№ 1
Swiss Intelligence Knew Who Owned Crypto AG. It Told the Police Otherwise.
Operation Rubicon was in print by 1995. The record that could prove it stayed with those who ran it.
Jerry van der Laan
№ 2
Who Owns BlackRock? The Banks Sold Out. The Index Funds Moved In.
BlackRock has no controlling shareholder. Its own client funds appear among its largest reported holders, and the rules governing how those shares are voted reveal a deeper question about who exercises power on behalf of investors.
№ 3
Bretton Woods Ended in 1971. The Order It Built Is Still Running.
The gold link broke in 1971. The rules about who must adjust, and who gets rescued in a panic, outlived it.
№ 4
Everyone Is Counting Ships in Hormuz. Nobody Agrees on What Counts.
Forty ships or eleven? Four sources count Hormuz traffic four different ways, and no institution is required to say which one is the strait.
№ 5
Built Before the Buyers: Who Is Paying for the Humanoid Robot Boom
By one estimate, one in ten of last year's 20,000 humanoids went to work. Who paid for the rest?
№ 6
Italy Ended Papal Rome in 1870. In 1871 It Made the Colonna Gallery Unsellable.
Two papal families shared one office for four centuries. Only one of them still lives in its palace.
№ 7
Deere's Autonomy Kit Starts at Model Year 2020. A Rival's Kit Fits Deere Tractors From 2014.
The robots get the attention. How far software reaches into the machines already in the field depends on their controls, and on who is selling the kit.
№ 8
George Orwell's Thought Police Watched One Man for Seven Years. One Texas Search Hit 83,345 Cameras.
Orwell described a state that had to watch. What exists in 2026 only has to ask.
№ 9
A Reader Blamed Tesla for the Used-EV Crash. So I Took Tesla Out.
The answer changed twice, depending on which price I measured against and who was holding the car.
№ 10
More Than One in Five New Cars in Europe Is Electric. 92 Percent of Its New Trucks Are Diesel.
China, Europe and America each leave a different part of the barrel. Only China has reached trucks.
№ 11
The Oil Came Back. The Diesel Didn't.
Europe's reserve is one third diesel. A stock can replace a missing refinery only while it lasts.
№ 12
Carl Sagan Set the Rules for Ancient Aliens. Erich von Däniken Sold the Question Without Them.
The mockery never reached his readers. The question is who it did reach.