One of the most misused words in the English language is “free,” as in “it’s free.” Whether it’s the free samples of stuff at Costco, or the free pens and refrigerator magnets they give away at your local bank or car dealership, or the free hip replacement your mother-in-law just received, we use the term freely, so to speak, without ever considering it’s true meaning.

When we say “it’s free,” what we really mean is that someone else is paying for it—voluntarily or involuntarily. And this is a very important distinction. Because one is morally defensible, while the other is not. One involves a clear violation of private property rights, enshrined in the Seventh Commandment, while the other does not. The Seventh Commandment states, “Thou Shalt Not Steal Thy Neighbor’s Goods.” This is the clearest affirmation of private property rights ever handed down. By The Man Himself. And it’s etched in stone. You can’t take someone else’s things, period. And just because you take something from someone and turn around and give it to someone you believe is deserving doesn’t justify it either. The Seventh Commandment is everything the Good Lord ever had to say about “social justice,”–about what is mine and what is thine.

The free samples of some new pineapple/anchovy salsa being handed out by the nice ladies in latex gloves at Costco are not really free. They are either being paid for by Costco, or the company that makes those dreadful concoctions. So while Costco is erroneously saying, “Try these free samples,” what they really should be saying is, “Try one of these dreadful concoctions that we or the producer are paying for.” The same with the pens and refrigerator magnets at your local bank or car dealership. And the customers are likewise incorrect when they proudly tell their spouses, “These pens were free, Honey.”

So, while the merchants and customers are misusing the word free in these examples, if only because it’s convenient; the actions in both cases are not immoral. Neither action involves breaking the Seventh Commandment nor anyone’s private property rights. Both the salsa and the pens and refrigerator magnets are owned by the parties giving them away. The owners can dispose of them as they wish. But, in any event, they are not free. Someone had to pay for them.

Both the hip replacement and the act of that thoughtful highwayman involve a breach of the Seventh Commandment and the private property rights protected by the Seventh Commandment. In either case, the ends do not justify the means. Nor is the hip replacement free. But if you ask your mother-in-law how much she had to pay for the hip replacement, she would in all likelihood and without a second thought say, “It was free.” What she really should have said was, “My neighbor paid for it, and they didn’t even ask him for permission.”

In the case of your mother-in-law’s hip replacement, however, it is neither free nor morally acquired. The new hip wasn’t free; it was clearly paid for by somebody else, in this case the taxpayer. And it was not morally acquired, since it involved a breach of the Seventh Commandment and private property rights. The money to pay for her new hip came out of her neighbor’s pocket, the very party the Seventh Commandment (and the United States Constitution) was designed to protect. The money to pay for the hip was taken from her neighbor by a third party, an intermediary we customarily call the government. Third Party intervention, however, does not legitimize the violation of the Seventh Commandment nor the very private property rights protected by the Seventh Commandment. If a highwayman robs you at gun-point and tells you they are going to give all your money to the needy, it doesn’t make it right. It’s still a violation of that pesky Seventh Commandment.

So the next time you’re about to casually say, “It’s free,” think again. Because, rightly or wrongly, it really means somebody else is paying for it.

The Artful Dilettante–Keeper of the Flame of the Enlightenment

The fuel shortage is becoming increasingly acute in Russia and the occupied territories of Ukraine, APA reports, citing Russian “Telegram” channels.

It is reported that currently in a number of Russian regions there are kilometers of queues of cars in front of gas stations, and the population complains about the low quality and high prices of fuel.

Officials say that the gasoline shortage is due to ongoing repairs at a number of large oil refining plants and increased planting and harvesting work in agriculture. Regular attacks by Ukrainian drones on oil refineries also contribute to the fuel shortage.

A court in Vienna has ruled that Sharia law may be applied in civil legal disputes between two parties in Austria.

The Vienna Regional Court for Civil Matters was concerned with a case between two Muslim men who had previously agreed to be judged by Islamic law in case of dispute.

This means that in the event of a dispute, the arbitration court – which rules according to Islamic law – can be convened. The dispute occurred, and the court ruled against one of the men and ordered him to pay a €320,000 ($372,000) fine.

However, the man sentenced to pay the penalty did not accept the ruling. He argued that the application of the law was arbitrary, as Sharia law could be interpreted in different ways. He furthermore claimed that invoking Sharia law violated the fundamental values of Austrian law.

