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. Mon, 19 Oct 2026 22:21:38 +0000 https://www.sott.net/images/sottlogo_rss.jpg SOTT.net https://www.sott.net https://www.sott.net/article/508988-The-coming-food-crisis-may-look-nothing-like-a-crisis-until-its-too-late Just after the morning deliveries and before the first customers, a supermarket looks both ordinary and slightly deceptive. The lights are on, the coolers hum, and the shelves hold exactly what they held last week. Strawberries show up in February, lettuce comes from ground that was desert two generations ago, and on the same shelf beef raised across three states sits beside bread baked from grain cut a thousand miles away. Someone pushing a cart through the whole store can finish the errand without once wondering how any of it got there. That is part of why the American food supply is so easy to take for granted. Nobody praises the trucking fleets, the cold storage, the seed suppliers, or the packing houses, because a thing that rarely fails stops being noticed. Two or three generations have grown up treating food the way they treat running water: as a fact of the world, unremarkable and about as interesting. Reliability, though, is not the same as resilience, and the two are easy... https://www.sott.net/article/508988-The-coming-food-crisis-may-look-nothing-like-a-crisis-until-its-too-late Mon, 19 Oct 2026 22:21:36 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508980-Two-dead-and-thousands-evacuated-as-Storm-Adam-dumps-record-25-inches-of-rain-in-24-hours-on-eastern-Spain A night and day to forget across eastern Spain, particularly in the Valencian regions of La Marina and La Safor. Unprecedented rainfall exceeding 600mm overnight has left rivers including the Girona and Vernissa overflowing their banks, trapping dozens of residents in their homes - with several forced onto rooftops to await rescue. Appearing alongside Government Delegate Pilar Bernabé following an emergency Cecopi coordination meeting early on Monday morning, Regional Minister for Emergencies Juan Carlos Valderrama issued an urgent warning to residents along the southern coast of Valencia and northern Alicante. "People must not travel; they must stay at home. There is heavy, continuous rain, which is causing significant flooding in towns such as Pego, Oliva, Piles, and Miramar," Valderrama said, confirming that "many people are trapped" and that emergency vehicles were initially unable to navigate flooded roadways. Units from the Third Intervention Battalion of the Military... https://www.sott.net/article/508980-Two-dead-and-thousands-evacuated-as-Storm-Adam-dumps-record-25-inches-of-rain-in-24-hours-on-eastern-Spain Mon, 19 Oct 2026 13:05:31 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508953-Replacing-Europe-Undercover-film-follows-money-behind-Europes-taxpayer-funded-mass-migration-pipeline Introduction: A new documentary from investigative outlet Muckraker traces the migrant route from West Africa through Spain and France to Britain, examining what the outlet describes as a network sustained by taxpayer-funded aid programs, NGOs, and even Western governments. The 47-minute film, Replacing Europe, draws on months of reporting and undercover footage to investigate the logistics and top NGO players behind the nation-killing mass migration into Europe. "The entire migration is a game," says Sheikh M. Kromah, identified by Muckraker as a worker for the UN's International Organization for Migration. He alleges that Spain has a financial incentive to maintain arrivals because reducing them could jeopardize EU funding. Muckraker claims that publicly funded institutions help sustain the migration flows that European governments publicly promise to control. Its interviews raise questions about oversight, spending incentives and the boundary between humanitarian assistance and... https://www.sott.net/article/508953-Replacing-Europe-Undercover-film-follows-money-behind-Europes-taxpayer-funded-mass-migration-pipeline Sat, 17 Oct 2026 19:58:15 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508945-El-Nino-rains-flood-South-America-sending-residents-fleeing-and-cattle-swimming Rivers swollen by heavy rains linked to El Niño continued flooding swaths of Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay on Friday, forcing thousands of people from their homes and sending ranchers scrambling to move cattle to higher ground. In Argentina's northeastern Corrientes province, the Paraná River rose to a dangerous 4.7 metres (15.4 feet) on Thursday in the riverside town of Ituzaingó, prompting evacuations there and in other towns across the province. Herds of cows