Source: ProSocial Libertarians
by Andrew Jason Cohen

“Many people are writing about why Americans have lost trust in universities. There are, of course, financial reasons, including — at least plausibly — the now higher unemployment rates of recent college grads and the ever-increasing cost of tuition. I leave these to the side. I’ve written about this before but here quickly lay out what I see as a major reason for the loss of trust. Start with the fact that many universities have stopped providing the service they were meant to — and historically did — provide. That service? Providing a system of education that creates well rounded individuals capable of independent critical thinking applicable to anything and which expands the intellectual abilities. Those universities have switched to providing career-specific education. Or what they think is career-specific education.” (05/17/26)

https://prosociallibertarians.substack.com/p/hucksters-amongst-us

Source: Fox News
by Jonathan Alpert

“As a psychotherapist, I increasingly see people interpreting political disagreement through a framework usually reserved for emotional threat and psychological harm. Opponents are no longer simply viewed as wrong. They’re experienced as toxic, dangerous, unsafe, narcissistic or morally beyond redemption. Once that shift happens, the emotional intensity rises quickly. People stop feeling like fellow citizens with different ideas and start feeling like threats. … Concepts like ‘trauma,’ ‘safety,’ ‘validation,’ ‘triggering’ and ‘boundaries’ can be useful in the right context. But when applied too broadly, they begin subtly transforming disagreement itself into something psychologically destabilizing. That shift has enormous consequences.” (05/17/26)

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/therapy-culture-turning-politics-national-nervous-breakdown

Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid

“As [Thomas] Szasz shows, this conspiracy to domesticate civilization’s neurological malcontents is achieved by declaring our numerous eccentricities to be medical ailments treatable by a variety of forms of therapeutic coercion, from the simple quick fix of pharmaceutical intervention to our involuntary internment at glorified prison camps deemed inpatient facilities. Szasz didn’t reject psychotherapy entirely, however. In fact, he encouraged its widespread use as a means for consenting adults to seek outside guidance in order to ‘learn more about themselves, others and life.’ In other words, Dr. Szasz advocated that therapists behave more like shamans than priests while deriding any notion of mental health being pathologized as a corrupt junk science that deprives the individual of autonomy and basic human dignity.” (05/17/26)

https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2026/05/mental-illness-may-be-myth-but-trauma.html

Source: Exiled Policy
by Jason Pye

“Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp recently announced that he will call the Georgia General Assembly into a special session, beginning on June 17, in part to redraw the state’s 14 congressional districts ahead of the 2028 midterm election. Kemp had previously rejected pressure to redraw the maps before the May 19 general primary. Early in-person voting in Georgia began on April 27. Why redistrict in Georgia in 2026 for maps that won’t be used until 2028? Kemp is a Republican. Both chambers of the Georgia General Assembly are Republican. But constitutional officers are on the ballot in 2026, as is every member of the state legislature. Although it’s unlikely that Democrats will pick up control of the legislature, Kemp’s successor could be a Democrat.” (05/17/26)

https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/democrats-lead-in-early-voting-in

Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Tim Worstall

“Recycling some things is sensible, others not so much. Recycling the 4 tonne rare earth magnet in an ocean going windmill makes excellent sense. Pulling the tiny rare earth magnets out of EarPods very much less. The rare earth content of a metal halide bulb is in the milligrammes range — collecting a million lightbulbs to produce a few kg of something worth perhaps $300 is insane. The overall aim is, after all, to preserve resources. Which is entirely fine, obviously, but we must be accurate about what is a resource that must be saved. The human effort which goes into this work is, we insist, one such resource that must be added into the calculation. Collecting a 4 tonne magnet, collecting 1 million lightbulbs. The time people must spend sorting household rubbish for recycling is one of those resources.” (05/17/26)

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/so-how-much-does-recycling-really-really-cost