`Israel wanted us to see Palestinians as rats, but now that Palestinians are almost gone, westerners are feeling sad, kind’a like when they see an endangered rhino. I think this is what they call “empathy”.` — @normalisland.co.uk www.normalisland.co.uk/p/israel-dis...

Why do we continue to do this to the planet and to those who rely on the ocean for life? #vegan #fishing #ocean

Good news for authors as AI firm Anthropic is forced to respect copyright for the books it illegally scraped. This may set a standard for other AI companies engaged in the same kind of plundering plagiarism on a massive scale. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Shout-out to these folks in South Jersey! Great to see re-entry services being designed and implemented by people who have firsthand experience with what works. nextcity.org/urbanist-new...

I'm confused, Charlie's killer was supposed to be a radical Marxist transgender Islamist, but now they're saying he was a Trump-supporting Mormon conservative boy whose family taught him responsible gun ownership while he was growing up. I can't keep up! x

`Clearly, the establishment wants to use this assassination as an excuse for further authoritarian crackdowns, and we should all fear what is coming next.' www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/make-no-mi...

This article, wow. Teslas are absolute deathtraps. They're also exposing a HUGE auto/road safety failure: why are motor vehicles not designed, tested, and rated for any safety need aside from initial impact? www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

"A recent court order put the brakes on service cuts and 21.5% fare hikes from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA). The transit agency has been hamstringing its riders, claiming Pennsylvania lawmakers have left SEPTA with a funding deficit of more than $200 million. [2/3]

The strength of a public transit system depends on people getting out of the cars, getting onto the bus, and showing that we consider riding with each other a desirable thing. www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/10/s...

After being taken to the other side with level access, he was placed into a “surprisingly accessible police van”. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Feds should provide funds for housing, healthcare, jobs, instead. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/u...

he's a monster x https://www.normalisland.co.uk/p/jeremy-corbyn-under-fire-after-disgracefully

A brilliant portrait of the radical abolitionist Benjamin Lay, by artist Luis Silva.

`The designation puts Palestine Action on a par with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group under British law, making it a criminal offence to show support for or invite support for the group, punishable by up to 14 years in prison under the Terrorism Act 2000.'

`One thing I know for sure: no one on the right side of history has ever had to nitpick what the definition of “cage” is.' — Stephen Colbert

`Yemen is the only country in the world taking military action to end Israel’s genocide and Israel responded with another war crime.' www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/yemen-vows...

Women's basketball comes to us from the good alternate universe.

`It is beyond despicable that elected leaders are more concerned with appeasing the gun lobby than keeping our children safe.' — @repilhan.bsky.social

BREAKING: Israel is about to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran in self-defence. Our leaders are now preparing speeches to condemn Iran's unprovoked retaliation. Isn't this exciting? x

This week, my TNR cat Elf returned to the colony, the family, and, perhaps, to the ancestral cats whose evolution was stolen by our kind. www.patreon.com/posts/rise-i...

Freddie Mac's page on LGBT+ homeownership research now just says: Looking for Something? www.freddiemac.com/research/con...?

The “good fire-bad fire” paradigm leads to poor public policy. The West has always had both low-severity and large high-severity blazes. What is new is that increased human ignitions and human-created climate change are shifting fire regimes. —George Wuerthner www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/27/3...

Can we please stop calling it animal agriculture? It's animal agribusiness. Nothing cultural about it.

I really appreciate Montreal’s efforts to become bike-friendly. It’s a major benefit to my health and mobility. I’m genuinely surprised seeing people who (apparently) live here but don’t appreciate that and want it to be more car-dominated like other places.

This was such an easy mistake to make normalislandnews.substack.com/p/israel-accidentally-bombed-journalists http://normalislandnews.substack.com/p/israel-accidentally-bombed-journalists

My friend Norman Marshall, a poet and an actor best known for his portrayal of radical abolitionist John Brown in a one-man show, *Trumpet of Freedom*, has died. The great grandson of a Virginia enslaver and the son of a Klansman, he was fiercely anti-racist and as tough as they come. RIP Norman.