The Vienna Regional Court ruled that the arbitration tribunal’s decision was valid. The court argued that the ruling did not contradict Austria’s fundamental values.

Islamic legal provisions, the regional court emphasized, could be “effectively agreed upon in an arbitration agreement” for property claims.

“There are no indications of a violation of public order or a possible arbitrary decision in this case, which is why none of the grounds for annulment that must be examined ex officio are present,” the court stated.

Conservative politicians and activists expressed their concern and outrage regarding the controversial decision.

Michael Schilchegger, constitutional spokesman for the Freedom Party (FPÖ), said the ruling fosters “Islamic parallel societies” and a weakens those “forces that do not want to submit to Islam.”

“If Austrian courts now also recognize arbitration awards based on ‘Sharia law,’ they are submitting to the will of fanatical Islamists,” he warned. He announced future legislative proposals to make it impossible for Austrian courts to recognize Sharia law in civil lawsuits.

Sharia law has “nothing to do with Austria and the principles of our constitution, and that’s how it should stay,” said Integration Minister Claudia Plakolm (ÖVP), who is part of Austria’s government coalition.

By the end of the year, the Ministry of Justice should draw up proposals “so that Sharia law cannot be applied in the future, for example in the area of civil marriage,” said Plakolm, who is confident “that we will receive the relevant proposals in a timely manner.”

Austrian anti-immigration activist and political commentator Martin Sellner said on X: “Under the guise of ‘private agreements,’ Sharia is entering the Austrian legal system.”

“Even though criminal aspects are excluded, this precedent opens the door to the gradual recognition of foreign legal systems,” he warned.

“For us, this means: remigration and the restoration of cultural sovereignty are more urgent than ever,” he concluded.

In recent years, uncontrolled mass migration has led to a significant increase in the Muslim population of Austria. According to a recent statistic, Islam is already the dominant religion in elementary and middle schools in Vienna. Approximately 41 percent of students in this age group are Muslim in Austria’s capital, while Christians only make up 34.5 percent (17.5 percent Catholic and 14.5 percent Orthodox).

Sharia law has also been recognized in other Western countries, such as the Canadian province of Ontario, where civil legal disputes may also be decided by Islamic law.

Andreas Wailzer, LifeSite News

President Donald Trump emphasized his involvement in multiple international conflicts during meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders at the White House. He criticized media coverage, saying outlets fail to recognize his efforts to broker peace and manage crises abroad.

1. Armenia and Azerbaijan – August 2025 Leaders from Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace agreement at the White House after decades of conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Trump described the deal as a step toward long-term stability, declaring the countries would now “be friends a long time.” The agreement includes a major transit route between the territories, which Trump named the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.” Iran and Russia expressed concerns about potential shifts in the regional balance of power.

2. Cambodia and Thailand – July 2025 Cambodia and Thailand agreed to an unconditional ceasefire following a five-day border conflict. Trump cited US pressure as a contributing factor, while China urged both countries to maintain peace.

3. Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda – June 2025 A US-brokered peace agreement was signed to end years of cross-border violence that displaced millions. Trump said, “Today, the violence and destruction comes to an end, and the entire region begins a new chapter of hope and opportunity, harmony, prosperity and peace.” Both sides have reported isolated incidents of violations, demonstrating the ongoing challenge of maintaining peace in the region.

4. Ethiopia and Egypt – June 2025 Trump said US engagement helped prevent potential conflict over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. While formal agreements remain in progress, he asserted that US involvement ensured tensions did not escalate.

5. India and Pakistan – May 2025 Trump announced a “full and immediate ceasefire” after military tensions escalated in Kashmir following a terror attack. He cited US trade leverage as a factor in encouraging both sides to pause hostilities.

6. Serbia and Kosovo – 2020 (First Term) During his first term, the Trump administration brokered the Washington Agreement, a limited economic normalization deal aimed at reducing tensions over unresolved independence disputes.

Trump has also taken credit for ending the short-lived conflict between Iran and Israel following the US strike on Iranian nuclear targets.

Trump slammed media coverage of his foreign policy, saying outlets fail to acknowledge successes. “I am totally convinced that if Russia raised their hands and said, ‘We give up, we concede, we surrender… the Fake News Media and their Democrat Partners would say that this was a bad and humiliating day for Donald J. Trump,’” he said. “But that’s why they are the FAKE NEWS, and the badly failing Radical Left Democrats. Thank you.”