waded across flooded pastures as ranchers guided them toward dry land. The calves struggled against a current thick with floating clumps of river plants. Provincial officials said they were digging canals and installing drains to prepare for more heavy rain. The floodwaters come from three major rivers that start in Brazil and flow south through the region: the Paraná, the Uruguay and the Iguazú. Torrential rain has pushed all three waterways higher for days, spilling them over their banks in northeastern Argentina,... https://www.sott.net/article/508945-El-Nino-rains-flood-South-America-sending-residents-fleeing-and-cattle-swimming Sat, 17 Oct 2026 12:00:08 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508839-The-Gaza-Method This essay was first published on The Ninth Wave substack in February 2024 The West's evolving blueprint for controlling a poly-crisis world by mass-murdering and subjugating the poor, the rebellious, and those deemed "superfluous." When Israel started its latest and ongoing round of genocide-with-ethnic-cleansing against the Palestinians (and then, of course, every crime against humanity and war crime in the book, all the books), I learned that, at a resistance demonstration in New York, there had been a sign saying "Gaza is a Method." I intuitively agreed: It is obvious that the mass murder in Gaza outlines a pattern, a set of tools and measures of extermination, subjugation, and expulsion that are ready for export and will be in high demand - just like so much else of Israel's spying, policing (if that is the word), and murder skills and tech have always been. Of course, this Gaza Method - clearly, whoever made that perspicacious sign was alluding to the Cold War "Jakarta... https://www.sott.net/article/508839-The-Gaza-Method Sun, 11 Oct 2026 19:47:16 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508824-Post-tropical-Isaias-leaves-at-least-4-dead-in-US-Southeast-as-flood-threat-heavy-rains-persist-900000-customers-without-power-wind-gusts-of-116mph At least three deaths were reported from Post-Tropical Storm Isaias, which made landfall Friday as a dangerous Category 2 storm, lashing the northern Gulf Coast with destructive winds and life-threatening storm surge. The powerful storm made landfall at 9:30 p.m. ET near Destin, Florida, with sustained winds of 105 mph. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the storm became post-tropical early Saturday, meaning that it has lost its tropical characteristics and is no longer being fueled primarily by warm ocean water. However, the storm's impacts are far from over. On Saturday morning, a death was confirmed in Birmingham, Alabama, when a tree fell on a home. https://www.sott.net/article/508824-Post-tropical-Isaias-leaves-at-least-4-dead-in-US-Southeast-as-flood-threat-heavy-rains-persist-900000-customers-without-power-wind-gusts-of-116mph Sat, 10 Oct 2026 19:23:09 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508816-Tsunami-warnings-issued-after-shallow-magnitude-7-7-earthquake-strikes-Panama-aftershocks-of-mag-6-6-and-6 A magnitude 7.7 earthquake has hit southern Panama, triggering tsunami warnings across Central and South America. The US National Weather Service issued tsunami warnings for Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Guatemala on Friday following the quake. Chile's naval Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service also issued a tsunami warning. The US Geological Survey said the earthquake was centred about 10km (6 miles) southwest of the remote community of Pitaloza Arriba along the Pacific Ocean coast. Residents of Panama City reported feeling tremors, with buildings shaking and people evacuating into the streets. "We felt it very strongly. It knocked things over in the kitchen, but we're okay, though we're very scared," 60-year-old Rosendo Dominguez, who is from Herrera province, where the earthquake struck, told The Associated Press news agency by phone. "Everyone is outside, scared," Dominguez added. https://www.sott.net/article/508816-Tsunami-warnings-issued-after-shallow-magnitude-7-7-earthquake-strikes-Panama-aftershocks-of-mag-6-6-and-6 Sat, 10 Oct 2026 08:31:36 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508804-Why-real-intelligence-is-something-more-than-optimisation If intelligence is merely optimisation then machines will outrun us. Kant tells us why human reason is so much more A few months ago, I sat in a packed university auditorium listening to a celebrated computer scientist explain the brilliance of large language models (LLMs). These systems optimise, he said. And they improve at optimisation on the basis of past experience. He paused. That, he