Best of the Web:


Tsunami

Best of the Web: Cyclone Harry pummels hits Sicily, Italy, causing flash-flooding and major coastal erosion

Isabella Boneham
NationalWorld.com
Thu, 22 Jan 2026 12:07 UTC
wave then crashes through the street
A wave crashes through a street in Sicily
Sicily's fourth largest town Alcamo was hit by 35mm of rain around midnight on Wednesday, leaving chaos in its wake. Videos posted to social media captured forked lightning and raging torrents flowing through the Italian streets.

Parked cars were swept away, and flood waters invaded garages, basements and the ground floor of many homes, overwhelming the city in just a few hours. Emergency services received several requests for help throughout the night.

The tourist area of Taormina was on its knees, with beaches swept by the violence of the sea. Governor Schifani in Sicily expressed "heartfelt thanks to the regional civil protection, the volunteers, the municipalities, the fire brigade, the police force, and the thousands of people who worked tirelessly during the most difficult hours of the emergency", making it possible to "avoid the loss of human lives".

Authorities issued red alerts across Sicily and Sardinia as the storm unleashed gale-force winds, intense rain and dangerous storm surges. In total, 190 people were evacuated from exposed areas across Sicily.

It comes after storms also lashed Malta with hail piling up like snow and rivers of ice flooding streets. Malta's Civil Protection Department warned residents: "avoid working at heights, including rooftops, balconies, scaffolding, and exposed structures" and "Stay away from the shoreline, breakwaters, and coastal paths."


Comment: Also on the coast of southern Italy more massive waves were videoed:



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Dollars

Best of the Web: Architecture Of Plunder: Why the modern Democratic Party is a kleptocracy

Saggezza Eterna
X
Mon, 19 Jan 2026 20:30 UTC
somali fraud money laundering
The Predator State:

In the lexicon of polite political discourse, we are told that "kleptocracy" is a phenomenon reserved for the decaying regimes of the third world — banana republics where dictators in gold-braided epaulets stuff suitcases with cash while their people starve. This is a comforting fiction. It allows the American mind to believe that corruption is something that happens over there, in places without marble capitols or Ivy League economists.

But this definition is archaic. It fails to capture the sophistication of the modern predator state. A true kleptocracy in the twenty-first century does not require a dictator with a Swiss bank account; it requires a bureaucracy with a grant-making authority. It does not steal with a gun; it steals with a regulation.
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Nebula

Best of the Web: Northern lights dazzle US, Europe amid intense solar storm


en.tempo.co
Tue, 20 Jan 2026 10:40 UTC
Northern lights above Beiji Village, Mohe City, Heilongjiang Province of China, Jan. 20.
© Chi ShiyongNorthern lights above Beiji Village, Mohe City, Heilongjiang Province of China, Jan. 20.
An intense geomagnetic storm triggered the possibility of northern lights being sighted across Canada and the northern half of the United States on Monday night, along with parts of Europe, including Germany, Switzerland and Ukraine.

'Rare' geostorm showers Earth

The solar storm—which is the largest in over two decades—is the outcome of a mass eruption of charged particles that left the sun on Sunday and are forecasted to arrive Monday and Tuesday, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

A geomagnetic storm is a major disturbance in Earth's magnetic field due to a solar storm. Monday night's storm was "very rare," NOAA said.

The geostorm acquired G4 conditions at 7:38 pm GMT (8:38 pm CET) on Monday, putting it in the second-highest category, the agency added.

Spaceweather, an astronomy platform, reported that the ejection cloud covered the distance from the sun to the earth in nearly 25 hours. Usually, a similar cloud would take three to four days to make the journey.

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Star of David

Best of the Web: ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt suggests they are 'helping' Ted Cruz and Ben Shapiro 'take down' Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes

Chris Menahan
Information Liberation
Thu, 15 Jan 2026 20:08 UTC
Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL
© ADLJonathan Greenblatt of the ADL in January 2022. Screenshot from ADL video.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt suggested in a now-deleted interview that "behind the scenes" he is "helping" Senator Ted Cruz to "take down" Tucker Carlson and helping Ben Shapiro "take down" Nick Fuentes.

