Blog

Two Megalithic Bronze Age Dolmens Excavated in Southern Spain

La Lentejuela Teba necropolis, near Malaga in southern Spain, captivated historians and archaeologists when it was first discovered in 2005. Dating back to 4,000 BC, this ancient burial site was later reused in the Bronze Age between 2200 BC and 800 BC.

Since it was first unearthed, 13 stone structures and over 100 tombs have revealed a wealth of artifacts, including pottery, jewelry and tools, providing valuable insights into the burial practices and daily lives of its inhabitants.

But now, a team of researchers from the University of Cadiz (UCA) has been working to find out more about two megalithic Bronze Age dolmens discovered at the same site. Having been originally built over 6,000 years ago, the pair of ancient burial portals were rebuilt in the Bronze Age and used to enshrine the bodies of societal elites.

Keep reading

Israel expanded an apartheid law last week. No one is talking about it.

There has been a lot of noise from the Israeli protests concerning the judicial overhaul. The recent central law that was passed last week reduced the supreme court’s ability to overturn government policy, the so-called “reasonableness law.” But another law also passed just a day later — an amendment to a core apartheid law known as the “Village Committees Law” of 2010, more officially named the Cooperative Societies Ordinance. It passed without opposition, and was hardly noticed. 

Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, explained how “these committees, which to date exist in the Galilee and in the Naqab (Negev), have the power to approve or to deny applicants who wish to reside there, based on their perceived ‘social suitability’ to the ‘social and cultural fabric’ of a community. In practice, this power has led to the exclusion of Palestinian citizens of Israel from these communities, which are built on state-controlled land.”

The amendment that was passed (nr. 12) expands the existing law, which was limited to towns of up to 400 households, by introducing a new category called a “Continued Communal Town,” which allows towns with up to 700 households to have such admission committees. “Furthermore,” Adalah notes, “in five years, the Minister of Economy and Industry will be authorized to permit admissions committees in towns with more than 700. This provision, de facto, cancels the restriction on the number of households specified in the law.”

Keep reading

Texas man found ‘not guilty’ after being ticketed for feeding homeless

A Texas man was found not guilty after he was ticketed for feeding homeless people in Houston.

According to Fox 26, Phillip Picone opted to go to trial after being ticketed while volunteering for Food Not Bombs, a group that has been feeding homeless people near the public library in Downtown Houston for 20 years.

The city had outlawed setting up feeding stations, initially citing public health and safety concerns after violent incidents near the library. It asked that charities moved their services to the old Houston Police Headquarters.

The jury unanimously found Picone “not guilty.”

Picone received his ticket on March 3 and is the first of dozens of volunteers to go to trial. Attorney Paul Kubosh represents him and 37 other volunteers.

“What I’m hoping for is vindication,” Kubosh told Fox 26 before the hearing. “I’m hoping for not guilty. If you’re trying to affect the lives of homeless and trying to make their situation better, you don’t do that by attacking the Samaritan. This law is not about the homeless. It’s about the Samaritan.”

The city of Houston defended the charges in a statement.

“The City of Houston intends to vigorously pursue violations of its ordinance relating to feeding of the homeless,” city attorney Arturo Michel said. “It is a health and safety issue for the protection of Houston’s residents. There have been complaints and incidents regarding the congregation of the homeless around the library, even during off hours.”

Keep reading

This Disinformation Is Just for You

IT’S NOW WELL understood that generative AI will increase the spread of disinformation on the internet. From deepfakes to fake news articles to bots, AI will generate not only more disinformation, but more convincing disinformation. But what people are only starting to understand is how disinformation will become more targeted and better able to engage with people and sway their opinions.

When Russia tried to influence the 2016 US presidential election via the now disbanded Internet Research Agency, the operation was run by humans who often had little cultural fluency or even fluency in the English language and so were not always able to relate to the groups they were targeting. With generative AI tools, those waging disinformation campaigns will be able to finely tune their approach by profiling individuals and groups. These operatives can produce content that seems legitimate and relatable to the people on the other end and even target individuals with personalized disinformation based on data they’ve collected. Generative AI will also make it much easier to produce disinformation and will thus increase the amount of disinformation that’s freely flowing on the internet, experts say.

