“The French Revolution remains one of the pivotal events that still shape historical thinking and writing and is commonly seen as one of the watersheds of modernity. For Edmund Burke, it meant that “the glory of Europe [was] extinguished forever”; for Hegel, the climax of world revolutions; for Tocqueville, the triumph of centralization; for Marx and Marxists, the victory of the bourgeoisie over the feudal class. Marxism dominated history writing for much of the twentieth century until the French historian François Furet in 1978 presented a radical interpretation that shifted focus to the ideas of the revolution. But Furet had been anticipated by one of the great English historians and liberals, Lord Acton.” (05/29/26)
“The wife of Graham Platner, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, said she is ‘really angry’ about reports that she had previously told her husband’s campaign he had exchanged sexually explicit texts with other women. ‘It makes me really angry, disappointed,’ Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, said in a direct-to-camera video released by Platner’s campaign on Saturday night. ‘And I find it really shameful that there’s a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip instead of talking about real issues that Graham is running on.’ Gertner’s remarks came after The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported that Gertner had told Platner’s campaign about the sexually explicit texts last year, near the start of his Senate bid.” (05/31/26)
“It does not matter whether you live in a trailer park or a brick ranch house or something more grand and getting grander, it is all the same: Tornado bait is tornado bait. When the Trump administration announced that it was staging a UFC fight on the South Lawn of the White House, I knew what I was seeing. It is as familiar to me as the taste of canned Ranch Style Beans on cornbread …. I know my people. My people know what they like. And they will have what they like even if it harelips the pope — especially if it harelips the pope. It took 250 years, but you got here. All the way down here. From Greatest Generation to White Trash Nation in the space of one lifetime.” (05/29/26)
“The death toll from a chemical tank rupture in the U.S. state of Washington climbed to 11 as crews recovered the bodies of all nine missing people, authorities said on Saturday. Two fatalities had been confirmed after the tank containing ‘white liquor’ — a chemical solution of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide used in making paper pulp — imploded at a Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility on Tuesday. … The ruptured tank contained about 3.4 million litres of white liquor, and tests confirmed that contamination entered the nearby Columbia River, officials have said, although no ‘negative health impacts’ had been detected on air quality or the city of Longview’s drinking water.” (05/31/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Jorge Besada
“One of the reasons why we fall for the erroneous idea that patents are good for society is because we greatly overestimate the importance of the specific individual or company making a discovery while being unaware of how the market process — via its various mechanisms like prices, the profit motive, and economic competition — plays a key role in innovation.” (05/29/26)
“The economic and agricultural threat posed by Chinese-owned farmland is modest, but our fears may reflect broader anxieties about national power.” (05/29/26)
“A new, secretly filmed documentary profiling one of the most prominent names in the UFO disclosure movement has crash-landed at the height of the federal government’s release of unclassified documents pertaining to otherworldly encounters. ‘Sleeping Dog,’ directed by Michael Lazovsky, follows prominent investigative journalist Jeremy Corbell throughout his decades-long efforts regarding unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) transparency. Corbell has served as a key figure in the disclosure movement by platforming UAP whistleblowers and facilitating Congressional hearings to bring attention to the topic, with the documentary focusing primarily on his efforts to implore federal officials to release classified information regarding UFOs to the American public. … The documentary — which was filmed in secret over the span of several years — also reveals previously unreleased footage from Corbell’s investigations and includes interviews from several prominent names in the movement, including astronaut Edgar Mitchell, David Grusch and George Knapp.” (05/31/26)
