Live mop

Source: Sex and the State
by Cathy Reisenwitz

“Unlike most pride-having, mentally well individuals, I wrote about my anxieties around taking a service-sector job. (Security clearances are a big thing in Huntsville. Recently my dad joked to me that I have at least one qualification: ‘You’re impossible to blackmail!’ he laughed. This is not a challenge.) Among other things, I worried a shit job would somehow preclude me from office work. I imagined a hiring manager smelling the stench of low-skill labor on me before I even walked in.” (04/08/26)

https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/live-mop

Thomas L. Knapp

North Korean regime conducts multiple missile launches over two days, Seoul regime says

Source: United Press International

“North Korea fired short-range ballistic missiles on two separate occasions Wednesday, Seoul’s military said, marking three launches over two days after South Korean President Lee Jae Myung expressed regret over a drone incursion. At 8:50 a.m. Wednesday, the North launched several short-range ballistic missiles from its coastal Wonsan area toward the East Sea, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters. The missiles flew approximately 150 miles, the JCS said …. North Korea later fired a single short-range ballistic missile from Wonsan toward the East Sea at 2:20 p.m. Wednesday, the JCS said in a separate message. The missile flew approximately 435 miles.” (04/08/26)

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2026/04/08/North-Korea-missile-launch-short-range-ballistic-East-Sea/3841775616289/

Thomas L. Knapp

Confessions of a Neotenous Man

Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan

“Today I turn 55. While my kids love to mock my age, the truth is that I feel young. Real young. Every day, my top priority is not fulfilling my duties or conforming to social expectations, but having fun. Biologists have an adjective for my state of being: neoteny. We neotenous creatures retain our juvenile traits long into adulthood.” (04/08/26)

https://www.betonit.ai/p/reflections-of-a-neotenous-man

Thomas L. Knapp

In Trump’s Department of War [sic], it’s soldiers (not “experts”) calling the shots

Source: Fox News
by David Marcus

“When President Donald Trump [pretended he had] changed the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War last year, many saw it as merely a branding exercise, but as the fierceness of Operation Epic Fury in Iran has shown us, it was much, much more than that. On Easter Sunday, our military pulled off a daring rescue of a downed airman behind enemy lines, and what it made clear, once again, is that Trump’s Department of [Defense] is run by soldiers, not by experts, and the results are phenomenal. As Secretary of [Defense] and former frontline veteran Pete Hegseth has put it many times, his Pentagon will focus on ‘maximum lethality, not tepid legality.'” [editor’s note: If Hegseth is Secretary of War and heads a Department of War, he and it need to return all the money Congress appropriated to the Department of Defense – TLK] (04/07/26)

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-trumps-department-war-soldiers-experts-calling-shots

Steve Trinward

“Very difficult, perhaps altogether impossible”: Smith’s political science

Source: EconLog
by Jacob T Levy

“Over hundreds of pages, Smith patiently shows why both peace and a tolerable administration of justice are historically rare, and continually fragile. To the extent that some society or other happens to have them, it seems to be neither the natural course of things nor the result of wise and judicious statesmanship but rather barely better than luck. Smith was not an esoteric writer, but he was a patient one. He laid out arguments and counterarguments at narrative length and expected readers to follow along with him.” (04/08/26)

https://www.econlib.org/library/columns/y2026/levy-wn250-5

Thomas L. Knapp

Madman Theory

Source: Libertarian Institute
by Kym Robinson

“Richard Nixon employed a ‘madman theory’ while he negotiated with the North Vietnamese and Soviets. Nixon wanted the leaders of those countries to think that he was unpredictable, volatile and willing to risk nuclear destruction. In turn this caused the Vietnamese and Soviet leaders to tread with reason and use cool minded methods. It forced them to make concessions and placate the irrational leader of the ‘free world.’ The theory is based on the premise that an irrational leader is more dangerous than a rational one. … It is unlikely the current US president has the calculation and awareness for such methods, let alone the understanding of history.” (04/08/26)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/anti-war-blog-madman-theory/

Thomas L. Knapp