Denouncing Israel as an “apartheid state” is neither correct nor constructive dailyfriend.co.za/2025/12/05/d... (As South Africa's Parliament prepares to mull criminalising support for "apartheid", here's my 7,500-word essay questioning the use of that term to describe Israel.)

Climate mitigation runs out of steam dailyfriend.co.za/2025/12/03/c... (My latest column. The annual climate change jamboree, COP30, produced little of any significance, but signalled a shift from mitigation to adaptation.)

A suspicious pitch from a freelancer led editor Nicholas Hune-Brown to dig into their past work. By the end, four publications, including The Guardian and Dwell, had removed articles from their sites. thelocal.to/investigatin... (Great story, if awfully depressing.)

Zohran Mamdani and Donald Trump Prove That There Are Two Paths Toward Socialism reason.com/2025/11/26/z... "The shared collectivism of socialism and nationalism... is why 'we frequently find the conservatives joining hands with the socialists against the liberals.'"

UAE unveils $1 billion plan to supercharge AI development across Africa africa.businessinsider.com/local/market... (A: $1bn will not "supercharge" AI. It's hardly a blip on the throttle. OpenAI burns that in a month. B: Africa needs basic infrastructure and good governance, not homegrown AI slop.)

Groenewald stands firm on reviving corporal punishment dailyfriend.co.za/2025/11/28/g... (This was going to be an easy column to write: call Groenewald a brute. Then a well-argued essay on the ethics of judicial corporal punishment by @olemmoen.bsky.social challenged all my long-held beliefs.)

Unicorns may exist, according to RFK Jr. dailyfriend.co.za/2025/11/25/u... (My latest column. The statement “unicorns do not exist” is not “evidence-based”. Neither is the statement “broccoli does not cause cancer”. Let’s get sciency, RFK-style!)

DOGE 'doesn't exist' with eight months left on its charter www.reuters.com/world/us/dog... (It has not measurably shrunk goverment expenditure, either.)

When wildlife has value, it lives – when it does not, it dies dailyfriend.co.za/2025/11/22/w... (Excellent article, which goes into more detail than I was able to provide in my column.)

Elon Musk's Grokipedia cites a neo-Nazi website 42 times, researchers say www.nbcnews.com/tech/elon-mu... (Quelle surprise!)

China has trumped America on trade dailyfriend.co.za/2025/11/21/c... (My latest column. In a trade war, there are only losers, but the biggest loser is turning out to be the US. Politicians should never try to fight the market.)

Why Dion George had to go dailyfriend.co.za/2025/11/18/w... (My latest column. The new environment minister, Willie Aucamp, is the right person to regulate wildlife conservation and environment-adjacent economic activity.)

A significant list of ways weaselly researchers talk about non-significant results to make them sounds significant. mchankins.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/s...

Trump repeals tariffs on some foods as Americans face high grocery prices www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202... (And yet he said food prices were way lower than under that despicable communist moron Biden. 🤷)

Oxfam doesn’t fight poverty; it fights wealth dailyfriend.co.za/2025/11/14/o... (My latest column, on Oxfam's dubious claim that a majority of South Africa's dollar millionaire actually want to pay more tax.)

The cranks now rule the world dailyfriend.co.za/2025/11/12/t... (My latest column. One crazy conspiracy theory after another is being rehabilitated in the mouths of high-profile, mainstream figures. The inmates have taken over the asylum.)

No credible tie between Tylenol use and autism/ADHD, huge study finds newatlas.com/adhd-autism/... (Too late. Morons-in-Chief have spoken, and Texas morons are already suing. Moron jurors will have the last word.)

Alienated American voters dream of socialism dailyfriend.co.za/2025/11/07/a... (My latest column. The consequence of ruling like a crazed sociopath is that it makes the radical socialist opposition look sane and inviting.)

The West needs more immigration, not less dailyfriend.co.za/2025/11/04/t... (My latest column. Across the developed world, populist politicians are riding a rising wave of anti-immigrant sentiment. It will sink the West.)

U.S. poised to strike military targets in Venezuela in escalation against Maduro regime www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-... (Mr "I don't start wars, I end them" is being awfully adventurous.)

Three minutes that tells you all you need to know about Joe Rogan, and why I'll never listen to him. He's rude, ignorant, arrogant and gullible. youtu.be/naIegDE5JxU

An ode to the rich dailyfriend.co.za/2025/10/31/a... (My latest column. It is easy to hate the rich. Entire economic systems are based on it. Yet we should cherish the rich, instead of always trying to tax their wealth away.)

Trump cuts fentanyl tariffs on China to 10%, says U.S. reached rare earths deal with Beijing www.cnbc.com/2025/10/30/t... (So he's fine with fentanyl after all. He just wants magnets. 🤷)

Argentina’s libertarian experiment gets electoral boost dailyfriend.co.za/2025/10/29/a... (My latest column. Critics were eagerly anticipating the fall of Javier Milei, but a timely intervention by Donald Trump means he lives to fight another day.)

US gov't uses Halo images in a call to 'destroy' immigration www.pcgamer.com/games/us-gov... "Comparing immigrants in the US to a parasitic alien life form that infects and annihilates advanced societies is not [just] deeply offensive, it's also rooted in the worst of human history."