"I need people on the right to take down Tucker Carlson -- so I'm trying to help Ted Cruz," Greenblatt revealed. "I need people on the right to take down Nick Fuentes -- so I'm trying to help people like Ben [Shapiro]," Greenblatt told Rabbi David Wolpe and a gathering at Sinai Temple in West Los Angeles on Saturday.

He also named Hasan Piker as one of his targets and said the ADL is doing the "same thing on the left."

Comment: Greenblatt is a loathsome creature.

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Gold Seal

Best of the Web: Scott Adams and Intellectual Courage

Jeffrey A. Tucker
Brownstone Institute
Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:41 UTC
people magazine bad headline scott adams
© People MagazineSocial media mercilessly excoriated People Magazine for its tasteless headline.
When Scott Adams died, People Magazine led with a line that dominated most of the media for days: "Scott Adams, Disgraced Dilbert Creator, Dies at 69." It's a message for the living: depart from saying what you are supposed to say and you will lose everything. Even in death, your life will be called worthless. This was not eulogy but rather an enforcement action to keep the opinion cartel functioning.

It was in 2015 that the famed creator of the Dilbert cartoon first started speculating that Donald Trump had what it takes to become president. The feeling of shock was palpable. No one else was saying anything like this - more specifically, no one of his status and reach as a cultural influence. In those days, the opinions of The Nation and National Review were identical: this clown cannot be president.

For my own part, I recall feeling appalled by Adams' statements. At the time, I was firmly in the Never Trump camp, without fully understanding that I was then accepting the most conventional opinion possible at the time. I further failed to understand the complex dynamic operating beneath the surface, namely that a broken system of government/media/tech had long ago stopped serving the cause of freedom and dignity and turned to full-time exploitation in surreptitious forms.
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Star of David

Best of the Web: Genocide isn't a mistake. Which is why the media can't tell you the truth about Gaza

Jonathan Cook
jonathan-cook.net
Fri, 09 Jan 2026 18:05 UTC
Hind Rajab Hamada
Hind Rajab Hamada
A new film about Hind Rajab's murder points to a deeply sick Israeli society, driven into the darkest of places by a racist ideology that says Jewish lives count, Palestinian lives don't

The Voice of Hind Rajab, a devastating dramatised retelling of Israel's slow-motion murder of a five-year-old in Gaza, arrives in UK cinemas next week. Please take the opportunity to see it. The vast majority of Americans were denied such an opportunity when it was released there last month.

Here's what happened to the film in the US, via New York Times columnist M Gessen:
The Voice of Hind Rajab had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September and took the Grand Jury Prize, the second-highest honor. A few days later, it was screened to great acclaim at the Toronto International Film Festival.

High-profile US distribution companies came calling. But then, the producers Odessa Rae and Elizabeth Woodward told me, one by one the companies peeled off.

In the end, Woodward, who has a small distribution company, put together something akin to self-distribution. The movie opens in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday. Elsewhere in the world this film, shortlisted for the Oscar for best foreign movie, has major distributors - but not in the United States or Israel. That's a kind of coordination, too.
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Star of David

Best of the Web: Unmasking the Flames: Israel's shadow over Patagonia and Milei's betrayal of Argentina

Sarah B.
ddgeopolitics.substack.com
Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00 UTC
Map ArgentinaChile
Maps: Argentina • Chile
From Conspiracy to Reality? Fires Clear the Way for Foreign Control in the Last Frontier

As I was scrolling through news feeds, trying to keep up with some of the chaos unfolding around the world, I stumbled across a flurry of reports from Argentina about raging wildfires tearing through Patagonia. Starting around January 5, 2026, flames have devastated thousands of hectares in Chubut province, areas like El Hoyo, Puerto Patriada, and near Epuyén, and prompting evacuations amid thick smoke, destroyed homes, and threatened ecosystems. Thousands of Argentines and other Spanish speakers were flooding the replies on X posts about the blazes, most of them incredibly irate at the Milei government. Phrases like "The Zionists are trying to steal Patagonia!" and "Milei has sold us out to Israel!" popped up repeatedly in viral threads, with users sharing videos of suspicious activity and linking the fires to foreign interests.

