CA: Dairy industry panics over August recycling deadline

Source: SFGate

“California’s new recycling law is leaving dairy manufacturers panicked that the legislation’s fees and mandates could be devastating to their business and could send Californian’s grocery bills even higher. The 2022 law is designed to increase recycling participation and reduce landfill waste in California by making companies responsible for what happens to their products after they’re thrown away. That includes charging companies an impact fee for each product they sell and phasing out materials that cannot be adequately reused, recycled or composted. … Katie Davey, the executive director of the Dairy Institute of California, said companies are facing impact fees as high as $15 million and will be forced to either charge customers more or shut down entirely.” (07/12/26)

https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/california-recycling-law-milk-22339035.php

Thomas L. Knapp

Auberon Herbert and Socialism

Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman

“In ‘Salvation by Force’ (1889), the late-Victorian English individualist (‘voluntaryist’) Auberon Herbert (1838-1906) crossed intellectual swords with the socialists of his day. In light of Zohran Mamdani’s fashionable, edgy invocation of the ‘warmth of collectivism,’ it will pay us to examine Herbert’s rejection of collectivism.” (07/10/26)

https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-auberon-herbert-and-socialism

Thomas L. Knapp

AI’s Rise Fueled by Sprawling US Military State

Source: In These Times
by Sarah Lazare

“Hossam Nasr was never under the impression Microsoft is a force for good, but says he ‘did genuinely believe it to be one of the lesser evil big tech companies’. So when he graduated with a computer science degree, he took a job there and moved to its Seattle campus in 2021. ​’I sort of felt like I had to work at a big tech company,’ he recalls, ​’because that was the definition of what success in my field looks like.’ To his horror, he discovered the cloud storage service he worked on, Azure, provided the Israeli military with artificial intelligence tools essential to the post-October 2023 onslaught on Gaza. He says he was unaware his labor had been contributing to the very military operations filling his social media feed with massacres at refugee camps, bombed-out apartments, and lifeless children pulled from the rubble.” (07/08/26)

https://inthesetimes.com/article/ai-military-tech-workers-palantir

Steve Trinward

Apple sues OpenAI alleging trade secret theft, says scheme was “at every level”

Source: CNBC

“Apple on Friday sued OpenAI in federal court in Northern California, alleging trade secret theft, saying that the artificial intelligence lab took the iPhone maker’s intellectual property in order to develop its own consumer hardware. ‘This much is clear, however: at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information,’ the company said in a legal filing. It’s a shocking reversal for the two companies, which entered into a high-profile partnership in 2024, when ChatGPT was integrated into the iPhone’s operating system. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman visited Apple’s headquarters for the announcement. But relations between the two companies have chilled since OpenAI announced plans to enter the hardware industry last year, when it bought former Apple designer Jony Ive’s startup, called IO Products, for $6.4 billion.” (07/10/26)

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/10/apple-openai-lawsuit-trade-secrets.html

Thomas L. Knapp

Delusional Leaders Are Dangerous Leaders

Source: The American Conservative
by Ted Snider

“Trump reminds one of a baseball team that, after losing 1–0, claims victory because it outhit its opponent—and demands a rematch. The lesson that the rest of the world has learned seems to have escaped him. Iran’s military and its infrastructure have indeed been pummeled, but Iran has not lost the war.” (07/10/26)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/delusional-leaders-are-dangerous-leaders/

Thomas L. Knapp

US, Iranian regimes exchange intensifying fire across Mideast

Source: Associated Press

“The United States launched new airstrikes against Iran early Thursday, and Tehran responded by targeting U.S.-allied Mideast countries in an exchange of fire that threatened an interim deal intended to help end the war in the Middle East. Back-and-forth attacks, including a day earlier, have repeatedly threatened the ceasefire. But Thursday’s appeared bigger all around, with sirens sounding at least three times in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters, and missiles targeting Kuwait and Qatar. … An Iranian official accused the U.S. of launching an airstrike later Thursday targeting the area around Iran’s sole nuclear power plant, and other explosions were reported elsewhere in the country during the afternoon.” (07/10/26)

https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-israel-war-oil-july-9-2026-0472764b119d7aa204de4f7f5e44a9bf

Thomas L. Knapp

Freedom Fuel?

Source: Reason
by Peter Suderman

“This week on social media, the Trump administration touted the launch of Freedom Fuel, a network of gas stations ‘lowering the price at the pump to $3.47 for our 47th president.’ … Inevitably, this initiative produced cries of socialism and comparisons to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s sure-to-be-a-boondoggle government-run grocery store initiative. But these comparisons were misplaced, at least if the Trump administration is to be believed. According to CBS News, the Freedom Fuel network ‘is private and owns 25 filling stations across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The spokesperson said the Trump administration is not involved with the company and is not subsidizing the gas stations.’ So this probably isn’t a case of government-run gas stations. Instead, it’s another familiar feature of Trump-era politics and media: something happening that has little to do with the White House—and Trump taking credit.” (07/09/26)

https://reason.com/2026/07/09/freedom-fuel/

Thomas L. Knapp