Source: CounterPunch
by Binoy Kampmark

“It is a country other powers simply cannot leave alone. Even after abandoning its Kabul post in ignominy, tail tucked between their legs, Australia is now wondering if it should return — in some form. The Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs has been sending out a few signals, none of them definitive. ‘We will not comment on intelligence matters,’ a spokesman for foreign minister Senator Marise Payne stated tersely earlier this month. … The Australian response, confused and stumbling, is much like that of their counterparts in Washington. While the Biden administration speeds up the departure of troops, the cord to Kabul remains uncut though distinctly worn.” (07/30/21)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/30/afghanistan-failure-and-second-thoughts/

Source: Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
by Emma Camp

“The University of Virginia is known for its stunning Rotunda, its founder — President Thomas Jefferson — and its honor code. The university’s Honor Code, adopted in 1842, requires students to pledge never to lie, cheat, or steal; its student-run Honor Committee imposes a harsh punishment on any student found guilty of violating the ‘community of trust’: immediate expulsion from the university. This punishment, called the ‘single sanction,’ provides a harsh deterrent for potential offenders. However, it has also become a nightmare for due process. … As of a 2015 report, the average Honor investigation lasts some 112 days. … the average investigation duration includes those students who admit guilt after seven days or less by submitting an ‘Informed Retraction’ …. Thus, the average length of an Honor investigation is likely much higher for those students who decide to contest their charge.” (07/30/21)

https://www.thefire.org/uvas-honor-code-is-a-nightmare-for-due-process/

Source: National Review
by Kevin D Williamson

“Earlier this month, one ghastly chapter in a particularly ghastly story came to a kind of a conclusion as the Czech government agreed to make restitution to thousands of women, mostly members of the Roma minority, who were subjected to coerced sterilization by the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The socialist strongmen of the 20th century differed in important ways from their progressive admirers in the United States and the rest of the free world, but they had some fundamental things in common: ‘Central planning’ was never an idea that was limited to economic life, and the planned in ‘Planned Parenthood’ is very much the planned from ‘planned economy,’ meaning that the ‘planning’ involved was to be at the social scale rather than merely at the family scale. Eugenics and population control were obsessions of central planners from Moscow to Washington to Beijing, and, to some extent, they still are.” (07/30/21)

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/07/the-scars-of-utopia/

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Doug French

“A term has been coined for product sellers who shrink their packages, and thus, the amount of product in those packages, keeping the package price the same: shrinkflation. Anyone with a bit of good sense or economics training knows this is another form of price inflation, caused by what used to be the dictionary meaning of inflation; an increase in the supply of money. … A Charmin spokeswoman, when confronted by reporters at WBUR about shrinking the size of their toilet sheet squares, pulled an explanation out of her you-know-what, suggesting it was the result of ‘innovations’ allowing ‘consumers to, basically, wipe their butts more efficiently.'” (07/30/21)

https://mises.org/wire/toilet-paper-rolls-are-getting-smaller-blame-fed