Hey, everyone …
Yesterday was a “zero-dollar day” in our annual fundraiser. We’re stuck, as of 5am, at $1,003 — 36% of the way to our $5,503 goal (once we’ve raised $2,751.50, supporter GL will “match funds” for the second half).
None of this “we’ll have to shut our doors if you don’t smash that donate button” stuff. We’ve been at this for nearly a quarter century as RRND and for more than 30 years as Freedom News Daily and Libernet before that. We plan to keep on going.
On the other hand, we gotta eat, and this is the one time of the year when we lean on you about that. The big prize for getting across the finish line is that I’ll stop badgering you about money completely for the rest of 2026, and mostly for the first nine months of 2027.
So:
And have a great day!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
Source: Law & Liberty
by Jennifer A Frey
“If we return to the cradle of Western civilization in ancient Greece and Rome, we find an idea of liberal education as one that befits a free person and citizen, in contrast to a servile education that fitted one for a life of a specific line of work or trade. The proper curriculum for such an education was always a matter of lively debate, but it was widely agreed that such study should cultivate our minds, our speech, and our character in ways that expanded our freedom, making us more fit for various forms of self-governance and human flourishing. This ideal of the liberal arts seeks the truth for its own sake, to be sure, but understands this as expanding our freedom to flourish in both public and private life, not as a laissez-faire quest for more truth simpliciter.” (10/21/26)
https://lawliberty.org/forum/why-truth-is-not-enough/
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie
“In many traditional cultures, ancient civilizations, and folklore traditions, a name is not viewed as a mere label, it is considered an intrinsic part of a person’s soul, essence, or spiritual makeup. Because the name represents the core of the being, possessing it was believed to allow a sorcerer, spirit, or enemy to manipulate, curse, or summon that person. To protect themselves, many cultures practiced name avoidance. People often used nicknames, public titles, or ‘noa’ (ordinary/allowed) names in daily life while keeping their true or spiritual name hidden from strangers or enemies. … The DSM, psychiatry’s diagnostic manual, defines most conditions by clusters of symptoms, not by any identified mechanism. In 2013 Thomas Insel, then director of America’s National Institute of Mental Health, said as much. He wrote that the manual’s categories lacked validity, and his institute began moving its research away from them. The labels are not even reliable.” (10/21/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/naming-versus-explaining
Source: Persuasion
by Matthew Karnitschnig
“Reaction to the riots in France has followed a familiar arc: shock and disbelief, followed by dismissal and even denial. The wave of demonstrations began last month at a school in a Paris suburb, where teachers and students went on strike over staff shortages. What began as a local protest quickly morphed into a nationwide movement fueled by seemingly everything that ails France, turning particularly violent last weekend as rioters stormed city halls from Marseille to Limoges and Lille. In the aftermath, social media was awash with testimonials from Parisians insisting that the unrest was much ado about nothing. … The reaction to the storming of the Bastille in 1789 was no doubt much the same, at least until the revolutionaries started chopping off heads.” (10/21/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-deep-roots-of-frances-omnicrisis
Source: United Press International
“The Federal Aviation Administration approved Boeing’s 737-10, a stretched variant of its fourth generation 737 MAX family of narrow-bodied aircraft, clearing the way for the company to begin the first deliveries in the next few months of more than 1,500 orders. Boeing said in a news release Tuesday that its newest and largest 737 MAX had completed a comprehensive certification process that included almost 1,000 test flights and ‘extensive safety assessments and design reviews.’ … Regulatory clearance follows a six-year delay from when the aircraft was scheduled to enter service, including an eleventh-hour call over a navigation system issue that FAA officials eventually determined was not a safety concern.” (10/21/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/10/21/FAA-certifies-Boeing-737-MAX-10/3601792583557/
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
“Why you should talk to strangers w/ Fin Colleton and Kratima Divakar.” (10/21/26)
https://www.fire.org/news/podcasts/so-speak-free-speech-podcast/why-you-should-talk-strangers-w-fin-colleton-and-kratima
Source: The Hill
by Sheldon H Jacobsen
“Daylight saving time ends at 2:00 a.m. on Nov. 1. This summer, the House passed the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025, which would make it permanent year-round. The 308-117 vote drew support from across the aisle. This is the first bill to pass in Congress since the Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021 with unanimous consent. Yet if Congress falls back into legislative inertia after the midterms, the 2025 bill may never become law, giving false hope for some and wasting the American people’s time once again. Given the similarities between the two bills, the 2025 version should in theory have no problem passing in the Senate. But the 2021 Senate bill was passed during a sparsely attended session, with some members expressing concern after the fact.” (10/21/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/6161240-why-congress-stalls-clock-change-bills/
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley
“Cornell University has long been an example of an academic echo chamber where conservative and libertarian faculty have been largely purged from departmental ranks. For example, a study by The College Fix found that Democrats outnumber Republicans 98 to 1 among Cornell professors across six of the humanities departments. Cornell professors disrupt events, launch campaigns to fire the remaining conservative faculty, and foster a cancel campaign culture on campus. However, the faculty recently decided to review its own record and found … wait for it! … that there really are no concrete measures needed to address their own overwhelming ideological bias. According to a 238-page faculty report from the Committee on the Future of the American University, there was no consensus on ideological bias or how to handle it.” (10/21/26)
https://jonathanturley.org/2026/10/21/cornell-faculty-complete-massive-self-study-that-fails-to-address-ideological-bias-in-hiring/
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Google is facing a backlash from some staff members over the company’s deployment of its AI technology for military use. The BBC has spoken to several tech workers who have either recently resigned from Google’s AI company, Google DeepMind, or are in the process of leaving, over concerns with the tech firm’s military contracts. Sofia Liguori, a London-based research engineer, is one of them. She resigned from Google DeepMind this week and spoke about her concerns exclusively with the BBC, despite her contract restricting her from doing so. ‘Realising my company is pushing more and more for AI systems in military operations makes me feel ashamed to work at Google,’ Liguori said, speaking in a personal capacity.” (10/21/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmreyvepnv0po
Source: Washington Monthly
“How Trump and MAGA Captured the GOP.” (10/21/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/10/21/how-trump-and-maga-captured-the-gop/
Source: Law & Liberty
by Michael B Poliakoff
“The number of civic institutes, centers, and schools at public universities has increased significantly since the first one, the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership (SCETL) at Arizona State University, emerged in 2017. Beginning in 2021, nineteen new centers and institutes have been established. Although many institutions have launched initiatives to enhance civic education, here I focus on the phenomenon of centers independent of any existing academic department but which are established by legislative or trustee action.” (10/21/26)
https://lawliberty.org/best-practices-for-a-last-best-hope/
