“The war in Iran has now cost U.S. consumers $100 billion in higher energy prices, and the bill is rising another $1 million about every two minutes, per a real-time estimate from Brown University as of Monday morning. … The Iran War Energy Cost Tracker from Brown’s Watson School says higher gasoline and diesel prices have cost the average U.S. household more than $760 since the war began Feb. 28. Most of that is gas, though the diesel burden is rising faster of late. On Friday, diesel hit an all-time record high, and it’s continued to rise every day since. As of Monday morning it’s at $5.90 a gallon, per AAA, up about 60% from a year ago.” (09/07/26)
Source: ProSocial Libertarians
by Anrew Jason Cohen
“Education is important. Some believe we must provide education to maintain the society we live in. Without education, after all, we would not have the doctors and teachers, etc. (many would say, politicians, police officers, and lawyers; see this post), that are needed to make society work. This seems right. We do need a system that provides doctors, teachers, and more. But that says nothing about the sort of educational system we ought to have. In my last post, I laid out my view of an ideal college. It is, unsurprisingly, very different from what we now have.” (09/07/26)
“Erik and Lyle Menendez have been granted an early parole suitability hearing, much to the delight of their family. In a statement released on Monday morning, a family spokesperson confirmed that the California Board of Parole granted the brothers the sooner hearing. They were previously eligible for a parole suitability hearing next in Aug. 2028. … The brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, at their Beverly Hills home in 1989.” (09/07/26)
“What is so fucking sacred about the nuclear fucking family? This is a totally modern construct devoid of anything even remotely resembling traditional family values. The notion of family as two married adults with two children in one house in the suburbs is actually a violent and relatively recent break from thousands of years of multi-generational village life in which small, tight knit, rural communities raised their children collectively. In fact, the nuclear family as we currently understand it is largely a construct of early twentieth century progressive academia who saw suburbia as the model for a carefully planned society built on the backs of economically efficient prisoners, with the nuclear family serving largely as the perfect means to organize each three-bedroom jail cell.” (09/06/26)
“American free expression doctrine is younger and thinner than we think. An older legal tradition solved problems we are still arguing about.” (09/04/26)
“The Hugging Face episode highlights the mischief that could await as powerful AI agents start to populate the internet. Their owners might give them innocent tasks that unintentionally prompt them to ingeniously hack, steal and sabotage as they doggedly pursue a technical outcome the owner desires. The horror movie plots write themselves. But for all the alarm this specter generates, there’s also a reassuring angle. … what becomes of another predictive claim made by AI ‘doomers’: that AI agents will render human beings obsolete across large swaths of the economy? If AI proves to have an irreducibly genie-like quality — at least when performing highly technical tasks — then that would undercut its ability to adequately replace human labor.” (09/06/26)
“Retaliatory tariffs issued by Canada are set to hit [Canadian buyers of] some imports from the United States soon after midnight on Tuesday, intensifying a trade war between the longtime allies and risking an escalation from President Donald Trump. Levies as high as 50% will be applied to [Canadian buyers of] hundreds of U.S. products, ranging from aluminum foil to raincoats to cheese. U.S. elected officials in states bordering Canada, including Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, have warned the trade dispute will hurt local businesses and consumers. Canadian officials said the retaliatory measure would target about $20 billion worth of U.S. products, mirroring the size of a recent batch of U.S. levies. The targeted goods amount to nearly 6% of annual U.S. exports to Canada, according to U.S. Census Bureau data for 2025.” (09/07/26)
“More than a cartoon prop, the old-fashioned FLIT gun was one of many innovations that gave ordinary households unprecedented power over pests that plagued us for centuries.” (09/07/26)
