. Waves of Iranian missiles and drones have been striking targets across the region, with an apparent shift in target selection concentrating unprecedented amounts of Iranian firepower against Kuwait and Jordan. The war between the US Axis and Iran can be arbitrarily divided into several theaters. There's the war for control over the Strait of Hormuz, countervalue strikes against infrastructure, Iran's campaign against Kurdish proxies staging for ground operations on its western flank, and so on. Today we'll be focusing on a narrow slice of the conflict: the air war, with IRGC missile and drone forces (IRGCASF) on one side and the USAF, IAF, and GCC air forces on the other. As we'll see, this theater of the war has profound implications that cut across all other areas of the conflict. https://www.sott.net/article/507533-Debasification-Iranian-Air-War-Strategy Tue, 21 Jul 2026 20:40:53 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507516-The-Great-Woke-College-Experiment-Is-Collapsing-Under-the-Weight-of-Reality Today is dot-connecting day again! Something profound is happening in American higher education, and you'd never know how profound. Over a two-month period, a series of seemingly disconnected events — the return of standardized testing, the sudden panic over grade inflation, plunging business trust, and a relentless crackdown by the Trump administration — are, in fact, tightly connected. They represent the Great Unwinding of a core ideological project that systematically dismantled academic standards to achieve woke demographic outcomes. Three days ago, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported, "Janet Napolitano Helped Kill the SAT. She's Reconsidering." If her name sounds familiar, it's probably because Janet Napolitano was Obama's DHS Secretary from 2009 to 2013, during which tenure she implemented DACA and the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA). After leaving DHS, she immediately became president of one of the nation's largest progressive public university systems —... https://www.sott.net/article/507516-The-Great-Woke-College-Experiment-Is-Collapsing-Under-the-Weight-of-Reality Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:11:26 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507499-The-Great-Normalization Nobody declared martial law — yet America began looking like it anyway Editor's Note: There are stories that announce themselves with explosions, riots, or breaking-news headlines, and then there are stories so subtle that they quietly rewrite an entire society before anyone realizes what has happened. This is one of those stories. During the preparation of this investigation, several retired police officers, private security professionals, emergency responders, and ordinary citizens described nearly identical experiences despite living hundreds or even thousands of miles apart. None believed they were witnessing anything extraordinary at first. It was only when they looked backward — sometimes over a decade — that a disturbing pattern became impossible to ignore. Streets had not become military checkpoints overnight. Neighborhoods had not suddenly filled with surveillance towers. Instead, the changes arrived one camera, one drone, one security contract, and one "temporary"... https://www.sott.net/article/507499-The-Great-Normalization Sun, 19 Jul 2026 19:46:58 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507391-How-Israel-planned-the-Gaza-genocide-decades-ago In October 2023, Israel found an excuse to breathe new life into an old story of slaughter and expulsion. The chief differences this time have been of scale and duration The truth slowly comes to light: Israel's genocide in Gaza was planned decades ago. Listen to the testimonies of four Israeli soldiers who served in Gaza. Soldier 1: "Human lives didn't matter. You could kill, there was no law. No one would say a word to you. But it's not a good feeling. It mainly kills your humanity." Soldier 2: "At first I wasn't willing to execute Arabs who weren't resisting [that is, civilians]. Then we came to the conclusion that we had to kill. We went through the process of ceasing to see them as human beings." Soldier 3: "We caught guys, lined them up and eliminated them. In retrospect, it looks like murder." Soldier 4: "We would roam through refugee camps in Gaza and carry out purges... Every soldier who was there created a 'concentration camp', and they didn't hesitate to kill people who... https://www.sott.net/article/507391-How-Israel-planned-the-Gaza-genocide-decades-ago Mon, 13 Jul 2026 02:14:59 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507381-Severe-flash-flooding-in-Sichuan-China-Cars-and-animals-swept-away-record-breaking-rain-of-8-8-inches-in-just-6-HOURS