I thought, sure, these could be bots amplifying outrage, but Elon's bot army has always been staunchly pro-Milei, relentlessly boosting his image as a free-market hero and his tight alliances with Israel. So why were genuine locals, from southern Patagonians to urban commentators, reacting with such raw, widespread fury, accusing their own president of enabling a Zionist takeover? I jumped down the rabbit hole, cross-checking eyewitness accounts, viral clips, and the mounting public backlash, and what I discovered was yet another stark instance of Zionist imperialism sweeping across the globe, this time setting South America's pristine frontiers ablaze to pave the way for control and exploitation.
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Broom

Best of the Web: Revolutionary Politics in the Tropics

Harrison Koehli
Political Ponerology
Tue, 13 Jan 2026 20:28 UTC
chavez maduro cartoon figures
A case study on logocratic ideas

Lobaczewski describes his concept of logocracy as a system "better than democracy." Like the Italian school of elite theory, he criticized modern western democracies as facade systems in which power is in fact held by small groups, usually hidden from public view and scrutiny. But he wasn't against democracy per se, as many understand it. His biggest criticism was reserved for universal suffrage, rooted in a faulty view of man that ignores natural human inequality in intelligence, character, and abilities.

Additionally, for Lobaczewski, democracy facilitates the rise of mediocre, demagogic, and psychopathic leaders. Not only are those with ability and character pushed out of politics; democracy also breeds a generalized contempt for wisdom and foresight among the general population and incentivizes short-term thinking and policymaking from their elected leaders. This opens such a society to manipulation and subversion from organized minorities (domestic or foreign), creating the facade mentioned above. Because it lacks any firm foundation in human nature, and thus violates natural law, democracy creates the seeds of its own destruction.
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Gavel

Best of the Web: The ICE Elephant: Why the Law Requires All the Facts

Jonathan Turley
jonathanturley.org
Wed, 14 Jan 2026 19:36 UTC
blind men elephant illustration
In a famous Indian parable, five blind men are brought to an elephant. Each feels a different part of the animal, and they come to radically different views of what an elephant is. It depended on which parts they touched, from tusk to tail.

The controversy over the shooting of Renee Nicole Good, 37, is a type of political elephant parable. People focus on only certain parts of the story to support what they want the case to mean.

Critics and supporters of the responsible officer have slowed down videotapes that last, in critical part, for only a few seconds.

The only difference is that, in this modern parable, many are just willfully blind, choosing not to see beyond their own rage.
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Snowflake Cold

Best of the Web: Several months' worth of snow falls in Russia's Kamchatka - Snow 'apocalypse' shatters 146-year record


The Tribune (India)
Wed, 14 Jan 2026 11:35 UTC
mmmmm
Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula is experiencing one of its harshest winters in recent years, with record-breaking snowfall that's left towns and roads buried under meters of snow. The national weather department confirmed a 146-year-old record has been smashed. The relentless snowfall has brought the city to a standstill, with layers of white covering the landscape.

The region, known for its active volcanoes and extreme weather, has received several months' worth of snowfall within days, forcing authorities to issue alerts and increase snow-clearing operations. Images and videos from the region show vehicles almost completely submerged, entrances blocked by towering snowdrifts, and residents digging tunnels just to leave their homes. The snowfall has had a major impact on everyday life, with roads closed, flights delayed or cancelled, and public transport services suspended.

Emergency crews are clearing snow from rooftops to prevent structural damage, while residents have been advised to avoid unnecessary travel.

Scientists attribute the unusual conditions to repeated cyclonic systems over the Pacific Ocean, which are pulling in large amounts of moisture that turn into heavy snow when they meet Kamchatka's freezing air and rugged terrain.


Comment: Update January 15

The Moscow Times reports that two people were buried alive under snow in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky after snowpacks fell from the roofs of residential buildings.

Besides record snowfall in Russia's Far East, Moscow last week experienced "the heaviest snowfall in 56 years, with 42 percent of the monthly average precipitation recorded in just 24 hours."

And temperatures have plunged right across the country:



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