"Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?"
— Alexander Hamilton
Federalist No. 84, writing on his opposition to the inclusion of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution

"The Bill of Rights would never have been necessary . . . if so much power had not been granted to the central government by the constitution of 1787 in the first place."
— Ryan McMaken

History tells us that a condition for ratifying the Constitution was a section detailing how the proposed document would protect people from government aggression. Even New York — with a Bill of Rights existing as a statute and not part of its constitution — found their absence unsettling in a federal constitution. Along with Virginia and Massachusetts, New York's delegates wanted an explicit statement of rights the newly-expanded government could never trample.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, wherein Congress would have the power "To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States" established individual rights as contingent rather than inalienable — contingent on the decisions of government. Those who supported the Constitution, especially Federalist writers Hamilton and Madison, essentially said that money is needed to run any government effectively and asking for it was unreliable. Revenue was to be extorted from those who had it, made legitimate by the concurrence of state delegates, and made tolerable by "the prudence and firmness of the people," as Hamilton wrote in Federalist 31.

The government was picking a fight with those under its jurisdiction. How would these people fight back?

Emil du Bois-Reymond proclaimed the mystery of consciousness, championed the theory of natural selection, and revolutionized the study of the nervous system. Today, he is all but forgotten.

Unlike Charles Darwin and Claude Bernard, who endure as heroes in England and France, Emil du Bois-Reymond is generally forgotten in Germany — no streets bear his name, no stamps portray his image, no celebrations are held in his honor, and no collections of his essays remain in print. Most Germans have never heard of him, and if they have, they generally assume that he was Swiss.

But it wasn't always this way. Du Bois-Reymond was once lauded as "the foremost naturalist of Europe," "the last of the encyclopedists," and "one of the greatest scientists Germany ever produced." Contemporaries celebrated him for his research in neuroscience and his addresses on science and culture; in fact, the poet Jules Laforgue reported seeing his picture hanging for sale in German shop windows alongside those of the Prussian royal family.

Excavations at Mendik Tepe, a prehistoric site in southeastern Türkiye, are advancing rapidly and may reveal evidence older than Göbekli Tepe, the UNESCO World Heritage site widely regarded as the "zero point of history."

Professor Douglas Baird of the University of Liverpool's Department of Archaeology, who leads the excavation, reported that structures of different sizes have been uncovered:

"Were the smaller buildings used for storage or food preparation? Could the medium-sized ones, around 4-5 meters, have served as houses? And were the larger buildings constructed for ritual purposes? One large structure, with its meticulous stonework, strongly suggests ritual significance."

According to Baird, the finds suggest Mendik Tepe dates back to the very beginnings of the Neolithic period.

Archaeologists excavating the Uğurlu-Zeytinlik Mound on Türkiye's westernmost island in the Aegean Sea, Gökçeada (Imbros), have uncovered something never before seen in Aegean prehistory: the first architectural remains belonging to the earliest farming communities of the Aegean Islands.

The discovery, dated to around 8,800 years ago, places Uğurlu alongside Knossos on Crete as the only settlements in the Aegean Islands belonging to the first agricultural societies.

"The First Time We Have Encountered Such Architecture"

Speaking about the groundbreaking find, excavation director Prof. Dr. Burçin Erdoğu explained:

"This type of architecture has been encountered for the first time in the Aegean Islands, which makes it extremely valuable for us. We have identified a building style that is round in plan, with sunken floors, constructed using what we call the wattle-and-daub technique. The Uğurlu settlement, together with Knossos on the island of Crete, is the only settlement across the Aegean Islands belonging to the earliest farming communities. In this context, I can say that we have uncovered the architecture of the earliest farming communities in the Aegean Islands for the very first time."

This statement underscores the discovery's significance — not just for Türkiye, but for the history of the entire Aegean basin.

Discovery includes over 22,000 bags of artifacts from ancient Celtic trade center

Archaeologists unearthed a massive trove of gold coins in the Czech Republic, minted by a long-lost civilization — with the site described by officials as "exceptional."