Roberto Wakerell-Cruz, The Post Millennial

The summer of 1969 saw the world united in hope, but by the end of the year, the death of the 60s dream left the world asking: What’s next?

The summer of 1969 saw the world united in hope. By the end of the year, however, the death of the 60s brought with it the end of the hippie dream of a brighter future. But the music that united hundreds of thousands of people at mass gatherings throughout 1969 lives on today. So what happened to make 1969 such a beautiful yet shocking climax to the 60s?

The answer begins with two consecutive days in September 1962 that witnessed a pair of portentous events that would change everything. At least one was seemingly innocuous, but both would have far-reaching consequences that, by the end of the decade, would redefine culture and society, opening up hitherto unimagined possibilities.

DEFINING MOMENTS OF THE DECADE

Firstly, on the evening of September 11, 1962, EMI producer Ron Richards oversaw the recording of “Love Me Do” and “PS I Love You” by Parlophone’s new signings, The Beatles. Paired together, they would become the Liverpool band’s first release, signaling the start of a revolution that would reshape the world of music and art completely over the next seven years.

The next day, on a hot afternoon in Houston, Texas, John F. Kennedy addressed a large crowd at the Rice University football stadium. The purpose of his speech was to announce his country’s goal to land a man on the Moon by the end of the decade, and return him safely to earth: “We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people.”

In the post-war years, the western world had gone some way to rebuilding itself, intent on forging a new world without the bloodbaths that had marred the first half of the century. As the 60s took hold, so too did a new sense of hope that anything was possible. Gone would be the shackles that had tied humankind to its earthly toil.

The greatest adventure in human history “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things,” Kennedy concluded, “not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.” In these few short sentences, he had committed his nation on a trajectory to undertake the greatest adventure in human history.

The ensuing years witnessed triumph upon triumph for The Beatles and their fellow pioneers of pop music. As every timeless single was followed by yet more groundbreaking albums, even the sky didn’t seem likely to limit the rise of pop’s masterminds.

The same couldn’t be said for the Apollo program in its pursuit of the assassinated JFK’s target of reaching for the stars. With the Soviets first to every landmark on the road to the Moon, Apollo seemed to be suffering nothing but frustration and setbacks. While The Beatles were holed up in EMI’s studios at Abbey Road recording Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, disaster struck in Florida, when all three of the first Apollo crew were killed in a fire during a test.

But, as the end of the decade drew close, it began to feel as though everything it had promised was going to come together in one glorious summer. 1967’s Summer Of Love had turned sour in 1968: it had been a year of riots in Paris, Chicago, London, and Prague (among many other cities); the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr, shocked the US; and an escalation of the war in Vietnam was proving increasingly unpopular. And yet Christmas Eve 1968 offered hope, in the shape of perhaps the most powerful photograph ever taken, as Apollo 8 astronauts were the first to look back at Earth from the Moon. Hope springs eternal, and from the eternity of space, the belief that the 60s was a special decade was reborn.

The summer of 1969 saw the world united in hope, but by the end of the year, the death of the 60s dream left the world asking: What’s next?

The summer of 1969 saw the world united in hope. By the end of the year, however, the death of the 60s brought with it the end of the hippie dream of a brighter future. But the music that united hundreds of thousands of people at mass gatherings throughout 1969 lives on today. So what happened to make 1969 such a beautiful yet shocking climax to the 60s?

The answer begins with two consecutive days in September 1962 that witnessed a pair of portentous events that would change everything. At least one was seemingly innocuous, but both would have far-reaching consequences that, by the end of the decade, would redefine culture and society, opening up hitherto unimagined possibilities.

THE SUMMER OF ’69

Despite the previous year’s confrontations, 1969 saw the hippie dream of peace and love very much alive. Previous years had seen a number of increasingly large outdoor music events. Of course, music festivals weren’t a new thing. Since ancient times, people have gathered in celebration of song. In the modern age, the Newport Jazz Festival had been a great annual gathering since 1954, showcasing a phenomenal array of talent, from Miles Davis, Nina Simone, and Muddy Waters to Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, who famously shocked the audience in 1965 by playing with an electric guitar and band.

Arguably the first great rock festival was 1967’s Monterey International Pop Festival, which featured The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Otis Redding, Simon And Garfunkel, and The Who. The following year saw the first of many free concerts in London’s Hyde Park in June 1968, with Pink Floyd, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Jethro Tull, and Roy Harper on the bill (“I think it was the nicest concert I’ve ever been to,” reflected John Peel).