Severe flash floods have inundated the streets of Sichuan, China. Torrential rainfall has transformed urban roadways into rushing rivers, carrying enough force to sweep away multiple vehicles and threaten local infrastructure. https://www.sott.net/article/507381-Severe-flash-flooding-in-Sichuan-China-Cars-and-animals-swept-away-record-breaking-rain-of-8-8-inches-in-just-6-HOURS Sun, 12 Jul 2026 13:01:00 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507376-The-Men-Who-Own-the-War-Now-Run-It There was a time when the arms dealer waited in the corridor. He financed the campaign, endowed the think tank, took the general to dinner, and hoped the man inside the office would remember him when the contract came up. The wall between the money and the decision was thin, often corrupt, but it was there. Someone held the public trust, and someone else tried to buy it, and you could at least tell the two apart. That wall is gone. The financier no longer waits in the corridor. He holds the office. He signs the checks. He is the buyer and the seller, the regulator and the regulated, the public interest and the private portfolio, fused into a single man in a single suit, and the arrangement is entirely legal, which is the whole problem. One of these men may already be familiar from a previous article. His name is Friedrich Merz. https://www.sott.net/article/507376-The-Men-Who-Own-the-War-Now-Run-It Sat, 11 Jul 2026 21:39:44 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507310-Torrential-rains-wreak-havoc-across-Gujarat-India-as-Surat-floods-leave-26-dead-record-19-inches-of-rainfall-in-24-hours-heaviest-in-85-years-UPDATE At least nine people have died in Surat over the past two days in monsoon-related incidents as intense rain triggered widespread flooding across the city. Five weather systems active simultaneously over Gujarat have intensified the monsoon, pushing South Gujarat and parts of Saurashtra into a severe flood situation. Heavy rainfall has been forecast at isolated places in Surat, Tapi, Narmada, Chhota Udepur, Dahod, Amreli and Bhavnagar. The impact of the active weather systems was visible across the state on Wednesday morning. Between 6 am and 10 am on July 8, rainfall was recorded in 59 talukas, with Kaprada in Valsad district receiving the highest 1.26 inches, followed by Nanapondha with 1.14 inches. Even as rainfall eased in some areas, the threat shifted from the skies to overflowing rivers and reservoirs. Continuous heavy rain in Valsad district triggered a sharp rise in inflows into the Madhuban Dam. Authorities have appealed to people living downstream to remain alert. The... https://www.sott.net/article/507310-Torrential-rains-wreak-havoc-across-Gujarat-India-as-Surat-floods-leave-26-dead-record-19-inches-of-rainfall-in-24-hours-heaviest-in-85-years-UPDATE Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:36:41 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507278-Chinas-Nanning-on-top-alert-as-Typhoon-Maysak-triggers-catastrophic-flooding-over-2-FEET-of-rain-in-24-hours-39-killed-in-the-region-UPDATE Nanning, the capital of China's south-western Guangxi region, raised its flood-control response to the highest level as rivers and reservoirs swelled with the passage of Typhoon Maysak, Chinese state media said on July 6. Now a slower-moving tropical storm, Maysak no longer has winds of more than 80.5kmh that lashed Vietnam and China's southern island province of Hainan over the weekend. But as the storm heads inland and weakens, it will dump the water it sucked up on its way across the South China Sea, triggering catastrophic flooding, Chinese meteorologists say. The authorities in Nanning, a city of nearly nine million people, raised the flood-control emergency response level to I from III due to "extremely heavy rain", China Central Television reported. https://www.sott.net/article/507278-Chinas-Nanning-on-top-alert-as-Typhoon-Maysak-triggers-catastrophic-flooding-over-2-FEET-of-rain-in-24-hours-39-killed-in-the-region-UPDATE Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:54:28 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507268-The-UKs-latest-debanking-scandal-should-give-everyone-pause First they came for Muslim activists. Then they came for Nigel Farage. Now, they're coming for independent media outlets. UK-based readers may recall the moment almost exactly three years ago when the word "debanking" entered the mainstream British English lexicon. The prestigious London-based private bank Coutts had just decided to close Nigel Farage's bank account due to his unsavoury political views and alleged