said with a smile, is intelligence. The audience nodded along approvingly. Meanwhile, a philosophical alarm bell began sounding in my head. Not because the speaker's claim was implausible. On the contrary, as a description of much contemporary artificial intelligence, it seemed apt. AI systems are built around objectives, losses, rewards, predictions, preferences, benchmarks and feedback loops. They are trained to perform better relative to some standard of success. In one form or another, they optimise. That is a great part of their technical power. What troubled me was the ease with which a... https://www.sott.net/article/508804-Why-real-intelligence-is-something-more-than-optimisation Fri, 09 Oct 2026 15:38:04 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508731-Pre-emptive-nuclear-war-The-role-of-Israel-in-triggering-an-attack-on-Iran The text below is Chapter III of Michel Chossudovsky's book entitled: The Globalization of War. America's Long War against Humanity, Global Research Publishers, Montreal, 2015. This chapter provides a historical perspective of US war plans directed against Iran, including the use of a preemptive nuclear attack, using low yield, "more usable" tactical nuclear weapons. This analysis is of particular relevance to the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran. *** While one can conceptualize the loss of life and destruction resulting from present-day wars including Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impossible to fully comprehend the devastation which might result from a Third World War, using "new technologies" and advanced weapons, until it occurs and becomes a reality. The international community has endorsed nuclear war in the name of world peace. "Making the world safer" is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust." The stockpiling... https://www.sott.net/article/508731-Pre-emptive-nuclear-war-The-role-of-Israel-in-triggering-an-attack-on-Iran Mon, 05 Oct 2026 19:48:36 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508647-NAZA-documentary-review-Portrait-of-Israel-as-a-nation-stuck-in-a-moral-abyss On 24 August, only nine days before the start of the Venice International Film Festival, a report in The Guardian announced an addition to the lineup. NAZA, by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, the Israeli co-directors of 2024 Oscar-winner No Other Land, would premiere in the main competition. On the Venice Lido, the film, which "reveals in detail the systems behind Israel's calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza", was met with a 25-minute standing ovation and later won the Special Jury Prize. Within days, France's mk2 films announced that it had come on board as sales agent, while several major autumn festivals, including San Sebastian and New York, confirmed its inclusion in their lineups. Building on this, NAZA is being rushed into cinemas across the world, including Germany and the US in the coming weeks, which will surely intensify interest, before streaming for free on The Guardian. https://www.sott.net/article/508647-NAZA-documentary-review-Portrait-of-Israel-as-a-nation-stuck-in-a-moral-abyss Tue, 29 Sep 2026 19:39:29 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508622-Mammoth-Spring-freezes-September-snow-buries-the-Himalayas-Antarctic-winter-wont-let-go-Net-zeros-China-problem-Sunspots-crash-again Mammoth Spring Freezes A freeze has reached northern Arkansas, with Mammoth Spring falling to 32F (0C) on Sept 25 and breaking a daily record. The previous Sept 25 benchmark was 34F (1.1C), set in 1995 in books extending back to 1904. Even more impressively, in that 122-year history this year's Sept 25 freeze is the earliest on record—beating the previous earliest by four days. The 32F reading also ties the third-lowest temperature ever observed there in September. Mammoth Spring's typical first-frost window falls in late October, putting this year's freeze roughly a month ahead of schedule. September Snow Buries The Himalayas An exceptional September snowstorm has buried the high Himalayas along the India-Tibet frontier, dumping deep snow across northern Uttarakhand before hammering western Tibet with blizzard conditions. In Uttarakhand, two days of persistent snowfall whitened the remote Lapthal region near the Tibetan border, with unusually heavy accumulation reported across the... https://www.sott.net/article/508622-Mammoth-Spring-freezes-September-snow-buries-the-Himalayas-Antarctic-winter-wont-let-go-Net-zeros-China-problem-Sunspots-crash-again Mon, 28 Sep 2026 18:58:07 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/212625-Why-Israelis-Danced-on-911 