We joined the XR Wandsworth cycle ride for clean air! Expert speakers explained the different ways cars pollute the air we breathe (yes, even electric cars!). We want to see better cycle infrastructure, to get people out of their cars and clean up the air.

Guerilla benches, the works of the San Francisco Bay Area Bench Collective: sfbabc.org

Join us Saturday, Aug. 23, 7:00 pm, as I discuss my new book *Freedom Ship* with Corey D. B. Walker. This online event is sponsored by The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project. The event is free, but advance registration is requested here: mailchi.mp/ed90444ad555...

"The Israeli military has begun calling medical officials and aid organisations in northern Gaza, pressing them to evacuate to the south" "Pressing them to evacuate". How #BBCBreakfast describes Israel engaging in ethnic cleansing.

The aggression taking place since October 2023 is nothing more than the continuation of a project of dispossession, extermination, and replacement of an entire people, endorsed, sponsored, and financed by the US and carried out by Israel. —Guillermo R Barreto www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/20/a...

Mark Brokaw was one of the greats of modern theatre. It was my good fortune to work with him in a workshop he directed for our play *The Return of Benjamin Lay* at the Signature Theatre in NYC in October 2019. He was simply brilliant. RIP, Mark. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/t...

They want to be treated like gentry, not public servants, which is what they are. They treat agency officials like servants (see: Burghum's demand for warm cookies). This is also why the White House, though crafted by enslaved hands, is fairly modest, rather than some sort of gilded palace.

`History (so-called) has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; Art has remembered the people, because they created.' – William Morris.

Fearless Benjamin: a beautiful new children’s book by Michelle Markel and @marcusrediker.bsky.social, illustrated by Sarah Bachman, available through @pmpress.bsky.social Glad for the opportunity to celebrate it with a review in @counterpunchmedia.bsky.social www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/15/f...

`Israel admitted the strike, claiming he was a Hamas militant, a claim that the UN has said is unsubstantiated.' www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Over the years, non-governmental organizations like the National Priorities Project and the Friends Committee on National Legislation have heroically tried to persuade lawmakers to resist military-industrial complex lobbying efforts and reduce military spending.. www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/11/a...

#ICYMI: We obtained internal data showing the Trump administration knew at least 197 of the men it sent to CECOT had not been convicted of crimes in the U.S. Nearly half were whisked out of the U.S. while in the middle of their immigration cases, which should have protected them from deportation.

The way John Brown caught hold of this man's whole soul

Israel is a nation-state. Ppl decided a long time ago that the power to inflict social violence (police + military) belongs to states & not to individuals. Israel has spent a LONG time making sure Palestinians remain state-less & that the world see any opposition to occupation as illegitimate. 2/

Alice Oswald, 58, an award-winning poet, said she had urged police who detained her to write to the home secretary... "When I was speaking to them in the police van I did say: ‘Write to Yvette Cooper and tell her that this is making your life impossible.’” www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

And why are most forests no longer big enough? Human lamb eaters. This is why we go vegan. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

EPA is now the Environmental Perversion Agency.

`The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.' – George Eliot, Middlemarch

Ireland’s Eye's managers are rolling out measures to better protect the birds there. The island off Howth is a haven for puffins, cormorants, and more. But human visitors have continued to stress them. www.dublininquirer.c...

The richest 1% of now owns 95%+ of the wealth. `Our awareness of the political-economic system’s failures no longer motivates any systematic analysis or change...but instead yields cynical resignation and a mass culture of compulsive consumption and depressive hedonia.' substack.com/@dsdamato/no...

On those seeking therapy in Gaza: “‘Some don’t speak,’ she told me. ‘They stare, sometimes scream. Most cry for hours, unblinkingly.’ Children have asked Jarada if they could go back to school, as if normal were still hiding somewhere nearby.”

This n get Grok out of Memphis. Grok is using up the freshwater aquifers and giving everybody asthma. Shame on these crooks.

Caption contest: