In mid-May 2022, eighteen-year-old Payton Gendron approached a grocery store in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Buffalo, NY. He opened fire with a Bushmaster XM-15 semi-automatic rifle, killing ten people. The attack was one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent American history.
Citing a leaked national strategy paper the Sunday Times reports: UK police fear a sharp rise in certain categories of crime and a risk of civil unrest this winter amid a cost of living and energy crisis.
The document compiled by police chiefs warns that “economic turmoil and financial instability” may lead to an increase in offenses such as shoplifting, burglary, vehicle theft, online fraud and blackmail. More children are likely to join drug gangs and more women may become subject to sexual exploitation.
How to Learn the Right Lessons From the Cold War
Late in the afternoon of Sunday, February 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin convened a group of senior Kremlin officials to witness an extraordinary public statement. Putin announced that he had taken the “unprecedented” step of ordering Russia’s nuclear warheads to be prepared for “special combat readiness.” Between Putin’s nuclear saber rattling and growing anxiety over the prospect of a military conflict with China over Taiwan, once arcane questions of nuclear strategy and deterrence have returned to the center of world politics.
Pe 23 august 2022, românul Eugen Marin Sabău, 46 de ani, a devenit primul deținut din Spania care a primit dreptul de a fi eutanasiat în spitalul penitenciar din Spania în care se afla. Libertatea a discutat cu dr. Erika Preisig din Elveția, care de mai bine de 15 ani asistă medical oameni care vor să moară.
W sprawie reparacji rządzący zachowują się tak, jakby był to temat, którym od czasu do czasu można okładać Niemcy. Politycy PO z kolei zachowują się często raczej jak adwokaci interesu Niemiec. Nie pozostawiają wątpliwości, że jeśli do władzy dojdzie ekipa Donalda Tuska, to temat zostanie zakopany na wieki. Logiczni są tylko Niemcy. Unikają trudnego dla nich tematu jak ognia i wspierają tych w Polsce, którzy reparacji nie chcą.
Nie należy wykorzystywać sprawy reparacji do polaryzowania Polaków.
Nie chciałbym dziś na tych łamach rozstrzygać, czy współczesnej, demokratycznej Polsce należą się odszkodowania za ogrom bestialstwa i zniszczeń, jakich dokonali Niemcy podczas drugiej wojny światowej. Raczej wesprę się posiadaną wiedzą, jaka wynika z publikowanego przez nas w czwartek sondażu: Polacy są w tej sprawie podzieleni niemal na pół. Czyżby dlatego, że ktoś kwestionuje nasze, polskie straty? Nie sądzę, żeby się taki znalazł, poza kompletnymi ignorantami i ludźmi złej woli.
How AI Distorts Decision-Making and Makes Dictators More Dangerous
In policy circles, discussions about artificial intelligence invariably pit China against the United States in a race for technological supremacy. If the key resource is data, then China, with its billion-plus citizens and lax protections against state surveillance, seems destined to win. Kai-Fu Lee, a famous computer scientist, has claimed that data is the new oil, and China the new OPEC. If superior technology is what provides the edge, however, then the United States, with its world class university system and talented workforce, still has a chance to come out ahead. For either country, pundits assume that superiority in AI will lead naturally to broader economic and military superiority.
Swiss police have arrested two people in connection with a federal investigation into their suspected support for, or participation in, the banned Islamic State group
The Road Not Taken
After two weeks in Iran during latter part of January 1979, the height of the revolutionary movement against the dynastic, autocratic rule of Mohammed Reza Ayatollah, I had the opportunity for an extended conversation with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in his tent where he received foreign visitors and journalists during his final days in Paris. This was the individual who would serve as uncontested Iranian leader, officially the Supreme Guide, of the Islamic Republic of Iran until his death in 1989.
I’m reading a book on political economy that, early on, says “Consider, for example, inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth that result from the stark differences of economic opportunity and power between people in different socio-economic circumstances, particularly those relating to class, race and gender.” It happens to be this book, but that sentence is characteristic of contemporary thinking regarding economic issues. Inequality along racial and gender lines is a hot topic. I wrote about this in The Beacon recently, here, and here.