Are there no policies worth retaining to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia?

Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Geoff Edwards

“Opposition leader Angus Taylor said a government he led would stop targeting net zero greenhouse emissions. It would increase use of fossil fuels, running coal-fired power generators ‘as long and as hard as possible.’ Mr Taylor wants ‘cheap energy.’ He blamed the renewables push and the energy bureaucracy for high energy prices. The reality is that the impact of high world prices for oil, gas and coal on electricity costs are also relevant. There is a certain irony in Mr Taylor’s rejection of net zero 2050. It was he as Energy and Climate Minister with then Prime Minister Scott Morrison who, in October 2021, first announced Australia’s commitment to net zero. Subsequently, in opposition, the Liberal Party followed its smaller coalition partner, the Nationals, in walking away from net zero 2050.” (05/22/26)

https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2026/05/are-there-no-policies-worth-retaining.html

NATO’s Censorship Infrastructure and the War on the European Mind

Source: Libertarian Institute
by Thomas Karat

“On an evening at the end of December 2025, a woman in Switzerland opened a grocery-delivery app on her phone. She filled a basket and typed in a delivery address in Brussels — a flat she had visited many times, whose owner could no longer leave Belgium and could no longer pay for anything from within it. She entered her Swiss card at checkout. The payment declined. She tried again. It declined again. The man waiting for the groceries is Jacques Baud, seventy years old, a retired colonel of the Swiss Army and a former officer of the Federal Intelligence Service who had worked in Brussels for NATO. On December 15, 2025, fifteen days before the blocked delivery, the Council of the European Union had placed him on a list.” (05/22/26)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/natos-censorship-infrastructure-and-the-war-on-the-european-mind

Senegal: Parliament Speaker Quits Two Days After Prime Minister Sacked

Source: US News & World Report

“Senegal’s ⁠parliament ⁠speaker, El Malick ⁠Ndiaye, has announced his resignation, deepening ​political turmoil in the West African nation ‌two days after the ‌president dismissed the government. Ndiaye, a ⁠senior ⁠figure in the ruling PASTEF party, said on ​Sunday his resignation was a personal decision, giving the “higher interest of the nation” as a ​reason for his departure. President Bassirou Diomaye ⁠Faye dismissed ⁠Prime Minister Ousmane ⁠Sonko ​on Friday and dissolved the government after months ​of mounting ⁠tension between the two leaders.” (05/25/26)

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-05-25/senegals-parliament-speaker-quits-two-days-after-prime-minister-sacked

Memorial Day and Remote War: Has Our Nation Lost Its Capacity to Mourn?

Source: The Daily Economy
by Jeffrey L Degner

“Americans now experience war more as an economic abstraction than a human catastrophe. Amid endless debt-financed conflict, have we forgotten war’s tragic cost?” (05/22/26)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/memorial-day-and-remote-war-has-our-nation-lost-its-capacity-to-mourn/

New Paradigms Won’t Save You

Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander

“One popular objection to AI concerns is to declare that LLMs can never be AGI. You need a ‘new paradigm.’ Therefore, AGI is so far in the future that it’s not worth worrying about. A common counterargument is to claim that no, LLMs can become AGI. But even without that counterargument, I think the ‘therefore’ fails on its own terms. The key question is: how much of a new paradigm do we need?” (05/22/26)

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/new-paradigms-wont-save-you

How Social Contract Theory Became State Apologetics

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter

“While not entirely consistent in every respect, the Declaration of Independence — as an act of secession — can be understood as one of the earliest major challenges to centralized, modern, sovereign authority within the emerging nation-state system. Although it created new states rather than abolishing state power itself, it decentralized and imposed limits upon British imperial sovereignty through an appeal to self-government and national self-determination. To their great credit, Locke and Jefferson both affirmed pre-political natural rights, that the only legitimate role of government is to protect those rights, and that rights remain rights and crimes remain crimes whether one is a private individual or a state elite.” (05/22/26)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/how-social-contract-theory-became-state-apologetics