“I’ve been looking at cases where marketing hype has managed to create a craze for an at-best mediocre product. This is not to suggest that advertising is predatory; on the contrary, I think it provides a necessary service by providing information and allowing people to make choices. In the everyday business of buying clothes, food and drink, travel, luxury goods and grooming, I think it informs us of the availability of certain brands and the advantages to be gained by buying them. But there are some cases where advertising and cultural hype can create a kind of epistemic bubble where social conformity substitutes for quality judgement. Promoters sometimes draw on FOMO, the fear of missing out, to herd people into products of limited value to them.” ()7/02/26)
“America’s abundance is easy to admire. What’s easier to forget is that prosperity isn’t what made America exceptional. Liberty did. In much of the world, rights are treated as privileges the government grants to its citizens. In the American system, it’s the opposite: Rights are inherent to the individual, and the Constitution exists to dictate what government cannot do to you. It’s an extraordinary concept, and one conservatives have committed to upholding.” [editor’s note: Well, that there’s a spit take moment – TLK] (07/02/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by William L Anderson
“Federal IRS workers at the Chamblee Building are often greeted by rats struggling to free themselves from glue traps set about the workplace. Workers at the Veterans Affairs building in Hilo, Hawaii, are having to deal with dangerous infestations of mold. Federal employees in several places, including the Food and Drug Administration building in Washington, DC, are being exposed to Legionella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease. In Washington, DC, forty percent of the headquarters of the General Services Administration have been declared unsafe, which means the GSA has had to relocate many of its employees. And the list goes on and on.” (07/02/26)
“Amazon says it now has enough satellites operating in low-Earth orbit to light up its Starlink internet competitor. With last night’s launch, Amazon Leo has 396 satellites deployed, which is “enough to support continuous service across initial latitudes,” according to Chris Weber, VP heading up business and product for Amazon Leo. That puts the company on track to meet its “mid-2026” target for commercial availability. Just don’t expect miracles on day one. SpaceX went live with its ‘Better than nothing beta’ back in 2020 when it had almost 900 satellites operating in low-Earth orbit.” (07/02/26)
“Even when the Supreme Court disfavored Trump, it showed its ideological and incoherent colors. Though it allowed him to fire independent agency officials without cause, it made an exception for the Federal Reserve in a separate case. Upsetting consumers is OK apparently, but not Wall Street. And the court should have settled the birthright citizenship case against Trump long ago, as many lower-court judges sought to do. His first-day executive order repealing birthright citizenship plainly violated the Constitution, federal law and court precedent — and yet the justices strung out the case and only this week decided on the constitutionality of birthright citizenship by just a 5-4 vote. A counterreaction to Trump and the Supreme Court is coming, I believe. By laws and lawsuits, Congress must begin taking back its constitutional powers over spending, war-making, appointments and more.” (07/02/26)
“Though relegated to the sidelines thanks to President Donald Trump’s decision to launch an illegal and unjustified war on Iran at the behest of the Israeli warfare state, the war in Ukraine grows more dangerous with each passing day. In fact, recent reports indicate a perilous increase in attacks on energy and civilian infrastructure from both Moscow and Kiev.” (07/02/26)
“OpenAI has proposed handing the U.S. government a 5% stake in the company, the Financial Times reported Thursday, as the artificial intelligence startup seeks to defuse mounting political pressure in Washington. A 5% holding would be worth roughly $42.6 billion, after the AI lab closed a record-breaking funding round in March at a post-money valuation of $852 billion. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman argued that giving the public a financial interest in the company is the best way to share the upside of AI, the FT reported, citing two people familiar with the talks. Altman suggested a stake of that size in early discussions with the Trump administration, as part of a broader arrangement under which Washington would hold 5% of each of the leading U.S. AI developers via a government vehicle, according to the report.” (07/02/26)