As the summer of ’69 approached, and the Apollo program was finally looking like it would fulfill Kennedy’s promise, the foundations were being laid for a series of mass gatherings of the clans on both sides of the Atlantic. In London, the summer sprang into life with the much-anticipated debut outing from Blind Faith, a supergroup comprising Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker, and Ric Grech. Their free concert in Hyde Park, on 7 June 1969, saw them joined on the bill by Donovan, Richie Havens and Edgar Broughton Band, in front of an unprecedented crowd estimated at some 120,000 people. With fans expecting something akin to a Cream show, they all stood ready for the freakout. But as it became apparent that this was a more bluesy, laidback offering, they got as close to chilling out as was possible in the soaring summer heat.

A GREAT AND EPOCH-MAKINGEVENT IN BRITISH SOCIAL HISTORY

Next up for Hyde Park was an event that would go down in the annals of rock history. It had been two years since The Rolling Stones had appeared in public. In the intervening time, they had been front-page news after Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had been sentenced to jail terms for drug offenses – sentences that had been quashed after public outcry, led by the surprising figure of William Rees-Mogg, whose editorial in The Times suggested that the Stones had been sentenced more for who they were, than for what they had done. This in itself was one of the defining moments of the decade, as mainstream pop acts and the counterculture collided publicly for the first time.

By 1969, the Stones were counterculture figures, and their appearance in one of London’s royal parks was a line in the sand. Instead of British bobbies, security was handled by Hells Angels. But the Stones’ success in the park was far from guaranteed. With founder member Brian Jones becoming increasingly estranged from the band, he was replaced in early 1969 by Mick Taylor, a brilliant young guitarist making waves with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.

While the reshaped Rolling Stones were holed up in The Beatles’ Apple Studios rehearsing for the show, events took a dark turn – one that would add an unwanted poignancy to the concert. In the small hours of 3 July, Brian Jones was found at the bottom of his swimming pool. The coroner’s verdict was that he died by misadventure while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Two days later, Mick Jagger opened the Stones’ Hyde Park show – which he dedicated to Brian – by reading from the poet Shelly’s Adonais about the death of his friend, John Keats, before hundreds of white butterflies were released in tribute to their departed guitar player.

Inevitably, Jones’ death overshadowed the concert, and yet the band’s return to the live stage was a triumph despite the somber beginnings. The Guardian described the show, which attracted an estimated 500,000 hippies, beatniks, Angels, and pop fans, as “a great and epoch-making event in British social history”. It was an event, a happening, and, in some respects, the music was secondary. As Keith Richards told Rolling Stone magazine, “We played pretty bad until near the end, because we hadn’t played for years… Nobody minded, because they just wanted to hear us play again.”

THREE DAYS OF PEACE AND MUSIC

Meanwhile, in upstate New York, Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, Joel Rosenman, and John P Roberts were struggling to find a venue for their own gathering of the clans. They had hoped to put on a festival around Woodstock, NY, home to Bob Dylan and The Band, among other musicians, artists, and poets. In the end, they put on what was billed as “three days of peace and music” an hour’s drive away, at Max Yasgur’s dairy farm at Bethel. The posters may have called it “An Aquarian Exposition”, but the world came to know the events of August 15-18, 1969 simply as Woodstock.

The bill was extraordinary: Ravi Shankar, Tim Hardin, Joan Baez, Santana, Janis Joplin, Sly And The Family Stone, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joe Cocker, The Band, Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young, and Jimi Hendrix were just a selection of those who performed, with things running so late that it was around 9am on the Monday morning before Hendrix took to the stage, playing his unique take on the United States’ national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

With advance sales of around 186,000 tickets, the organizers knew Woodstock was to be a major event and braced themselves for a crowd of around 200,000. But as showtime approached, it became evident that at least twice that number was on its way. Left with a choice between finishing the fence or the stage, it was decided that, from now on, it would be a free festival. With supplies limited, the swollen crowd mucked in to ensure that, even when the heavens opened and turned the ground to sludge, everyone would have a good time.

Such was the spirit of the crowd that, surveying his wrecked farmland in the wake of the event, Yasgur said, “If we join them, we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future.” The 60s’ dream of building a better world seemed as though it was finally going to become a reality.

GOING OUT WITH A BANG

Back in the UK, Isle Of Wight Festival at the end of August returned Bob Dylan to the live stage, in front of a vast crowd that included three-quarters of The Beatles (Paul’s wife Linda had given birth to their daughter Mary the day before the festival). After his show, Dylan joined The Beatles back at John Lennon’s Ascot mansion, closing the summer with a summit of music’s leading lights.