What is fascism, and is Trump’s America it? (Part 2) dailyfriend.co.za/2025/10/28/w... (My latest column. Despite the overuse of the term fascism, and angry denials, it has become necessary to be watchful for signs of incipient fascism in US politics today.)

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines can trigger the immune system to recognize and kill cancer, research finds www.livescience.com/health/cance... (Oh, no! The dastardly depopulation shot accidentally cures cancer!)

Not in our name: Afrikaners respond to the misuse of their story in US politics www.news24.com/opinions/col... (Well said.)

Trump Dares Congress To Take Its War Powers Seriously in Venezuela | The president bet that no one would stop him from land attacks in Venezuela. And Congress hasn’t given him any reason to think otherwise. reason.com/2025/10/24/t...

World-changing tech that didn't: Maglev: techcentral.co.za/maglev-train... Blockchain: techcentral.co.za/the-great-bl... Segway: techcentral.co.za/most-overhyp... CCS: techcentral.co.za/the-colossal... 3D TV: techcentral.co.za/how-3d-wowed... Smart glasses: techcentral.co.za/why-smart-gl...

The Wayback Machine’s snapshots of news homepages plummet after a “breakdown” in archiving projects | Between May and October 2025, homepage snapshots fell by 87% across 100 news publications. www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/the-... (Troubling. The IA is such an important project.)

World-changing tech that didn't: Maglev: techcentral.co.za/maglev-train... Blockchain: techcentral.co.za/the-great-bl... Segway: techcentral.co.za/most-overhyp... CCS: techcentral.co.za/most-overhyp... 3D TV: techcentral.co.za/how-3d-wowed... Smart glasses: techcentral.co.za/why-smart-gl...

What is fascism, and is Trump’s America it? (Part 1) dailyfriend.co.za/2025/10/21/w... (My latest column. Supporters of Donald Trump are quick to disavow the label “fascist”, which really is no surprise. It is damning, and is often used gratuitously.)

Smart glasses with augmented reality displays and computer vision sound very useful, but the creep factor is doing them in, writes @ivovegter.bsky.social

Why smart glasses keep failing – it’s not the tech techcentral.co.za/why-smart-gl... {The latest in my series on technology that was supposed to change the world, but didn't.)

30 pages of Lolita Express passenger manifests surface, with many names redacted. Why, I wonder? What did those people do to merit protection that Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, Jimmy Cayne, Brian Higgins or John Phelan didn't? www.foxnews.com/us/epstein-d...

Suddenly MAGA fans don’t want free speech anymore dailyfriend.co.za/2025/10/17/s... (My latest column. South African fans of Donald Trump don’t seem to understand what “free speech” means. No, it doesn’t mean “speech has consequences”. It means the exact opposite.)

Saudi warning: 'Qatar will bring Hamas back' www.israelhayom.com/2025/10/12/s... (They're right. Why Trump trusts Qatar is beyond me.)

Huh. Gonna be an awkward day for Secretary of State-National Security Advisor-Acting Archivist Marco Rubio. www.rickscott.senate.gov/services/fil...

An artificial intelligence reckoning is coming dailyfriend.co.za/2025/10/10/a... (My latest column. Truly disruptive technologies are relatively rare, despite what marketers will tell you. AI is worthy of the adjective.)

Help, I’ve run out of exasperated headlines dailyfriend.co.za/2025/10/08/h... (My latest column. Last time, I said “Ramaphosa will talk this country to death”. Now he’s foisting yet another talk shop on us: an “economic war room”. It will fail.)

Perfume mistaken for opium, Indian man has US visa revoked, faces deportation www.indiatoday.in/world/us-new... (Top tip for braindead racist rednecks playing detective in Arkansas: international drug kingpins don't conveniently label their products like they do in cartoons.)

Will the NCOP shield failing municipalities from accountability? dailyfriend.co.za/2025/10/07/w... (My latest column. The National Council of Provinces vetoed the Western Cape's decision to place Knysna municipality into administration. Why should other provinces have that right?)

ICE Agents Dragged Naked Children Out of Homes in Chicago Raid: Neighbors www.newsweek.com/ice-agents-d... (Sure am glad Murika is Great Again, yessir I am.)

Discord customer service data breach leaks user info and scanned photo IDs www.theverge.com/news/792032/... (Here we go. Misguided "think of the children" laws putting everyone at risk.)

The ghoul of McCarthyism lurches forth again dailyfriend.co.za/2025/10/03/t... (My latest column. Trump is siccing the cops on people who hold views he falsely maligns as "indicia" of political violence, which will make those views look mighty noble to younger generations.)

‘Lies Mzansi’ — A rebuttal of Songezo Zibi’s ‘alt-right smear’ www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/... (Worthy piece by Helen Zille. Sadly, liberals keep getting smeared, by both sides of the political spectrum.)

A fun new consequence of MAGA cruelty: If you're a victim of human trafficking and cannot immediately prove your citizenship because someone else has your papers, don't bother complaining to the authorities. Make sex slavery great again!

The insidiousness of universal digital identification dailyfriend.co.za/2025/10/02/t... (@Martin_ASFL is right to warn about the privacy and control implications of digital ID schemes. The US never introduced even an old-fashioned universal IDs because it violates individual freedom.)

The rising tide of global censorship dailyfriend.co.za/2025/10/01/t... (My latest column. The suppression of free speech in major developed countries sets a dangerous precedent and a poor example for nascent democracies.)