Source: Orange County Register
by Steven Greenhut

“For those who missed the internationally publicized brouhaha, a tabby named Kit Kat had lived in the city’s Mission, where he sauntered into bodegas and bars. Dubbed the Mayor of 16th Street, Kit Kat was by all accounts a charming character. Then on October 27, the unthinkable happened: a Waymo self-driving taxi ran him over. Kit Kat’s fans have erected memorials and took to social media to mourn. There’s nothing wrong with mourning the death of a neighborhood cat. … my problem isn’t with the upset, but with the proposed solutions. As The New York Times reported, ‘Jackie Fielder, a progressive San Francisco supervisor who represents the Mission District, has been among the most vocal critics. She introduced a city resolution after Kit Kat’s death that calls for the state Legislature to let voters decide if driverless cars can operate where they live.'” (11/21/25)

https://archive.is/4GfkV

Source: The Atlantic
by Idrees Kahloon

“The reality that Donald Trump’s presidency will end in January 2029 is already making Republicans restless. Normally, Trump angers, exhausts, and eventually prevails over elected Republicans — not vice versa. Just this week, though, rebellious Republicans forced the release of the so-called Epstein files in defiance of Trump, who had spent months trying to suppress them before abruptly reversing course. Plenty of other cracks are showing too: Staunch allies of the president are mouthing critiques that would have been unfathomable a year ago. These disputes are the prelude to an ugly battle over the post-Trump Republican Party.” (11/21/25)

https://archive.is/rWL8Q

Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman

“Free-marketeers have long pointed out a particular asymmetry between capitalism and socialism (whether of the international or national variety). While anyone in a capitalist society would have a right to engage in socialism (as anyone can do now in our hampered market economy), the reverse would not hold: under socialism — that is, a centrally planned economy, democratic or not — no one would be free to engage in ‘capitalist acts between consenting adults’ (to use Robert Nozick’s phrase from Anarchy, State, and Utopia). It would upset the plan.” (11/21/25)

https://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2025/11/tgif-capitalist-socialist-asymmetry.html

Source: The Daily Economy
by Jason Sorens

“Do you sell cupcakes, run a home photography studio, or tutor kids in your living room? If so, you might be breaking the law. In the US, zoning ordinances often treat modest home enterprises as threats to the neighborhood. If you’re just running an online business, local governments generally won’t bother you, but if clients are coming to your home, then they try to limit the visibility and impact of your business. Have these regulations gone too far? Should state governments tell local governments to leave home-based businesses alone, within certain limits?” (11/21/25)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/home-business-control/

Source: Independent Institute
by Matthew B Crawford

“Transformative urban planning has long been an ambition of the high-modernist mindset. Its goals are usually public health, efficiency, beauty and something more elusive—order. Some cities that have received the full treatment over the past two centuries are wonderful places to visit despite their controversial remakings; see Paris …. Others, like Brasilia and Chandigarh (both designed from the ground up by Le Corbusier), quickly became ghost towns, full of high-modernist buildings and plazas of impressive conceptual ambition through which the wind whistled forlornly, eventually to be repurposed by squatters or stripped of building materials for use in the surrounding shanty towns where urban life carries on in defiance of the master plan.” (11/21/25)

https://www.independent.org/article/2025/11/21/smart-cities-will-kill-freedom/