With The Beatles latest masterpiece, Abbey Road, now mixed and ready for release, the return to the stage of Dylan and the Stones, and an incredible summer forever synonymous with the greatest gatherings of people in Western culture outside of warfare, the 60s looked set to go out with a bang. And it wasn’t just the heroes who had defined the decade who gave rise to optimism.

ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKINDP

New heroes had emerged over the summer – not least the three astronauts who had hit Kennedy’s target of putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth. Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins became household names when, on July 20, 1969, their Eagle Lunar Module touched down on the surface of the moon.

“One giant leap for mankind” had been Armstrong’s words, and it seemed as though the 60s had been merely the launchpad for the 70s and beyond. Surely these would be the decades when humanity would finally learn that all it really needed was love?

Back on terra firma, the future was also looking bright. New stars had emerged. David Bowie’s first hit single, “Space Oddity,” had gone stratospheric in the wake of the Apollo landings. Heavy blues rock had been gaining momentum for a few years, with the likes of Cream and Jimi Hendrix showing the way. In 1968, a new group had been launched, with session guitarist par excellence Jimmy Page assembling a band in which every instrument played loud, heavy, and hard. With their eponymous debut fast becoming one of the albums of the year, a new standard had been set.

And just as Led Zeppelin contrived to bring virtuosity to the fore, so did another strand of rock music emerge. King Crimson’s debut offering, in October, In The Court Of The Crimson King, brought jazz and symphonic music together with rock and blues to create one of the cornerstones of the burgeoning progressive rock genre.

DIVERSIFYING MORE THAN EVER BEFORE

1969, rock music was diversifying more than ever before. In Detroit, and at the opposite end of the rock spectrum to the prog emerging in Britain, Iggy Pop’s Stooges, alongside MC5, had adopted an anarchic approach to rock’n’roll, their incendiary club shows harking back to the nascent Beatles’ Hamburg days. Both bands released hugely popular and influential albums in 1969.

Sly and the Family Stone had shown at Woodstock just how rock and soul could combine, bringing funk to a (largely) white audience. And while Motown acts like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye were exploring the possibilities of experimental albums, the new kids on the block exploded onto the pop scene, as Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” began its rise to the top of the Hot 100.

DEATH OF THE 60’S DREAM

And yet all was not as rosy in the rock garden as it may have seemed to the outsider. An August 20 mixing session for their new album at EMI Studios, at Abbey Road, was the last time John, Paul, George, and Ringo would work together. In Los Angeles, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson had fled his own home after it had become the de facto headquarters for his friend Charlie Manson’s increasingly erratic “family”. Not long after Wilson’s departure, The Wizard, as Dennis knew him, acted on what he believed to be coded messages from The Beatles and unleashed his own vision of revolution, brutally murdering Sharon Tate and a number of others in early August.

The summer of 1969 united all humanity in celebration of humans’ greatest endeavor and brought together the youth of the world at massive gatherings from Hyde Park to Woodstock, Isle Of Wight to Seattle. The positive vibrations of that celebratory summer were tied up in new music, from David Bowie and Jackson 5 through Led Zeppelin to the rise of reggae, prog, and funk.

EVERYTHING WENT PERFECTLY WRONG

But then just as the astronauts splashed back to earth, so did the hippie dream crash, as that most spectacular of decades came to a close. Events that had taken a darker turn with the brutalities of Charles Manson and his killing spree were brought into sharp focus at the final gathering of the decade, a free concert by The Rolling Stones at the Altamont Speedway, in northern California, on December 6, 1969 – a day that Rolling Stone magazine called rock’n’roll’s worst: “a day when everything went perfectly wrong”.

In hindsight, recruiting Hells Angels as security was, according to Keith Richards, not a good idea. “But we had them at the suggestion of the Grateful Dead,” he told the Evening Standard. “The trouble is it’s a problem for us either way. If you don’t have them to work for you as stewards, they come anyway and cause trouble.”

The all-day show also featured performances by Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young. As the day wore on, the scene among the 300,000-strong crowd grew heavier. As clashes with an increasingly intoxicated section of Hells Angels became violent, Grateful Dead decided not to play. By the time the Stones took to the stage, things had gotten out of hand. They had to stop ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ in an attempt to calm the crowd.

