“I have been recuperating from some health issues and have not been writing much, but I really don’t want to miss out on putting my oar in the water prior to the SpaceX IPO. As background, I love to watch what SpaceX is doing in launch and believe they have made a huge contribution to the world in doing so. As a former operator of hundreds of wilderness campgrounds, Starlink was the greatest single new technology for our business in 20 years. But you don’t automatically get your way with stock valuations just because what you do is cool and useful — there has to be some prospect of making back the investment.” (06/03/26)
“Henry Nowak should first be remembered as an eighteen-year-old who had moved to Southampton to begin adult life. He was murdered as he walked back to his student accommodation, and those who loved him have been sentenced to a life of grief. That is where any serious discussion of the case must begin. … Nowak’s grieving family asked the country not to use his death ‘to create further division, hatred or tension.’ Their request was unusually and heartbreakingly dignified, given what they have endured. But it was immediately ignored.” (06/03/26)
“[Graham Platner] presents himself as a working-class guy, though he comes from a wealthy family that placed him in a $75,000 a year prep school. He is an oyster farmer, but most of his income derives from disability payments. He told reporters that he bought his home with a VA loan, but his father loaned him the money. … Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist, [says] ‘We desperately need somebody like him here in the U.S. Senate.’ Graham Platner should fit right in.” (06/03/26)
Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Dr. Edward W Younkins
“The philosophical systems of Baruch (Benedict de) Spinoza and contemporary neo-Aristotelian thinkers such as Ayn Rand, Douglas B. Rasmussen, and Douglas J. Den Uyl represent distinct yet somewhat convergent approaches to understanding reality, human nature, and the conditions for human flourishing. Spinoza’s rationalist monism and determinism appear, at first glance, to be at odds with the teleological realism, moral objectivism, and emphasis on individual agency characteristic of Objectivism and Individualistic Perfectionism. However, upon closer examination, these traditions exhibit areas of comparability, partial compatibility, and parallel insights across metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy.” (06/03/26)
“In December 2025, just days before Christmas, 13-year-old Jaleeyah Tune was murdered in Goldsboro, North Carolina. According to prosecutors, Jaleeyah was ambushed by three teens with alleged gang ties. In the aftermath of this tragedy, new legislation, House Bill 1173, has advanced in North Carolina. This new bill, known as ‘Jaleeyah’s Law,’ would enhance criminal penalties for gang-related activity. Lawmakers are attempting to prevent tragedies of this kind in the future, but such laws can prove slippery slopes. It cannot be overstated how tragic the loss of Jaleeyah Tune is, but emotionally charged lawmaking has already led to overcriminalization, wrongful gang designations, and erosion of due process before.” (06/03/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“My previous three posts dealt with the possibility of an alliance between libertarians and Abundance liberals. Neither is a political party, a nation, even an organization; in what sense can they ally? One could imagine a political alliance in which leading members of both groups advise their followers to vote for the same candidate or ballot measure, but that is not what I am talking about. What I am imagining is for members of both groups to treat each other as part of the same intellectual community, read, listen to, comment on and think about each other’s writing, teach and learn from each other, perhaps coauthor books or articles. For that to happen productively there have to be issues on which the participants in the conversation believe that their views could be improved by ideas from the other side.” (06/03/26)
“Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has been whipping Democratic support for an effectively clean reauthorization of the government’s warrantless spying program—or at least he was until Tuesday. On the news that President Trump was tapping Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence (DNI), Warner said in a statement that the appointment ‘speaks volumes about what this president expects from the nation’s top intelligence official,’ and warned of the dangers of politicizing intelligence work. ‘Americans have every reason to worry about what happens when the official charged with overseeing everything from counterterrorism to foreign election threats is chosen for his willingness to advance the president’s political agenda rather than his experience,’ Warner said.” (06/04/26)
“President Donald J Trump spent the better part of a decade telling the world that Barack Obama’s (among many others) Iran deal was the worst agreement in American diplomatic history. Iran’s nuclear program reached its most advanced state ever. He launched a war that killed thousands, shut off a fifth of the world’s oil supply, and ended with a ceasefire built on terms that are, by every objective measure, more generous to Tehran than anything Obama or the EU secured. This is how that happened, and what the legal wreckage left behind tells us about the remaining integrity of the rules-based international order.” (06/03/26)
“We cannot outsource components of our national security to nations that do not share our interests and that is exactly what this proposed scheme would do.” (06/03/26)