Russian connections. That decision turned out to be very costly. Almost immediately, Farage did what Farage does best: he whipped up a massive media frenzy. In next to no time two senior banking scalps had been claimed: those of Dame Alison Rose, the CEO of Coutts' parent bank and "Big Four" lender, Natwest (formerly known as the Royal Bank of Scotland) and Coutts' chief executive Peter Flavel. https://www.sott.net/article/507268-The-UKs-latest-debanking-scandal-should-give-everyone-pause Sun, 05 Jul 2026 21:54:01 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507240-Canada-was-a-liberal-paradise-until-the-Liberals-took-over There was a version of this country that worked. This was a country that used to punch above its weight across all key metrics and in a large part, did so espousing classical liberal values. Multiculturalism here was both uncontroversial and functional. People came from everywhere, integrated, and got on with building lives, businesses and contributing to that overall ethos Canadian culture. Minority rights and gender equality stopped being fights and became defaults. Ontario, the most populous province, ran one of the cleanest grids on the continent for half a century on the back of CANDU, a reactor we designed ourselves. Peaceful, homegrown, zero-carbon, clean energy, and nobody lost any sleep over it. In fact, most people probably weren't even aware of that. By every classical liberal measure that actually mattered, Canada was a success story that inspired the rest of the world. https://www.sott.net/article/507240-Canada-was-a-liberal-paradise-until-the-Liberals-took-over Fri, 03 Jul 2026 21:08:28 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507209-The-Socialists-winning-in-the-Dem-primaries-are-too-young-to-remember-why-socialism-fails Robert Owen bought a town to prove socialism works. The DSA should study what happened. Something is happening inside the Democratic Party, and it is no longer subtle. In Denver this spring, Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old, foreign-born, self-described democratic socialist endorsed by both Denver DSA and the national Democratic Socialists of America, defeated longtime Rep. Diana DeGette in the Democratic primary for CO-1, running on Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, and a slate of ambitious economic planks. In upper Manhattan, 32-year-old Darializa Avila Chevalier, NYC-DSA's candidate for NY-13, toppled Rep. Adriano Espaillat. In Brooklyn's NY-7, Claire Valdez, a 36-year-old UAW organizer and former NYC-DSA membership chair who calls herself a proud democratic socialist, captured the Democratic nomination. In Philadelphia, Chris Rabb, a DSA member endorsed by the national organization, won the primary in a seat so blue that DSA's own publication is already calling him the next... https://www.sott.net/article/507209-The-Socialists-winning-in-the-Dem-primaries-are-too-young-to-remember-why-socialism-fails Thu, 02 Jul 2026 19:06:28 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507069-Venezuela-rocked-by-shallow-7-5-7-2-magnitude-earthquakes-2-295-killed-over-50000-missing-UPDATED Venezuela has declared a state of emergency after two back-to-back earthquakes of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 struck, killing at least 32 people. A major search and rescue operation is under way after Wednesday's quakes caused widespread damage, especially in the capital, Caracas. Emergency crews are searching through the rubble of collapsed buildings while authorities closed the country's main airport in Caracas, suspended classes and mobilised health workers to respond to the disaster. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) warned that "high casualties and extensive damage are probable", and US President Donald Trump said the quakes - some of the strongest in more than a century - caused "a devastating number of deaths". https://www.sott.net/article/507069-Venezuela-rocked-by-shallow-7-5-7-2-magnitude-earthquakes-2-295-killed-over-50000-missing-UPDATED Thu, 02 Jul 2026 11:27:02 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507166-Chinas-largest-desert-floods-after-record-rainfall-2-5-inches-in-24-hours-on-June-19-also-surpassed-average-yearly-precipitation-in-just-3-hours From the night of 19 June, Hotan in Xinjiang experienced its heaviest 24-hour downpour in recorded history. The resulting flooding in the city, which borders the Taklamakan desert, caused the temporary closure of the expressway, China Weather Network reports. In three lunchtime hours on 20 June, the area had surpassed its average yearly precipitation, according to Xinjiang Meteorological Service. The extreme