As Gimme Shelter, the Maysles Brothers’ film of the concert, documents with chilling clarity, a fight broke out near the front of the stage during “Under My Thumb” between 18-year-old Meredith Hunter and some of the Angels. During the fight, Hunter pulled a pistol, according to some reports in response to having been stabbed. In return, Hells Angel Alan Passaro stabbed Hunter, who fell to the ground and was further attacked by more Angels, dying on the ground just yards from the stage where The Rolling Stones played.

THE NEW GENERATION WILL CREATE A HIGHER ORDER

The Stones knew something had happened, but not the full extent of the attack. Doctors were repeatedly called to the front of the stage, but they continued their set, unaware that a murder had taken place in front of them. Tempted as they may have been to cancel the show, the band was acutely aware of the potentially riotous consequences if they attempted to flee.

What had been billed as “Woodstock West” had gone horribly wrong. As well as the murder of Meredith Hunter, two men were killed in a reported hit-and-run, while a fourth death came when another youth, apparently on LSD, drowned in a fast-moving irrigation canal.

Many commentators cited Altamont as not just the site of four tragic deaths, but of the death of the 60s dream itself. Writing in The New Yorker decades after the fact, Richard Brody said: “What died at Altamont was the notion of spontaneity, of the sense that things could happen on their own and that benevolent spirits would prevail.”

Likening the events of Altamont to The Lord Of The Flies, he concluded, “What emerges accursed is the very idea of nature, of the idea that, left to their own inclinations and stripped of the trappings of the wider social order, the young people of the new generation will somehow spontaneously create a higher, gentler, more loving grassroots order. What died at Altamont is the Rousseauian dream itself.”

THE MUSIC LIVES ON

But while the disaster at Altamont signaled, in retrospect at least, the moment when the 60s died, the music would live on. It’s telling that today’s biggest stars still want to be associated with those huge stars of the 60s – Rihanna has worked with Sir Paul McCartney, while, in the summer of 2018, Florence Welch joined The Rolling Stones on stage in London to perform one of their classic songs, “Wild Horses.”

The musical freedoms that had been born in the 60s allowed all that came after – and not just from those new stars like David Bowie and Jackson 5. Though The Beatles were no more, their solo careers would deliver yet more timeless classics. The Rolling Stones were arguably only just hitting their stride as the decade turned, with albums such as Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main St as good as anything they ever produced.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Every new generation that creates pop music owes a great debt to the 60s, a decade with an influence like no other.

Paul McGuinness

A Copper Mine in Arizona, “Resolution,” was just delayed by a Radical Left Court for two months — 3,800 Jobs are affected, and our Country, quite simply, needs Copper — AND NOW! They are looking to do an Expedited Appeal before the Ninth Circuit, but it is so sad that Radical Left Activists can do this, and affect the lives of so many people. Those that fought it are Anti-American, and representing other Copper competitive Countries. We can’t continue to allow this to happen to the U.S.A.! The Appeal will take place, shortly, in the Ninth Circuit.

President Trump, Truth Social

Chris Cuomo declares the Democrat Party is DEAD 💀

Cuomo tells me elitism, open borders, socialism and defund the police killed the modern Democrat Party.

Cuomo says the Democratic Party that his father was apart of “no longer exists” and he “doesn’t know why” his brother still registers as a Democrat.

“My brother’s a Democrat. I don’t know why, but he is. My father was a Democrat. But his party doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Now it’s the left arguing for a cultural elite. This is how you will talk about people, Benny. This is how you will raise your kids. This is what you will tell them is okay. This is what you will say and not say.”

“There are socialistic aspects to our constitutional republic within a capitalistic model that work. They work for the collective. But it’s a capitalistic society. No Democrat ever argued for anything else. No Democrat would have argued for open borders. None of this. My father would have done none of this.”

“And while I had disagreements with my father about different issues, I knew what principles were guiding him.”

Wow. Well said Chris Cuomo.

Benny Johnson, X

Last month, astronomers made an exciting discovery, observing an interstellar object — only the third ever observed — hurtling toward the center of the solar system.

The object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, has caught the attention of Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who has a long track record of making controversial predictions about previous interstellar objects being relics from an extraterrestrial civilization.

While there’s been a growing consensus among astronomers that the latest object is a comet, Loeb has continued to entertain the idea that it may have been sent to us by an intelligent species from outside of the solar system — and he’s far from backing down.

