“The United States has had military successes in the war, but, overall, the conflict has been a strategic disaster for Washington. The fighting has exposed serious vulnerabilities for the U.S. military and left its forces spread thin, cost the United States an estimated $38.1 billion so far, and caused a global energy crisis. The war is extremely unpopular with American voters, and a growing number of Republicans in Congress are voting in favor of ending the conflict; one GOP congressman has even moved to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the war. But for all of those costs, the United States has achieved very little in Iran—and in some cases, things have gotten worse.” (09/17/260
Source: Property and Environment Research Center
by Sophie Gilbert, Danielle Bissett, & Tim Male
“Rome was not built in a day, but a beaver dam can be. Nature’s engineers can build durable dams very quickly, and maintain them over time too, slowing down (not blocking) and storing water, allowing sediment to settle, and even mitigating wildfire risk. … It can take years for people to build a so-called beaver dam analogue, not because it’s complicated—it’s not; some practitioners call it ‘putting sticks in a creek,’ which is pretty accurate—but because it requires a slew of permits from different agencies that can take years.” (09/17/26)
“The number of people applying for unemployment benefits dropped sharply last week, another sign that layoffs remain rare and most Americans enjoy job security. The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims slid to 196,000, the fewest since mid-July and down from 206,000 the week before. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, dropped to 203,250. Economists had expected claims to come in at 207,500, according to a survey by the data firm FactSet.” (09/17/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“We are familiar with many of the consequences of the drug-war racket: drug cartels, drug-war violence, overcrowded prisons, no-knock raids, racist enforcement, civil-asset forfeiture, mandatory minimum sentences, and massive destruction of civil liberties and privacy. But there is another consequence that comes with this racket: Many federal judges have ended up wasting a large part of their lives presiding over meaningless legal cases. One of the best examples of this phenomenon involved a brilliant lawyer named George Kazen who practiced law in my hometown of Laredo, Texas, where I practiced law for some eight years in partnership with my father.” (09/17/26)
“Wendell Berry died on August 31 at his farm in Port Royal, Kentucky. He was 92. For more than half a century he farmed with horses, wrote in pencil, adamantly refused to purchase a computer, and insisted that the health of a person cannot be separated from the health of a place. That faithfulness to a place is the part of his thought that the health freedom movement most needs now.” (09/17/26)
“Canada has formally applied to join the U.K.-led Joint Expeditionary Force as a full-time member, a bid that London is supporting, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office said in a media statement Wednesday. The joint force is a military coalition made up of 10 allied countries focused on NATO’s northern flank. It was assembled in 2014 to create a rapid-response force. Canada’s military has worked with the force in multinational drills but has not been a permanent member of the group.” (09/17/26)