rainstorm was caused by two banks of moist air converging over southern Xinjiang, explained China Weather Network analyst Xin Xin. The rainfall accumulated in the mountainous areas and, together with snowmelt runoff, caused flash floods, he added. Though Xin Xin did not mention climate change as an exacerbating factor, other commentators have. There has been snowmelt-induced flooding in the same Tarim basin area before, for instance in 2021 and the summer of 2022. But the rainfall was much more intense this time than in 2021, Tang Peng, director of the Hotan Meteorological... https://www.sott.net/article/507166-Chinas-largest-desert-floods-after-record-rainfall-2-5-inches-in-24-hours-on-June-19-also-surpassed-average-yearly-precipitation-in-just-3-hours Tue, 30 Jun 2026 14:53:26 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507110-American-Empire-crumbles-New-report-reveals-true-extent-of-devastation-of-US-Fifth-Fleet-HQ-in-Bahrain Another 'bombshell' has been released by WSJ regarding the extent of the damage dished out by Iran onto US regional bases, corroborated by detailed new satellite photos: The most shocking revelation from the report surrounded findings about the US's NSA (Naval Support Activity) Bahrain base, where the Fifth Fleet Headquarters are housed. Less than 150 miles from Iran's southern coast, NSA Bahrain has been the anchor of American naval power in the Middle East for more than three decades. The base can host every type of ship in the U.S. fleet, and has played a critical role in countering Iranian weapon smuggling, minelaying and tanker attacks. https://www.sott.net/article/507110-American-Empire-crumbles-New-report-reveals-true-extent-of-devastation-of-US-Fifth-Fleet-HQ-in-Bahrain Sat, 27 Jun 2026 15:39:17 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507048-Even-if-the-Strait-of-Hormuz-is-open-it-aint-open It is open. Nope, it is closed. Wait... It is open. What? Closed again? If you are following the media reports on the Strait of Hormuz you are probably dizzy from hearing about the changing status of the Strait of Hormuz. If you think that getting a firm agreement between Iran and the US to open the Strait of Hormuz will result in an instant solution to restoring global oil reserves, think again. Even if Iran agrees to a 60-day moratorium on charging ships entering and leaving the Persian Gulf a "usage fee" (Trump calls it a "toll"), and the moratorium starts this week, the world still faces some serious economic shocks from the disruption of Crude Oil and LNG. Crude Oil and LNG production will take time to ramp back up to the pre-Ramadan War levels. We still do not have a full assessment of the damage to the Oil and LNG infrastructure in the Gulf nations. Even if all those systems are intact and functioning — they are not — there is still the problem of having the tankers that... https://www.sott.net/article/507048-Even-if-the-Strait-of-Hormuz-is-open-it-aint-open Tue, 23 Jun 2026 20:30:20 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507027-Cuba-passes-sweeping-free-market-reforms-in-biggest-economic-shift-since-revolution Observers on Friday called Cuba's new free-market reforms the most sweeping economic overhaul of the island's communist economy since the Cuban revolution, as the grandson of former President Raúl Castro said in an interview that Cuba must seek to move its economy forward. The 176 measures aim to further decentralize Cuba's state-run economy, which has been left gasping by a tightened embargo under President Donald Trump. Under the island's current economic model, the government largely determines what is produced, who produces it, the prices at which goods are sold and how the country's resources are allocated. The plan includes more space for private businesses, imports and exports without state intermediation, free hiring of personnel, authorization for private banks and investment by Cubans abroad. It even permits fast-food chains to establish themselves on the island. https://www.sott.net/article/507027-Cuba-passes-sweeping-free-market-reforms-in-biggest-economic-shift-since-revolution Mon, 22 Jun 2026 21:20:01 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/506981-The-quiet-operational-architecture-behind-the-US-Israel-integration GenXGirl's recent article, "Backdoor Alliance With Israel," does a good job of tracing the policy architecture behind the deepening U.S.