In a blog post over the weekend, Loeb pointed to observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, which showed a “glow of light, likely from a coma, ahead of the motion of 3I/ATLAS towards the Sun.”

A coma is the hazy and luminous cloud that surrounds the nucleus of a comet.

However, there’s “no evidence for a bright cometary tail in the opposite direction,” he wrote, with scientists suggesting it was evidence that dust was evaporating from the object’s Sun-facing side.

The observations led Loeb and his colleagues to an intriguing, albeit far-fetched possibility: is the mysterious space object generating “its own light?”

After deliberations with his colleague and Harvard astrophysicist Eric Keto, Loeb suggested that the “simplest interpretation” of 3I/ATLAS’ observed “steep brightness profile” is that its nucleus “produces most of the light.”

That would also mean that its actual size is much smaller than currently thought, roughly in line with the size of the first two interstellar objects we’ve observed, ‘Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov.

The Harvard astronomer suggested two possibilities: either 3I/ATLAS is naturally emitting radiation because its a “rare fragment from the core of a nearby supernova that is rich in radioactive material” — or it’s a “spacecraft powered by nuclear energy, and the dust emitted from its frontal surface might be from dirt that accumulated on its surface during its interstellar travel.”

Loeb deemed the former explanation “highly unlikely,” and the latter as requiring “better evidence to be viable.”

Loeb previously argued that the object’s unusual trajectory — which includes suspiciously close flybys of both Earth and Jupiter — and its lack of a visible tail both undermine the theory that it’s a comet.

Intriguingly, 3I/ATLAS will come within spitting distance — at least in astronomical terms — of Mars this fall, giving us a tantalizing opportunity to have a first-hand look. Loeb suggested using NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to point its scientific instruments at the rare visitor.

Best of all, scientists at the space agency appear to be game.

“This morning, I encouraged the HiRISE team to use their camera during the first week of October 2025 in order to gather new data on 3I/ATLAS,” Loeb wrote. “They responded favorably.”

More on the object: Astronomer Suggests New Interstellar Object Could be Advanced Aliens Testing Our Intelligence

Victor Tangerman

The irony is staggering: those protesting against the head of the Gaza Humanitarian Fund. If you truly care about lives, why are you attacking those working tirelessly to provide food and aid to Gazans? It’s hard to reconcile calls for peace with efforts to block lifesaving support.”

The irony is undeniable: those screaming ‘genocider’ at the very people providing food to Gazans—who’s really calling for genocide now? These extremists, bent on escalating the situation, seem to be the ones fueling hatred and death, not those working to save lives.

‘Genocider!’: Gaza Humanitarian Fund head faces pro-Palestinian threats, protests over Gaza aid role.
Evangelical leader Rev. Johnnie Moore, head of the Gaza Humanitarian Fund and adviser to President Trump, is under police protection after death threats and vandalism; Pro-Palestinian activists stage near-daily protests, while he insists attacks only prove the moral urgency of his mission.
Daniel Edelson, New York|0i.20.25

On June 22, 2025, a suicide bomber entered Saint Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus during a packed evening worship service and unleashed unimaginable carnage. After opening fire on the congregation, the attacker detonated an explosive vest, killing nearly 30 people and injuring more than 60. It was the deadliest attack on Syria’s Christian community since the 1860 Damascus Massacre, and a stark reminder of Christianity’s increasingly perilous existence in its ancient homeland. 

The Jihadist group Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah, a splinter of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has claimed responsibility. The attack illustrates a sobering reality: Syrian Christians, who have endured centuries of political repression and sectarian violence, now face an existential crisis. With every suicide bombing, every desecrated church, every community exodus, Syria edges closer to losing a two-millennia-old spiritual and cultural pillar. 

Syria is home to the world’s oldest existing Christian communities, which trace their lineage back to Apostolic times. According to Syriac Christian tradition, the Syriac Kingdom of Osroene (in modern northern Syria) was the world’s first political entity to declare Christianity as its state religion. King Abgar V — known as Abgar the Black — adopted the Christian faith after being healed from a devastating illness by the disciple Thaddeus in 33 AD. On the road to Damascus, the former persecutor of Christians, Saul of Tarsus, was transformed into the Apostle Paul, further rooting Christianity in Syrian soil.   

Syria has played a vital role as a wellspring of Christian thought, culture and civilization. Saint Ephrem the Syriac is renowned as one of the most prolific and consequential poets and theologians of the universal Church. Cities like Maaloula and Qamishli still preserve the Aramaic language of Jesus. Ancient churches and monasteries dot the landscape, bearing silent witness to Syria’s role as a cradle of Christian civilization. 

