“If the systems governing the targeting of a small boat—confirmation of targets, visual identification, proportionality, and discrimination—broke down, then the failure was not caused by fog. It was caused by the inability to penetrate ‘fog’ through disciplined process and the rule of law. Modern militaries are designed precisely to prevent rapid-fire decisions based on guesswork or emotion. If operators identified survivors and those observations were either missed, dismissed, or overridden, that is not fog. That is a breakdown in leadership and moral judgment. Here is where the danger grows. By invoking ‘fog’ as a catch-all excuse, the secretary risks creating the conditions for blame to be pushed downward onto the very service members who executed an order under pressure. If he was the senior person in the room during the initial strike, he was in charge and responsible.” (12/03/25)
“Most Americans are unaware that President Abraham Lincoln implemented a much more centralized and authoritarian government than the one he inherited. He overthrew the original union, which was very libertarian in policy, eradicating a union of consent and replacing it with a centralized state—a dictatorship set above the people. The government would no longer serve us, but we were to serve it. Not just the federal government, but the states as well, became vastly more authoritarian because of Lincoln. Few of our modern governmental abuses occurred before Lincoln—he originated big government, and our current nationalist and democratic views of both the Constitution and centralized government’s power.” (12/03/25)
“The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) posits that market prices accurately reflect all available information. There are three forms of the EMH: weak, semi-strong, and strong. Each form supposes different sets of information that are fully reflected in market prices. The weak EMH information set consists of historical prices, the semi-strong form includes all publicly available information, and the strong form encompasses information privately held by individual investors or groups. Essentially, no one believes that the strong form holds completely, and most economists believe that the weak form generally holds.” (12/04/25)
“Immigration – both legal and illegal – is a hot topic in Western nations. Governments are taking measures to restrict the flow. And citizens are debating how to maintain a national identity while integrating those bringing different cultures and values. In the United States, the issue has gone from boil to broil in the wake of two recent events – the shooting of two National Guard members (one of whom has died) and revelations of large-scale fraud in the use of Minnesota’s pandemic relief funds. The alleged perpetrators are from communities made up largely of legal immigrants: An Afghan national, who served alongside American troops, has been charged in the shootings, and the large majority of those arrested in the fraud case have Somali roots.” (12/03/25)
“President Donald Trump is facing growing pressure to make Pete Hegseth the first major casualty of his second term after the Pentagon chief was accused of putting his own troops in danger. A damning report on the Signalgate scandal reportedly laid the blame on Hegseth for compromising sensitive war plans. But the blunder is just the latest in a series of embarrassments for the hapless former Fox & Friends Weekend host.” (12/03/25)
“There’s a reason that women like Olivia Nuzzi used to be shunned by polite society in more orderly times. Any woman who sets her sights on a married man is making a deliberate, selfish choice to cause pain to another woman. This is not a sisterly act. Throughout history, women who make enemies of other women are seen as lethal to the tribe’s cohesion and are cast out. That’s the way it was when shame existed, and genteel social norms had replaced stoning or drowning or other horrors the medieval world bestowed on women. But social punishment still exists and is no less brutal than in the days of the crucible. In a form of reverse shunning, Nuzzi is granted the spotlight she craves for a million cold eyes to watch as she preens and gyrates in the special place in hell reserved for women who steal another woman’s husband.” (12/04/25)
“Trump appears to understand that a government that tells its citizens to consume more meat should also do its part to make meat more accessible. Two weeks ago, he dramatically reduced a tariff on Brazilian beef imports. His administration has also suggested that it will raise the quota for duty-free imports of Argentinian beef from 20,000 to 80,000 metric tons. Trump’s recent moves are a boon to American meat-packers who can buy more foreign beef on the cheap, but his capricious attitude toward tariffs poses a problem for ranchers, who raise cattle with the expectation of selling them years later. Each calf represents a long-term bet; why should producers invest in growing the herd when crucial policies seem to change every few months?” (12/03/25)
“Members of Congress considered 19 online safety bills Tuesday that may soon have a major impact on the future of the internet as age-verification laws have spread to half of the US and around the world. In response, digital and human rights organization Fight for the Future is hosting a week of events—across Reddit, LinkedIn, and various livestreams—to raise awareness on how it believes these bills are setting a dangerous precedent by making the internet more exploitative rather than safer. Many of the proposed bills include a clause for ID or age verification, which forces people to upload an ID, allow a face scan, or otherwise authenticate that they are not a minor before viewing adult content. Fight for the Future says the policies will lead to increased censorship and surveillance.” (12/03/25)
“The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will discuss hepatitis B vaccines at their meeting on December 4 and 5. In this article I will lay out the case for removing hepatitis B vaccines from the CDC childhood schedule altogether. As the Informed Consent Action Network has demonstrated, the hepatitis B vaccines Recombivax and Engerix — injected into the vast majority of American children at birth, one month, and six months of age — never should have been licensed by the FDA in the first place.” (12/03/25)