-Israel security relationship. She correctly identifies how NSPM-12, several legislative vehicles, and Pax Silica are being used together to create pathways for greater integration. Her framing is useful and timely. What GenXGirl's piece does not fully develop is the operational layer already in motion beneath those policy instruments. The reporting maps the intent. This article today is the part that moves the story from mapping the policy architecture to showing the operational layer already in motion. It shows how access is already moving through procurement channels, certifications, and existing legal authorities, and how new legislation is being used to make that access harder to reverse. The evidence does not point to a future architecture waiting to be assembled, but to systems already operating within U.S. federal networks that are now... https://www.sott.net/article/506981-The-quiet-operational-architecture-behind-the-US-Israel-integration Fri, 19 Jun 2026 22:48:53 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/506971-Tropical-Storm-Arthur-remnants-drench-Gulf-States-after-tornadoes-hit-the-Midwest-over-2-FEET-of-rain-in-48-hours-in-Louisiana The remnants of Tropical Storm Arthur battered parts of the southeastern United States with drenching rains and strong wind on Thursday, tearing through buildings, flooding homes and launching water rescues along the Gulf Coast. Severe weather also pummeled parts of the Midwest, where a separate line of strong storms knocked down structures and left tens of thousands of residents without power. Arthur was the first tropical storm of the season in the Atlantic basin, and although it quickly downgraded within a day of forming, the lingering system created dangerous conditions in Louisiana and Mississippi. In one rural Louisiana parish, more than 2 feet of rain fell in 48 hours and most of that soaking came Thursday, said Donald Jones, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Lake Charles. It flooded at least 200 homes in Avoyelles Parish, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northwest of the state capital, Louisiana state Rep. Daryl Deshotel said. "Even by this region's... https://www.sott.net/article/506971-Tropical-Storm-Arthur-remnants-drench-Gulf-States-after-tornadoes-hit-the-Midwest-over-2-FEET-of-rain-in-48-hours-in-Louisiana Fri, 19 Jun 2026 18:12:59 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/506969-Gabbard-Drops-Fauci-COVID-19-Receipts-On-Last-Day-He-Funded-The-Research-Cooked-The-Cover-Story-Then-Lied-To-Congress Newly declassified documents released Thursday by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard show that a U.S. national laboratory assessed the COVID-19 lab-origin hypothesis as a serious possibility as early as May 2020, as well as evidence of U.S.-funded coronavirus research that included planning for spike-protein modifications, receptor-adaptation experiments, and testing in humanized mice in collaboration with researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The documents also prove that Anthony Fauci lied under oath. The release, issued on Gabbard's last day on the job, includes an eight-page May 27, 2020, assessment from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Z Program. That assessment concluded that "all of the necessary conditions for an accidental release of a laboratory-modified coronavirus - specifically a coronavirus adapted to recognize human cell receptors - were present at the Chinese Wuhan Institute of Virology in mid-to-late 2019." It assigned equal weight to... https://www.sott.net/article/506969-Gabbard-Drops-Fauci-COVID-19-Receipts-On-Last-Day-He-Funded-The-Research-Cooked-The-Cover-Story-Then-Lied-To-Congress Fri, 19 Jun 2026 15:42:30 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/506945-Generative-Optogenetics-brought-to-you-by-DARPA I am going to do the hard work on a DARPA document so that you don't have to. The document I am referring to is an Initial Announcement by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (Biological Technologies Office (BTO)) for a funding opportunity in Generative Optogenetics valued at $1.7M or $1.99M, depending on the research objective selected.1 The announcement was posted on December 19, 2025 and Phase 1 of the project is likely well underway complete with a workshop for interested parties. So what this means is that DARPA is looking for smart people to design a protein complex that can synthesize DNA/RNA directly in living cells using optical signals. Now what the hell does that mean, you ask? I refer you to my article on optogenetics to find out, as a start. To summarize (as I so succinctly did so in this article), optogenetics is the introduction of genes into cells that don't naturally carry them, whereby the resulting proteins, once expressed, can be controlled and... https://www.sott.net/article/506945-Generative-Optogenetics-brought-to-you-by-DARPA Thu, 18 Jun 2026 16:57:30 +0000