Prior to the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Christians made up approximately 10 percent of Syria’s population and played key roles in academia, medicine, commerce and in public life. They coexisted with their Muslim neighbors to preserve a fragile but buoyant multiethnic, multiconfessional social fabric. 

The civil war, however, shattered this pluralistic order. Today, fewer than 300,000 Christians remain in Syria, down from roughly 2 million prior to the war. What remains is a deeply vulnerable remnant community, surrounded by instability, sectarianism and extremism. The recent bombing of Saint Elias Church is not just another act of terror — it’s a signal of the accelerating cultural erasure of a thriving Christian community.

For centuries, Christians have served as a moderating force in Syria, exemplifying the “love thy neighbor” ethos, offering Syrian society a model of compassion, coexistence and moral restraint. Their elimination would cause a narrowing of ideas, identities and beliefs, which would enable radical ideologies to reach an otherwise moderate Muslim demographic.   

Christianity’s extinction in Syria would also mark the loss of a vital bridge between East and West. Syriac Christianity provides unique access into the mind, culture and worldview native to Christ and the Apostles, and thus shaped the theology of the early church and connected the Western tradition with its Semitic roots. Its loss would sever a crucial link in this shared civilizational heritage. 

response to the Saint Elias Church attack, the United States must press the Syrian Transitional Government to bring the perpetrators to justice and implement robust security measures to protect the country’s Christian communities. 

While the Syrian Transitional Government is a coalition of Islamist factions with problematic histories, diplomatic disengagement and isolation by the U.S. risks creating a vacuum, empowering extremists. Diplomatic engagement, if strategically structured, would serve as a powerful tool to establish guardrails for behavior and mechanisms for accountability. Diplomatic engagement does not imply endorsement. It provides a framework for leverage and influence. The U.S. must condition any formal diplomatic recognition on the Syrian Transitional Government’s guarantee to protect minority rights, religious freedom and enshrine constitutional safeguards.

To this end, the U.S. should: 

1. Establish measured diplomatic relations with the Syrian Transitional Government and lift sanctions to promote security, stability and human rights. Diplomatic recognition should be leveraged to compel concrete commitments for reform and representative governance under the law. 
2. Require security guarantees to ensure that the Syrian Transitional Government establishes and enforces robust security protocols to safeguard churches, monasteries, clergy and Christian neighborhoods. Security protocols would include enhanced policing and cooperation with international non-governmental organizations.
3. Require constitutional protections that enshrine equal citizenship and religious freedom for all components of Syrian society. Any new Syrian constitution must guarantee minority religious components’ right to worship freely, run their own institutions and participate fully in public life. 
4. Urge Syrian Transitional Government initiatives for cultural preservation of the Syrian Christian heritage. Such initiatives would include the restoration and preservation of historically and religiously significant Christian sites (many of which have been damaged or destroyed in the conflict), and the preservation of linguistic heritage. These efforts should include Christian leaders and local communities in both planning and implementation.
5. Deliver humanitarian aid to assist in the rebuilding of infrastructure, the establishment of stable governance and the implementation of robust security measures. Vetted non-governmental organizations and religious institutions representing vulnerable communities should also receive direct aid for local humanitarian relief and to support the safe resettlement of displaced and devastated communities.

World leaders and policymakers must move beyond reactive condemnations and adopt proactive strategies to preserve what remains of Syria’s Christian heritage — recognizing its enduring significance to global civilization. The consequences of indifference would not stop at Syria’s borders. The disappearance of pluralism in the Middle East will fuel continued destabilization in the region. 

This approach balances moral obligation with strategic interest, and if implemented properly, will incentivize stable post-conflict order in Syria. 

A Syria without Christians is no longer a distant hypothetical scenario. It is a rapidly approaching reality which the world cannot afford. The Christian presence in Syria is a thread in the broader tapestry of human civilization. If that thread is plucked, the whole tapestry frays. 

As the blood stains dry on the pews of Saint Elias Church, the U.S. and international community must reckon with the price of indifference — and resolve to pursue the moral obligation of civilized nations. 

Richard Ghazal is the executive director of In Defense of Christians, a Washington-based advocacy organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of Christianity in the Middle East. He is a retired U.S. Air Force judge advocate and intelligence officer.