It was stated recently on Facebook that investigating 911 is a waste of time, that nothing was 'likely to be proven'. That's obvious! It is the purpose of a cover up to make of 'investigations' a 'waste of time'. On this point, whomever perpetrated 911 won when Bush made of the pursuit of justice a 'waste of time'. The lesson learned is that if you are sufficiently rich and/or powerful, you can subvert justice, the rule of law, the truth! Our nation is lost if truth is abandoned because the pursuit of it is a 'waste of time'. In such a society, no one is free; everything is based upon a lie and, based upon a lie, is unjust. Such a society is a police state, at best a tyranny of an uninformed 'majority'! The 'establishment' is not appalled by widespread ignorance; it depends upon it and promotes it. Such a society is finished! The U.S. will fall ignominiously as did Rome of its folly, arrogance and incompetence. Only the guilty are sufficiently motivated to cover up a crime. Just as... https://www.sott.net/article/212625-Why-Israelis-Danced-on-911 Fri, 11 Sep 2026 16:01:39 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/266135-Exposing-the-names-and-connections-behind-the-9-11-conspiracy Was 9/11 really an inside job? After reviewing this documentary, and checking the evidence, I think the answer will be clear to you. Special thanks to Michael C. Ruppert, Mark H. Gaffney, and Kevin Ryan for solving the crimes of 9/11 with their amazing research. This video is a compilation of evidence they have uncovered. https://www.sott.net/article/266135-Exposing-the-names-and-connections-behind-the-9-11-conspiracy Fri, 11 Sep 2026 16:00:49 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508304-Well-being-Mental-illness-in-women Worldwide the single largest source of nonfatal disability Back in 2020, Pew Research Center surveyed more than 11,000 Americans. Political scientist Zach Goldberg subsequently examined the underlying data and broke the results down by age, sex, race, and political ideology. What he found was rather remarkable. Among white women ages 18 to 29 who identified as liberal, 56.3% reported that a doctor or other health-care provider had diagnosed them with a mental health condition. Not 15%. Not 25%. Fifty-six percent. For white moderate women of the same age, the number was 28.4%. For white conservative women, 27.3%. In other words, young white liberal women were more than twice as likely as their conservative counterparts to report having received a mental health diagnosis. https://www.sott.net/article/508304-Well-being-Mental-illness-in-women Tue, 08 Sep 2026 20:54:10 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508283-Berlins-wall-falls-down-AfD-finally-wins-state-election-in-Germany The pro-Germany, anti-globalist, anti-mass migration right-wing populist party known as Alternative für Deutschland delivered its strongest election result ever in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, dealing a sharp blow to Germany's political establishment. On Sunday, AfD secured 43.8% of the vote in Sunday's regional election, exceeding polling estimates. Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrats lost about 19 percentage points, while turnout surged to 77.8% from 60.3% in 2021. According to Marion Mühlberger, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank, AfD's weekend win leaves the party holding 39 seats in the 83-member legislature, three short of an absolute majority. The CDU, Social Democrats, Greens and Left also have a combined 39 seats. https://www.sott.net/article/508283-Berlins-wall-falls-down-AfD-finally-wins-state-election-in-Germany Mon, 07 Sep 2026 18:50:10 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508276-Antarctica-still-below-100F-High-Arctics-coldest-summer-on-record In nearly seven decades of DMI data, no High Arctic summer has been colder. Antarctica Still Below -100F Antarctica's exceptionally cold 2026 is carrying into September, with temperatures again plunging below -100F. On Sept 5, Concordia Station at Dome C registered an unusually low -76.6C (-105.9F), roughly 12.5C (22.5F) below the typical September daily minimum, according to Italy's Antarctic Meteo-Climatological Observatory. The reading continues a notably cold austral winter. June was Antarctica's coolest since 2021, according to NOAA. Concordia fell to -80.3C (-112.5F) on June 5, while the South Pole averaged -60.6C (-77.1F) for the month. https://www.sott.net/article/508276-Antarctica-still-below-100F-High-Arctics-coldest-summer-on-record Mon, 07 Sep 2026 10:07:29 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508235-Typhoon-Saudel-brings-torrential-rain-floods-to-China-38-2-inches-of-rainfall-in-4-days-UPDATE