Nerdcast, 05/26/26
Source: Politico
“Shapiro on Trump, Fetterman and 2028 over cheesesteaks in South Philly.” (05/26/26)
Driving VPNs South
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Public Safety Canada, an agency responsible for safety, security, emergency preparedness and this kind of thing, recently urged Canadians to protect themselves when using public Wi-Fi by also using a VPN. ‘Using a VPN protects your data,’ the agency said. True. Unless — unless others in the government succeed in requiring VPN companies to uniformly sabotage the privacy of their customers. The mechanism for crippling VPNs? That would be the pending legislation to force VPN providers to retain personal data which users expect them not to retain, in this way killing these companies’ very reason for being as well as Canadian Internet users’ reasons to employ these companies.” (05/26/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/05/26/driving-vpns-south/
Trump’s Slush Fund Is Based on a Lie
Source: The Bulwark
by Mona Charen
“For Trump, it wasn’t enough that even the most violent received unconditional pardons. No, now he proposes to enrich them with taxpayer funds. Those deserving of punishment get rewarded. The victimizer becomes the victim. The criminal becomes the patriot.” (05/26/26)
Spaniard tests positive for hantavirus in cruise-linked oubtreak
Source: United Press International
“A Spanish national who was aboard the hantavirus-hit cruise ship has tested positive for the virus, Spanish health officials said, apparently increasing the number of confirmed and probable cases linked to the outbreak to 13. The unidentified patient was among the 14 Spanish nationals who disembarked from the vessel in Tenerife, Canary Islands, on the morning of May 10, after the hantavirus cluster was identified earlier that month. Three of the cases have died. Spain’s Ministry of Health said the patient was confirmed positive while in preventive quarantine at Gomez Ulla Hospital in Madrid, where the individual has been under clinical surveillance and isolation since disembarking from the vessel.” (05/26/26)
Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 05/25/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“US Military Says It Bombed Southern Iran, US Backs Israel’s Escalation in Lebanon, and More.” (05/25/26)
Homeric Heresies
Source: Quillette
by Cathy Young
“Outrage over a black Helen of Troy misunderstands the long Western tradition of radically reinventing classical myths.” (05/25/26)
https://quillette.com/2026/05/25/homeric-heresies-christopher-nolan-odyssey-lupita-nyongo/
All Stephen Colbert Had To Do Was Not Suck; He Couldn’t Do It
Source: Town Hall
by Derek Hunter
“It was his last show and it was the only episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert I’ve ever watched. Yes, I’d seen clips, but I had honestly never watched a full episode ever. I never actually watched an episode of The Colbert Report either, or The Daily Show for that matter. Watching liberals pretend to be honest brokers on the news of the day never appealed to me. But Colbert’s last show did, mostly because I wanted to see one fresh before it was too late and I figured he and his ample staff would bring their A-game. Boy, was I wrong.” (05/26/26)
France: Wave of child abuse cases shakes schools in Paris
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A school assistant will go on trial in Paris on Tuesday accused of sexual mistreatment of young children in his care. It is the latest case in a year-long scandal that has shaken the school system in the French capital, where some 15,000 such assistants (known as animateurs) are employed as non-teaching staff. Currently enquiries are under way at nearly 100 Paris crèches, kindergartens and junior schools where animateurs have been accused of inappropriate, aggressive or sexualised behaviour. Trials in three other cases are to take place over the summer, and a verdict is due in a fourth which was held earlier this month. More are likely to follow. Last week police detained 16 people after a swoop at three schools in the 7th arrondissement or district. Three people were subsequently charged with sexually inappropriate behaviour to children.” (05/26/26)
Contra Yglesias
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“My usual explanation for why I call myself a libertarian instead of a liberal is that after the enemies of liberalism stole its name we needed a new one. In a recent Substack post, however, Matthew Yglesias writes that: ‘while some classical liberals have called the Republican Party home, liberalism has largely been a Democratic Party project.’ His view is that ‘liberals’ in the modern American sense, classical liberals and libertarians are all liberals in the same sense. Is he right?” (05/25/26)
The Empty Architect
Source: Liberal Currents
by Israel Kolawale
“Rebuilding state capacity is not just about saving money or improving efficiency. It is about reclaiming our collective sovereignty.” [editor’s note: Individual sovereignty is the only real sovereignty – TLK] (05/26/26)