“Institutions like Underwriters Laboratory and the Better Business Bureau are titans in these sectors with no assistance from government. User ratings emerging in the digital era have a vast impact on sales success, as any Amazon seller can tell you. And in industries like sports, household construction, and driving skill, private insurers exercise a dominant influence through financial carrots and sticks, as directed by actuaries assessing risks. The very existence of the FDA has crowded out such elaborate and complex systems in the case of food and drugs, which is precisely why their safety and efficacy is the subject of such huge public controversy.” (04/12/26)
“President Donald Trump says the United States Navy will begin blockading the Strait of Hormuz ‘immediately’ after peace talks between the US and Iran in Pakistan ended without an agreement. Trump, in a social media post on Sunday, accused Iran of ‘extortion’ and said the US Navy would hunt down and interdict ships in international waters that have paid Iran a toll to traverse the strait. … ‘So, there you have it, the meeting went well, most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, NUCLEAR, was not,’ Trump said. ‘Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz.'” (04/12/26)
“Suppose you carefully, intentionally avoid AI and its product, for whatever reason. Maybe you distrust its output. Maybe you just prefer to do your own research, and reach your own conclusions, from primary human-created sources. But how can you know AI-generated content hasn’t previously ‘polluted’ the human-created sources with ‘facts’ that aren’t true? … People have always lied, and often those lies have persisted and spread, becoming ‘common knowledge’ despite being false. AI, linked to a mechanism of near-instantaneous global spread (the Internet), can produce and distribute lies far faster than humans once did by word of mouth or through print on paper.” (04/11/26)
“I have a message for parents: A four-year degree from a top-tier university does not guarantee career success or fulfillment. College is just one path. In a world where technology is rapidly changing our jobs and hiring managers question whether college graduates have the skills needed to succeed, parents and young people should examine the range of post-high school options. Employers certainly are, and they are embracing new pathways to address the workforce gaps they have experienced over decades.” (04/10/26)
“The U.S. military said it attacked two boats allegedly transporting narcotics in the eastern Pacific over the weekend, [murdering] five people and leaving one survivor. The strikes were carried out Saturday, according to a Sunday statement from U.S. Southern Command. The Trump administration has been attacking vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific since Sept. 2. With the five [murdered] Saturday, the publicly announced death toll rose from 163 as of March 25 to 168, according to a Pentagon posture statement from mid-March and subsequent SOUTHCOM releases.” (04/13/26)
“In The True Believer, a seminal book on mass movements by social philosopher Eric Hoffer, Hoffer writes: ‘Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.’ … An essential feature of socialism is to dehumanize others. Like millions in Pol Pot’s Cambodia or Mao’s China, millions of North Koreans have been taught to hate others. Millions in the ‘hostile class’ have been starved, brutalized, and murdered. Socialism will never produce a different outcome. How is it possible to insist that the next socialist regime will be different?” (04/11/26)
“The much-touted Easter truce confirmed by the Kremlin has now expired unsuccessfully as Russia and Ukraine accused each other of breaching the 32-hour ceasefire in their four-year war. While the Russian defence ministry said it recorded 1,971 ceasefire violations overnight into Sunday, Ukraine said it has recorded a total of 7,696 Russian violations over the course of the truce in an update just few hours shy of the midnight deadline.” (04/13/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Wendy McElroy
“The continuing backlash against public schools, exemplified by the amazing rise of homeschooling, favors an easy abolition of the DOE. Nothing less than eliminating the agency will turn the tide of America’s culture war. An ideology masquerading as education aims at defining people’s thoughts and beliefs, which is the ultimate form of social control. In the foreword to his dystopian novel, Brave New World (1946 edition), Aldous Huxley commented, ‘A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.’ Public schools are both expressions of and a training ground for such an army. Ideally, all education should private, and society is moving in this direction.” (04/10/26)
“A second flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza was due to set sail on Sunday from the Spanish port of Barcelona to try to break the Israeli blockade. About 30 boats planned to leave the Mediterranean port city laden with medical aid and other supplies on the Global Sumud Flotilla, and more vessels are expected to join along the route towards Palestine. [Israeli pirates] halted the roughly 40 boats assembled by the same organisation in October last year as they attempted to reach blockaded Gaza, [abducting] Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and more than 450 other participants.” (04/12/26)