The discovery was announced by the Museum of Eastern Bohemia in Hradec Králové. The Celtic settlement was found along the route of a future highway, the July release said.

The site dates back to the La Tène period, with archaeologists finding that the settlement peaked in roughly the second century B.C.

It served as a "supra-regional trade and production center" that linked Central Europe to far-flung corners of the ancient world.

August 1st marked the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Accords' inking. The event's golden jubilee passed without much in the way of mainstream comment, or recognition. Yet, the date was absolutely seismic, its destructive consequences reverberating today throughout Europe and beyond. The Accords not only signed the death warrants of the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, and Yugoslavia years later, but created a new global dynamic, in which "human rights" - specifically, a Western-centric and -enforced conception thereof - became a redoubtable weapon in the Empire's arsenal.

The Accords were formally concerned with concretising détente between the US and Soviet Union. Under their terms, in return for recognition of the latter's political influence over Central and Eastern Europe, Moscow and its Warsaw Pact satellites agreed to uphold a definition of "human rights" concerned exclusively with political freedoms, such as freedom of assembly, expression, information, and movement. Protections universally enjoyed by the Eastern Bloc's inhabitants - such as free education, employment, housing and more - were wholly absent from this taxonomy.

There was another catch. The Accords led to the creation of several Western organisations charged with monitoring the Eastern Bloc's adherence to their terms - including Helsinki Watch, forerunner of Human Rights Watch. Subsequently, these entities frequently visited the region and forged intimate bonds with local political dissident factions, assisting them in their anti-government agitation. There was no question of representatives from the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, or Yugoslavia being invited to assess "human rights" compliance at home or abroad by the US and its vassals.

As legal scholar Samuel Moyn has extensively documented, the Accords played a pivotal role in decisively shifting mainstream rights discourse away from any and all economic or social considerations. More gravely, per Moyn, "the idea of human rights" was converted "into a warrant for shaming state oppressors." Resultantly, Western imperialist brutality against purported foreign rights abusers - including sanctions, destabilisation campaigns, coups, and outright military intervention - could be justified, frequently assisted by the ostensibly neutral findings of "human rights" defenders such as Amnesty International, and HRW.

Almost instantly after the Helsinki Accords were signed, a welter of organisations sprouted throughout the Eastern Bloc to document purported violations by authorities. Their findings were then fed - often surreptitiously - to overseas embassies and rights groups, for international amplification. This contributed significantly to both internal and external pressure on the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, and Yugoslavia. Mainstream accounts assert the conception of these dissident groups was entirely spontaneous and organic, in turn compelling Western support for their pioneering efforts.

US lawmaker Dante Fascell has claimed the "demands" of "intrepid" Soviet citizens "made us respond." However, there are unambiguous indications meddling in the Eastern Bloc was hardwired into Helsinki before inception. In late June 1975, on the eve of US President Gerald Ford signing the Accords, exiled Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn addressed senior politicians in Washington, DC. He appeared at the express invitation of hardcore anti-Communist George Meany, chief of the CIA-connected American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Solzhenitsyn declared:

"We, the dissidents of the USSR don't have any tanks, we don't have any weapons, we have no organization. We don't have anything...You are the allies of our liberation movement in the Communist countries...Communist leaders say, 'Don't interfere in our internal affairs'...But I tell you: interfere more and more. Interfere as much as you can. We beg you to come and interfere."

Project Artichoke is just one example of the inhumane operations carried out by the United States against the peoples of the world — and even against its own citizens.

One of the most useful instruments hidden behind the U.S. empire's rhetoric of "freedom and democracy" was the Central Intelligence Agency, founded on September 18, 1947, as the successor of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

Since its creation, the CIA has carried out countless inhumane operations: assassinations, coups, drug trafficking, support for terrorism, conspiracies. The list of its crimes is endless. But among the darkest and most inhumane chapters of its record lie the notorious "mind control" experiments.