“Generative AI lowers the financial barrier for creating content that’s tailored to certain audiences,” says Kate Starbird, an associate professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. “You can tailor it to audiences and make sure the narrative hits on the values and beliefs of those audiences, as well as the strategic part of the narrative.”

Rather than producing just a handful of articles a day,  Starbird adds, “You can actually write one article and tailor it to 12 different audiences. It takes five minutes for each one of them.”

Considering how much content people post to social media and other platforms, it’s very easy to collect data to build a disinformation campaign. Once operatives are able to profile different groups of people throughout a country, they can teach the generative AI system they’re using to create content that manipulates those targets in highly sophisticated ways.

“You’re going to see that capacity to fine-tune. You’re going to see that precision increase. You’re going to see the relevancy increase,” says Renee Diresta, the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory.

Keep reading

FBI Made ‘Inappropriate Use’ of Foreign Surveillance Program To Spy on Americans

A White House advisory board has recommended that Congress place new restrictions on the FBI’s access to a foreign surveillance tool to prevent the bureau from using it to spy on Americans’ electronic communications.

That surveillance program—authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—was intended to track foreign spies and potential terrorists but has predictably morphed into a way for law enforcement agencies to get a warrantless peek at Americans’ phone records, emails, and other electronic communications. In the report published Monday, the White House’s Intelligence Advisory Board said the FBI’s use of the databases created by Section 702 should be limited to investigations dealing with foreign intelligence—the same standard that is used at the other intelligence agencies with access to that data.

“FBI’s use of Section 702 should be limited to foreign intelligence purposes only and FBI personnel should receive additional training on what foreign intelligence entails,” the report recommends. The report says the FBI has made “inappropriate use of Section 702 authorities, specifically U.S. person queries.”

While the full scope of Section 702 data collection remains unknown, there’s no doubt about the FBI’s aggressive use of the database. In 2021, for example, the FBI ran more than 3.3 million queries through the Section 702 database, according to a government transparency report. Separately, a 2021 report from the secret federal court responsible for adjudicating FISA-related matters documented 40 instances in which the FBI accessed surveillance data as part of investigations into a host of purely domestic crimes, including health care fraud and public corruption.

Keep reading

Minnesota Adults Can Now Legally Possess And Grow Marijuana, With Indian Tribes Launching Early Sales

Adults 21 and older in Minnesota can now possess and grow marijuana for personal use under a legalization law that was passed by lawmakers earlier this year and took effect on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the process of automatically expunging prior cannabis records is also being implemented by state officials.

While traditional recreational cannabis retailers are not expected to open until at least next year, other key components of the legalization law that Gov. Tim Walz (D) enacted in May have now gone into effect. Meanwhile, two Indian tribes have been preparing to get a head start on adult-use cannabis sales, with plans to open up shops as early as Tuesday.

Possession of up to two ounces of marijuana—and cultivation of up to eight plants, four of which may be mature at a time—is now legal. In a household, adults can possess a maximum of two pounds of cannabis.

Additionally, gifting up to two ounces of marijuana between adults without remuneration is now a legal activity.

Keep reading

Senators Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Regulate Online Speech

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have introduced a bill to create a new federal government commission overseeing online communication. The legislation is presented as consumer protection but grants new government authorities to police speech on the internet. 

“For too long, giant tech companies have exploited consumers’ data, invaded Americans’ privacy, threatened our national security, and stomped out competition in our economy,” said Warren. “This bipartisan bill would create a new tech regulator and makes clear that reining in Big Tech platforms is a top priority on both sides of the aisle.”

“For years, I have been trying to find ways to empower consumers against Big Tech,” Graham claimed. “I have heard too many stories from families who feel helpless in the face of Big Tech. … The creation of a regulatory commission to oversee Big Tech is the first step in a long journey to protect American consumers from the massive power these companies currently wield.”

