“My main qualification for talking about personal identity is that I have been around for long enough to have thought quite a lot about my own identity. I hope that what I have to say will interest other people. In any case, writing this podcast script should also help me to remember what I have learned about myself. Rather than meander through the circuitous history of my thinking, I will focus here on what I now consider to be a sensible approach to the topic. I will begin by discussing the most superficial aspects of personal identity and will end up considering whether your identity would be retained if your consciousness was uploaded into a machine.” (03/26/26)
“The joint US-Israeli killing of Iranian leaders on February 28th marked the second time in a year that the United States had used negotiations as a decoy for a surprise attack. On the pattern of Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, our own invasion of Iraq in 2003, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the U.S. under President Trump has indeed launched a criminal war of aggression. The run-up to the war, however, followed a discernible pattern. Throughout the months preceding it, the Trump administration was testing the American public’s tolerance for just such an adventure. First came the drone killings of alleged ‘narco-terrorists’ on boats in the Caribbean Sea; then, the kidnapping of the President of Venezuela; and finally, the seizure of oil tankers said to originate from Venezuela (an act of piracy by any other name).” (03/26/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Zachary A Collier
“It’s spring, which is bad news if you have pollen allergies, but is good news if you are planning to buy or sell a home: this is typically the busiest season for home sales. If you are buying a home or selling a home, the concept of value is one that is very important to keep in mind. Why is one buyer willing to offer more than another for the same house? Or why would a seller be willing to lower the price of their home? Everyone places different values on goods, and the same person can even place different values on the same good under different circumstances. But what gives something value, and why does it matter?” (03/26/26)
“The nation is close to marking the tenth anniversary of the discredited Crossfire Hurricane investigation, which saw the FBI and Justice Department seeking a FISA intercept against Carter Page by relying on false news stories and a partisan oppo research dossier. These days, nobody defends the Carter Page warrant process, but ten years later we still haven’t figured out how bad the abuse was. In fact, just last week we learned that Carter Page was not the only U.S. political figure subjected to a dubious FISA surveillance.” (03/26/26)
“‘Is it an earthquake or simply a shock? Is it the good turtle soup or merely a mock?’ Those opening lines from Frank Sinatra’s 1962 hit song ‘At Long Last Love’ came to mind when President Trump parried with reporters on March 13 over how to characterize the U.S.-Israeli aerial bombardments of Iran. Trump called it a ‘little excursion.’ Some thought he meant to say incursion. But when a reporter pressed him and asked, ‘which is it, a war or an excursion?’ Trump stuck to his semantical guns and hedged: ‘Well, it’s both. It’s an excursion that will keep us out of a war, and the war is going to be — for them it’s a war, for us it turned out to be easier than we thought.’ … The president’s semantic juggling over whether to call our current military operation a war or an excursion cannot gloss over that we are already at war with Iran.” (03/26/26)
“The Declaration of Independence was both performative and expressive. It announced the United States as a separate entity from Britain. It also articulated the core political premises on which the new nation was established. The commemoration of its 250th anniversary will mostly focus on its first function, because a nation, like a person, most readily celebrates its birth. But especially at our time of division and polarization, a renewed focus on our founding principle has never been more urgent.” (03/26/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“As soon as you accept that Israel must exist as a ‘Jewish state’ no matter what, you are accepting that there will never be peace in the middle east. Because Israel cannot exist as it is without nonstop violence. Show a Zionist a map where Israel does not exist as a Jewish state and a map where the entire middle east is on fire except for Israel, and then ask them to pick a future, and they’ll pick the second one every time. That’s the worldview that’s baked into Zionism. The worldview you’re not supposed to bring up in mainstream discourse about the Zionist ideology. You’re not supposed to mention the demented murderousness inherent in the premise that Israel must exist as a Jewish ethnonationalist state no matter how many people need to be killed in order to make that happen. But that’s the reality.” (03/26/26)
“The Commonwealth of Virginia is poised to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement already joined by 17 other states and Washington, DC, in an attempt to effectively eliminate the Electoral College. Both the state senate and state house approved the measure, and the bill is now awaiting the governor’s signature. Electoral College opponents will celebrate, but they shouldn’t. Americans do not realize what is about to hit them if the national popular vote becomes reality.” (03/26/26)
“In his recent social media diatribes, Donald Trump has complained that our allies are ungrateful for the war he has initiated against Iran. He is angered that they aren’t anxious to send in their military forces to win a war that he claims is already won. Trump also doesn’t seem to think it matters that he never consulted, or even warned, any US allies, with the notable exception of Israel. To anyone not in the Trump cult, these complaints qualify as batshit crazy. Trump’s war is a massive whack to economies across the world. These countries are not grateful for an economic hit that is equivalent to a massive weather disaster or serious pandemic.” (03/26/26)
