In post-Soviet Azerbaijan, religion was a hot new commodity. I bought into it, too
- by Ilkin Huseynli
Reading
As the eighth in line of succession to the British throne is arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, Hardeep Matharu explores how elite impunity is built on creating a sense of powerlessness in the many – in her editorial first published in the latest monthly print edition of Byline Times
I am late today because I am writing this in London after travelling the last 24 hours. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the latest labour force data today (February 19, 2026) – Labour Force, Australia – for January 2026 – which showed that the labour market was essentially steady in that employment kept…
If you’ve been following the rapid rise of AI‑driven chatbots and ‘assistant‑as‑a‑service’ platforms, you know one of the biggest pain points is trustworthy, privacy‑preserving web search. AI assistants need access to current information to be useful, yet traditional search engines track every query, building detailed user profiles.
Enter SearXNG - an open‑source metasearch engine that aggregates results from dozens of public search back‑ends while never storing personal data. The new Drupal module lets any Drupal‑based AI assistant (ChatGPT, LLM‑powered bots, custom agents) invoke SearXNG directly from the Drupal site, bringing privacy‑first searching in‑process with your content.
Matthieu Chavaz, David Elliott and Win Monroe Large-scale provision of long-term funding to banks has become a central bank tool to support credit supply during downturns. However, scholars have worried that allowing banks to rely on public funding could create moral hazard and crowd out private funding. In a recent paper, we address these concerns … Continue reading A public-private partnership: central banks as a funding backstop
Trump’s Department of Homeland Security is weaponizing a little-known legal tool to crack down on free speech — and Big Tech is complying.
Scientists in Berlin performed a battery of tests on a 3,400-year-old weapon
The post Space Age Technology Reveals Secrets of Bronze Age Sword appeared first on Nautilus.
~by Sean Paul Kelley I don’t know if we’re going to bomb Iran or not. I hope we don’t but hope is not a policy. All I’m left with is my personal experience in Iran and how I go about analyzing foreign affairs. As many of you know, I’m a realist. Once upon a time, […]
In an era of rising authoritarianism and billionaire autocrats, defenders of human rights cannot afford to retreat.
Att låna till försvaret är enligt finanspolitiska rådet inte att rekommendera. I Finanspolitiska rådets årliga rapport som presenterades häromdagen föreslås istället att de kraftfulla aviserade försvarssatsningarna på uppemot 300 miljarder kronor finansieras via höjda skatter eller omprioriteringar i statsbudgeten. Hade man föreslagit att skattefinansieringen skulle ske genom kraftigt höjd progression i inkomstskatterna, kapitalskatter eller särskilda […]
Picture it: Los Angeles in 1985. I’d moved there two years earlier to make it as a model, but all I had to show for it was a couple of car shows, one page of a local JCPenney circular, and a weekly “session” at Chateau Marmont with a freaky rich dude who I can’t say more about because of the NDA.
So when I met this guy with the most perfect curly mullet who promised me a little pink house in one of the flyover states, it sounded pretty good. Forty years later, I’m still not even sure what state we’re living in, but I do know that I hate this goddamn place with the fire of a thousand California suns.
As the Olympic committee searches for new revenue streams, profit-gouging private equity firms move to expand their influence over global sports.
Palestinians accuse the President of attempting to "pacify the victim" while overseeing a "slow genocide" in Gaza
You’ve Always Been This Way is a column written by Taylor Harris, a late-diagnosed neurodivergent woman and 1980s preschool dropout, who identifies every moment from her past that filled her with shame, and mutters, “Yep, that tracks. I see it all now.”
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“I’ve been thinking about it all wrong,” said the town’s perimenopausal autistic woman every day, upon waking and going to bed. And sometimes whilst she sat alone upon the chamber pot, flipping through daguerreotypes from her bestie.
“What is it, my dear?” her husband asked. He’d once read a pamphlet on the four humors and feared she’d gone mad, oversaturated with black bile. “You’ve been all in a dither for a fortnight now. Shall I send for the doctor? Although… he is most adept at watching patients burn with fever before declaring the deceased, dead.”
“IT is everything, Peter. Don’t you understand?”
“Clearly not, for if I had understood, why would I—”
FREETHOUGHT TODAY January-February 2026 “Spiritual but Not Religious”? Are You Sure? By Alfie Kohn Have you ever come across someone who qualifies her opinions about gender-related issues by assuring her listener that she’s “not a feminist or anything”? That comment wouldn’t be surprising coming from denizens of the Bible Belt or the MAGAverse who are all in for women’s subservience ... Read More
- Glad I went with ominous drumbeats as the beckoning call, all four players looking upon the game with wonder and dread. Woodwinds/sitars would have been a mistake.
- Game instructions clear enough to be understood by players, vaguely threatening enough to unnerve them. Struck a great balance there.
- Two youngest players mystified by the enchanted game tokens. An excellent sign, as I’ll be pitching Jumanji as a game for wayward youths looking to escape the tedium of their daily lives / learn a few things the hard way.
- Turn up sadism levels in monkeys. Antics are WAY too on the playful side. Don’t be afraid to go overboard here either. I’d rather have them throwing knives and stealing police cars than—Jesus—tickling each other.
- Giant flesh-eating plants went smoothly. Creeped into the room through the ceiling and power outlets, went straight for the weakest player, players fought back with fireplace tools / wept uncontrollably.
Defying time and colonial power, a landscape artist layers the deep histories of his ancestors to create hopeful futures
- by Aeon Video
Traditional and tech-based methods can reveal what your practice is doing – and give you the confidence to stick with it
- by Matt Fuchs
Learning sign language made my face more expressive – and changed how I interact with people in general
- by Hannah Seo
Anthony Albanese invited Israeli President Isaac Herzog to visit in the hope of boosting support for Israel. Instead mass protests, and anger at police violence in Sydney, showed the continuing depth of opposition to the genocidal state.
The post Defiant protests disrupt Albanese’s embrace of war criminal Isaac Herzog first appeared on Solidarity Online.
In the wake of the Bondi attack, governments are attempting to repress the Palestine movement, with anti-protest laws, federal hate crime laws and plans to ban chants such as “Globalise the Intifada”. The experience of activists at the University of Melbourne, mobilising hundreds to face down threats of police and academic sanctions, provide a rich […]
The post Defiance at Uni Melb shows how to beat Palestine repression first appeared on Solidarity Online.
The Liberals have a new leader. But they’re still stuck with their old problems—and Angus Taylor isn’t going to dig them out of a deep hole.
The post Liberals’ new leader stuck with same problems as One Nation gains at their expense first appeared on Solidarity Online.
The Reserve Bank pushed interest rates back up in February, as workers face a new cost-of-living shock.
The post New cost of living crunch as Labor and Reserve Bank hit workers first appeared on Solidarity Online.
Violence against protests is not the result of rogue officers. It is part of the basic role of the police.
The post Violent police exist to protect capitalism and the rich first appeared on Solidarity Online.
Tens of thousands of dockworkers across Europe and the Mediterranean shut down 21 major ports in a co-ordinated day of strike action in support of Palestine on 6 February.
The post Dockworkers strike to stop arms to Israel first appeared on Solidarity Online.