China's southern coastal provinces of Fujian and Guangdong are bracing for further torrential rain after severe downpours linked to Typhoon Saudel triggered ‌flooding in urban and rural areas, swamping vehicles and causing a three-storey brick building to collapse. In ‌Fujian's city of Fuding, known for its tea plantations and lush greenery, firefighters on Friday waded through ‌waist-deep floodwaters to carry elderly people to safety, social media footage verified by Reuters showed. In nearby Jinxi village, a tea-growing community surrounded by mountains, raging floodwaters inundated residential buildings and brought down a three-storey house, social media footage verified by Reuters showed. https://www.sott.net/article/508235-Typhoon-Saudel-brings-torrential-rain-floods-to-China-38-2-inches-of-rainfall-in-4-days-UPDATE Sat, 05 Sep 2026 12:44:24 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508097-At-least-1280-killed-5620-missing-after-flash-flood-hits-Nepal-and-Tibet-UPDATED At least 160 people have been killed and hundreds are missing after a huge flash ⁠flood swept away villages in Nepal, damaging roads, bridges and power projects in areas near Tibet, authorities said. Nepali police said late on Wednesday that they had recovered 157 bodies and that officers were continuing to try to move people away from risk areas. Officials said at least 384 tourists were reported missing as a result of the flash flood, including 291 foreign nationals, among them tourists from the United Kingdom, the United States, India and Malaysia. Police spokesman Abi Narayan Kafle said that 28 police personnel were also missing. Chinese authorities said at least three people had died and 265 others remained missing on their side of the border in Tibet's county of Gyirong. State broadcaster CCTV said that specific casualty figures were still being verified. Nepal's Prime Minister Balendra Shah urged the Himalayan nation to stand united following the disaster. https://www.sott.net/article/508097-At-least-1280-killed-5620-missing-after-flash-flood-hits-Nepal-and-Tibet-UPDATED Thu, 03 Sep 2026 17:57:49 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508140-Nodes-not-poles-Why-the-new-geoeconomic-order-is-multinodal-not-multipolar [Before diving into tonight's featured article I want to offer a brief comment on John Ratcliffe's strange visit to Moscow. The key for me is the C-17. Why use that plane? The CIA Director has a Gulfstream V (GV), which has a published maximum range of about 6,500 nautical miles, more than enough to reach Moscow. Commodore Steve Jermy has offered up the best possible explanation... Ratcliffe was picking up the bodies of dead CIA officers that the Russians had collected. Coffins travel better on a C-17 than a GV.] Every commentator now reaches for the same word. The American century is ending, the dollar's grip is loosening, new blocs are forming, and the world, we are told, is becoming "multipolar." The word feels precise. It is not. "Multipolar" imports a set of twentieth-century assumptions that actively misdescribe what is emerging in the global economy, and because the word we choose determines what we look for and what we measure, the wrong word produces the wrong analysis.... https://www.sott.net/article/508140-Nodes-not-poles-Why-the-new-geoeconomic-order-is-multinodal-not-multipolar Sat, 29 Aug 2026 20:31:37 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508074-Why-medicine-wont-cure-youand-how-thats-finally-changing The predatory business model that requires lifelong patients faces its first federal challenge with Kennedy's historic SSRI initiative When I was in high school, I observed a few discouraging events which led me to postulate: "no industry, organization or cause tasked with solving a problem will actually solve it because the problem disappearing threatens their economic livelihood or political power." Since that time, I have observed more examples than I can count in so many different spheres that I've accepted this dynamic is a common feature of society, and likewise, have come across many similar observations by others, my favorite of which was: Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program — Milton Friedman Recently a noteworthy examples of this principle came to my attention after I learned all of the online dating apps had switched from formats which allowed people to find suitable long term partners to ones which prevented people from matching, because if someone... https://www.sott.net/article/508074-Why-medicine-wont-cure-youand-how-thats-finally-changing Mon, 24 Aug 2026 21:29:43 +0000