Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Luc Lelièvre
“Digital surveillance promises to make institutions more secure by enabling them to see more. Automated license-plate readers, facial recognition systems, and interconnected databases allow authorities to identify patterns and retrieve information at speeds once considered impossible. Yet greater capacity to detect and classify does not necessarily improve the ability to determine what happened. An institution may acquire more information without gaining the ability to interpret it accurately. The distinction matters because surveillance does more than collect information. Its outputs can initiate investigations, influence decisions, and authorize interventions that affect people who have little control over how the information is interpreted. The central problem is not merely that surveillance systems sometimes make mistakes. Rather, an institution can transform an uncertain indication into an apparently established fact through the very procedures the indication sets in motion.” (11/10/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“I keep thinking about a talk I listened to by Julian Assange back in 2017 where he warned that one day AI could be used to facilitate the propaganda interests of the powerful by manipulating news media and information in ways that are too subtle for the human mind to notice. Assange described a future where AI-powered algorithms serve us a customized feed of information based on data collected about our search queries and interests, calculated to appeal to our biases and construct a worldview for us which advances the agendas of those who control the machines. He explained that sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence systems could arrange this information with more subtlety and complexity than human perception can pick up on, in much the same way a computer can outperform any human brain at a game of chess.” (11/10/26)
“Various polls show the public broadly in support of ending the ‘spring forward / fall back’ nonsense, but not necessarily in agreement on whether the standard should be ‘Standard Time’ or ‘Daylight Saving Time.’ I’ve seen good arguments from both sides. My own position is: Pick one and make it happen. For whatever reason, such measures always seem to bog down in Congress. Unable to decide which direction to go in, they always end up punting and putting us through another year of those annoying clock changes. There’s a third way for Congress to go about exercising its Article 1, Section 8 power to ‘fix the standard of weights and measures’ that’s simple and sensible.” (11/10/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“In the aftermath of the midterm elections, while virtually all of the focus is on the Iran war and soaring prices, we mustn’t forget that immigration was another major reason for the political massacre of Republican candidates at the hands of the Democrats. Specifically, after overwhelmingly going for Trump just two years ago in the 2024 presidential election, Hispanics switched course in the midterms and returned to the Democrats. … as I have been emphasizing for 36 years here at The Future of Freedom Foundation, there is one — and only one — solution to the decades-old, ongoing, never-ending immigration morass. That solution is open borders — the abolition of ICE, the Border Patrol, and all restrictions on the free movements of people across the U.S.-Mexico border and, more generally, into and out of the United States.” (11/10/26)
“In Mullin v. Friends of Ruidosa Church, the Supreme Court just lifted the injunction on the Administration’s effort to go forward with the completion of a border wall through the Big Bend region of West Texas. The issue should not be the policy merits. There are good-faith arguments against the wall in such areas. Indeed, outgoing Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) wrote an op-ed against the project. However, the sole question before the Court was the authority of a president to order the construction and use of statutory waivers to do so. Eight out of nine justices voted that ‘the Government is exceedingly likely to prevail on its argument that the District Court lacked jurisdiction.’ Once again, the sole holdout was Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who did not explain her position.” (11/10/26)
“Imagine buying George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm on your Kindle, only for Amazon to reach into your device and remove the two classic novels. It sounds unsettling, but it happened in 2009 when a third-party seller lost the rights to distribute the books. Customers got their money back, and Amazon acknowledged that it had handled the situation poorly. But the incident raised a troubling question: what does it actually mean to own something in the digital marketplace?” (11/10/26)
“Thanks to a series of recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, it has become exceptionally difficult to sue a federal officer in federal court over an alleged constitutional rights violation. Yesterday, the justices heard oral arguments in a case that could further insulate federal officials from facing any civil liability for their misdeeds.” (11/10/26)
“In the space of just two weeks, at least six nations around the globe have held consequential national or local elections. Voters in only two countries returned decisive leadership preferences. On Oct. 25, Brazilians elected their incumbent president to an unprecedented fourth term, and Serbia’s student-led movement won enough Assembly seats to end 12 years of rule by an autocrat. Elsewhere, voting tallies transmitted less clear-cut and more complex messages. None of the traditional parties or blocs won sufficient votes to form a national government in New Zealand or Israel, or to administer most major municipalities in South Africa. In the United States, Democrats gained congressional and state seats. But their majorities in Washington are not sufficient to withstand obstruction or vetoes from a Republican-led presidency. On one level, these results might seem like a recipe for legislative inertia and policy stagnation.” (11/09/26)
“I know the difficulty some people will have with that title. Not the words, but the doing it. Watching these leftists promise to ‘investigate’, toss in prison or simply execute anyone in the Trump administration or Elon Musk is a lot like being in Germany in the early 1930s: you hear the words but simply can’t believe they mean the words. You assume they’re just being hyperbolic; saying things for effect. They are not, they mean it. Many of these new Members of Congress, and a huge number of the people who put them there, would happily take you out. They say it, they scream it, but if you repeat it back to them, you will be cancelled. ” (11/10/26)
“On the runway in Fairbanks, Ken Jouppi was loading his Cessna for a short hop to Beaver, Alaska, a village of a few dozen folks on the banks of the Yukon. His passenger was flying out to see her husband for her birthday, and she’d packed some beer in with the groceries. Troopers showed up with a warrant before the plane ever left the ground. Some of you might be thinking, yikes, is Jouppi another Andrew Carter Thornton II? ‘Cocaine Bear,’ the sequel? Nope. Beaver’s a dry town. Not the weather, the beer. Bringing alcohol into Beaver’s a crime, and he and his passenger were both convicted of a misdemeanor. Three days in jail apiece and a $1,500 fine, as low as the law goes. But then Alaska did something extraordinary: It took Jouppi’s plane.” (11/10/26)