The "Scientific Intelligence Office"

The CIA's so-called "scientific branches," which were in fact used for these experiments, are infamous for their scandals. These activities, always cloaked under the veil of "national security" and secrecy, began with the Scientific Branch within the Office of Reports and Estimates. On December 31, 1948 — barely a year after the CIA's founding — this branch was merged with the Nuclear Energy Group of the Office of Special Operations to form the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI).

Of course, these units never pursued "scientific discovery" or any purpose for the benefit of humanity. Their main objective was to develop special interrogation techniques and to transform individuals into instruments who could act against their own will, under CIA command.

Oman's Ministry of Heritage and Tourism has announced a remarkable discovery in the Al-Sabikhi area of the Wilayat of Ibri, within the A'Dhahirah Governorate. A rescue excavation carried out by its Department of Heritage and Tourism has uncovered 25 tombs dating back to the third millennium BC, offering new insight into Oman's ancient connections with Mesopotamia.

Ancient Tombs and Remarkable Artefacts

The excavation, led by archaeologists from the Department of Heritage and Tourism, revealed skeletal remains alongside complete pottery vessels carefully placed inside the burial chambers. Remarkably, some of these vessels were identified as imports from the Jemdet Nasr civilization of Mesopotamia, a culture that thrived in present-day Iraq around 3100-2900 BC.

In addition to pottery, researchers unearthed Bronze Age beads made of stone and shells, reflecting the craftsmanship and symbolic practices of early societies in Oman. These findings not only point to the burial customs of ancient communities but also indicate vibrant cultural exchanges and long-distance trade routes that once connected the Arabian Peninsula to Mesopotamia and beyond.

For over a decade, the dominant Western narrative on the Syrian War has been simple: a peaceful uprising turned into a brutal civil war because of Bashar al-Assad's ruthless crackdown on his own people. But in Creative Chaos: Inside the CIA's Covert War to Topple the Syrian Government, the Libertarian Institute's latest book, William Van Wagenen methodically dismantles this mainstream version of events, exposing it as a convenient fiction crafted to justify one of the most disastrous regime change wars of the modern era.

His central thesis is clear: the war in Syria was not an organic revolution but a deliberate effort by Washington, Israel, and their regional partners to weaken Iran by toppling Assad's government. And when peaceful protests were hijacked by Islamist militants, instead of helping restore stability, the US and its allies deliberately prevented Assad from crushing the insurgency — even as it became dominated by al-Qaeda and ISIS-affiliated groups.

Now, years later, the result is a fractured Syria, ruled by jihadist warlords and occupied by foreign powers, with Israel consolidating its hold over strategic territory.

How and why did this disaster for Syria's people come to pass? And why were the non-interventionists who called out Washington's lies always right about the war and its likely outcome?

Archaeologists in Vietnam's Gia Lai province have uncovered a remarkable prehistoric site dating back more than 3,500 years. Excavations at Plei Ring, located in H'Bong commune of Chu Se district, revealed not only a vast opal stone workshop but also one of the most intriguing musical discoveries in Southeast Asia: a set of prehistoric lithophones, or stone xylophones.

The findings were announced during a conference on August 15, organized by the Pleiku Museum in collaboration with the Southern Institute of Social Sciences. Leading Vietnamese scholars hailed the site as a key hub in the prehistoric network of tool production and cultural exchange across the Central Highlands.

A 3,500-Year-Old Opal Stone Workshop

Excavations between March and June 2025 showed that Plei Ring was more than just a settlement. According to Dr. Nguyen Quoc Manh, deputy director of the Archaeological Center, the site functioned as a large-scale opal stone workshop around 3,500 to 3,000 years ago. Craftsmen there mastered chipping and carving techniques to produce an array of tools that supplied not only local communities but also neighboring regions.

Evidence of mass production was clear: numerous discarded and broken artifacts were found, suggesting a strict quality control system and an early division of labor. This discovery highlights the sophistication of prehistoric craftsmanship and the gradual development of an agricultural economy that relied heavily on durable stone tools.