The bill will establish a Digital Consumer Protection Commission that will designate some websites as “dominant platforms.” It appears those sites will be in the crosshairs of the new commission as the legislation instructs the new agency “to intentionally avoid having the platform meet the qualifications for designation as a dominant platform.”

The “dominant platforms will be required to inform the government of their content moderation policies. The bill will require designated companies to “make publicly available, through clear and conspicuous disclosure, the dominant platform’s terms of service, which shall include the criteria the operator employs in content moderation practices.”

Keep reading

Scientific Report Confirms “Multiple” Tic Tac UFOs Were Tracked “Above 80,000 Feet” During West Coast 2004 Encounters

A 140-page scientific report, generated by a U.S. intelligence agency, analysed multiple Tic-Tac-shaped objects above 80,000 feet, which were involved in the famous 2004 Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) encounter off the coast of California.

The existence of the analysis was confirmed by investigative journalists George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell on their most recent WEAPONIZED podcast episode.

Knapp confirmed on the show that he sought to get the report submitted to the Congressional Record ahead of the UAP Public Hearing held in the House of Representatives on 26 July 2023.

However, due to concerns about hurting sources, Knapp refrained and chose not to proceed.

Corbell said the “detailed” scientific analysis describes “encounters of multiple craft above 80,000 feet” and from “space”.

He also confirmed that the analysis was unknown to naval aviators Commander David Fravor and Commander Chad Underwood, who encountered the unexplained Tic Tac objects of unknown origin during the 2004 incident.

During last Wednesday’s Congressional UAP Hearing Commander Fravor, who testified under oath, described seeing a 40-foot-long “Tic Tac” shaped object close to the ocean surface moving erratically like a “ping pong ball” that travelled more than 60 miles in less than a minute.

This was just one of multiple objects tracked on radar by the cruiser USS Princeton.

Keep reading

Swiss Scientists Identify Bronze Age Iron Arrowhead Made from a Meteorite!

A team of scientists recently completed a study of prehistoric metal artifacts collected in Switzerland over the past couple of centuries, with a very clear purpose in mind. They were looking to see if any of these ancient artifacts might have been made from metal salvaged from meteorites, which have been hitting Earth for billions of years . Much to their delight, the Swiss researchers were able to identify one such object: a small, rusted Bronze Age iron arrowhead with a chemical and mineral composition that was undoubtedly not of earthly origin.

As a part of their search process, the team of Swiss scientists led by geologist Beda Hofmann from the National History Museum of Bern concentrated on pre-Iron Age artifacts taken from various sites close to Switzerland’s Lake of Biel region. The one iron arrowhead made from meteoritic metal they did find was excavated from a Late Bronze Age (900 to 700 BC) settlement known as Mörigen, from where it had been unearthed all the way back in the 19th century.

Keep reading

Arkansas Law Protecting Medical Marijuana Patients’ Gun Rights Officially Takes Effect

A new law officially takes effect in Arkansas on Tuesday to clarify that medical marijuana patients can obtain concealed carry licenses for firearms.

The governor signed the bill in April, just days after it sailed through the legislature with strong majority support.

The newly effective law stipulates that a person’s status as a qualified medical cannabis patient in the state cannot be used “in determining whether an applicant is eligible to be issued a license to carry a concealed handgun.”

State statute has also been amended to clarify that participation in the medical marijuana program doesn’t mean that a person is a chronic or habitual user of a controlled substance, which could otherwise disqualify people from obtaining the concealed carry permit.

The state Department of Health (DOH) will be barred from disclosing a person’s patient status to the state police as part of any investigation into concealed carry eligibility.

While some states have moved to more broadly preserve firearm rights for cannabis patients and consumers, the new law signed by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) is more narrowly tailored to the concealed carry issue.

Arkansas does not require people to have a permit for concealed carry, but some Arkansas firearms owners prefer to have one because of the protections it can bestow when traveling in other states and because of the clarity it provides during police encounters.

Keep reading