I, Chicken Sandwich

Source: Cato Institute
by Jeremy Lott

“Andy George, star of the YouTube channel How to Make Everything, spent $1,500 over six months to make a chicken sandwich from scratch. And by ‘from scratch’ I mean growing vegetables, milling wheat, milking a cow, and slaughtering a chicken. The result was … not great. ‘It’s not bad. That’s about it: It’s not bad,’ he judged after taking a few bites of the sandwich. … George thought of his chicken sandwich as an experiment in self-reliant living. It was that, but he was also getting a crash course in global supply chains, price signals, and spontaneous order.” (for publication summer 2026)

https://www.cato.org/regulation/summer-2026/i-chicken-sandwich

OpenAI signs deal to show Getty’s images in ChatGPT results

Source: Engadget

“Getty Images has announced a multi-year partnership with OpenAI that will bring its licensed content libraries to the AI company. The agreement means Getty’s content will appear in OpenAI search and ChatGPT. … Getty, until recently, had taken a strong stance against working with AI companies. In September 2022, Getty banned all AI-generated art from its library. A few months later, it sued Stability AI, alleging copyright violations — a notion that was rejected late last year. A year after its AI-generated art ban, Getty announced its own generative AI tool, trained on its library and powered by NVIDIA’s Edigy AI model. Each of the resulting images came with a royalty-free license. But in October 2025, Getty signed a deal with Perplexity AI, allowing the latter’s AI search and discovery tools to access Getty’s library.” (06/22/26)

https://www.engadget.com/2198633/openai-signs-deal-with-getty-to-show-images-in-chatgpt-results/

America Needs Fewer Performers and More Adults

Source: Town Hall
by Jay Rogers

“Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil empire and meant it. He didn’t hedge, qualify, or wait for a focus group. He built the military, stationed Pershing missiles in Europe over fierce opposition, and helped accelerate the collapse of a system that had enslaved hundreds of millions. On American movie screens, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Sylvester Stallone played men who took responsibility, absorbed punishment, and didn’t apologize for their convictions. That wasn’t mere entertainment. It was a cultural argument, and it was winning. I arrived in California in 1990. The economy was thriving, the Republican Party was still competitive, and the state had a future worth arguing about. Thirty-five years of one-party rule later, California’s own Department of Finance confirms a net domestic loss of 216,000 residents in the year ending July 2025 alone — dead last in U-Haul’s outbound migration index for the sixth consecutive year.” (06/22/26)

https://townhall.com/columnists/jay-rogers/2026/06/22/america-needs-fewer-performers-and-more-adults-n2678064

Qatar: At least 13 killed and dozens injured after gas explosion

Source: BBC News [UK State Media]

“At least 13 people have been killed and 66 injured after an explosion at Qatar’s largest gas facility. The city’s main liquified natural gas (LNG) processing site suffered ‘a technical accident’ in Ras Laffan industrial zone on Sunday night, the interior ministry said, with the city’s skyline turning orange because of the explosion. Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi said the explosion would not affect the country’s exports, adding ‘this was an accident and not sabotage or hostile in nature’. The Ras Laffan Port is the largest artificial harbour in the world and has the world’s largest LNG export facility. It was targeted by Iranian strikes earlier this year. The blast on Sunday rattled windows and was felt across central Doha, panicking residents more than 70km (43 miles) from Ras Laffan.” (06/22/26)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy05llpjpno

Rich Americans Pay a Higher Share of Taxes Than the Wealthy in Most Countries

Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille

“Like his progressive comrades, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has an ambitious big-government agenda he proposes to fund by forcing ‘rich’ people to pay their ‘fair share.’ While the word billionaires is often thrown around, smart people understand that wealth will have to be defined generously to pay for everything proposed, and that ‘fair share’ always means more. Even so, lots of Americans are on board with the idea of forcing people they consider rich to pay higher taxes. What they don’t understand, and what progressives won’t acknowledge, is that the U.S. already puts a heavier burden on high-income people than do most countries.” (06/22/26)

https://reason.com/2026/06/22/rich-americans-pay-a-higher-share-of-taxes-than-the-wealthy-in-most-countries/

True Spirituality Confronts The Abuses Of Empire

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“A spirituality that is uninterested in ending war, genocide, poverty and injustice is a dead spirituality. If you hold your time on the meditation cushion as something separate from the weeping mother clutching a small body in Lebanon, you’re wasting your time. Sometimes I get asked why I only occasionally write about ‘spiritual’ matters like awakening, egoic delusion, inner work etc, but from my point of view everything I write is about that stuff. To oppose the injustices and abuses of our world is to directly interface with the mechanisms of humanity’s struggle to become a conscious species. The overwhelming majority of what people call ‘spirituality’ in our society is really just glorified escapism. It’s about avoiding reality by focusing on good vibes, nice feelings, and comforting stories about the nature of the cosmos.” (06/22/26)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/06/22/true-spirituality-confronts-the-abuses-of-the-empire/

Ireland: Former Head of Quisling Party found Guilty of Child Sex Offences

Source: US News & World Report

“The former leader of [British-occupied] ⁠Ireland’s ⁠largest [British quisling] party, Jeffrey ⁠Donaldson, was found guilty on Monday of historic child ​sex offences against two women when they were children in one of ‌the highest-profile cases to be ‌heard in the British-run region in recent times. A jury at Newry ⁠Crown ⁠Court found Donaldson guilty of one count of rape, 13 counts ​of indecent assault and four counts of gross indecency against two complainants at dates between 1985 and 2008. He denied all charges. … The jury found that Donaldson’s wife, Eleanor, aided and abetted her husband. She has also denied the charges. The court ruled her unfit to stand trial last month, due to mental health issues, meaning she could not face criminal conviction.” (06/22/26)

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-06-22/jury-finds-northern-irelands-donaldson-guilty-of-historic-child-sex-offences

Law professors say they support free speech. Many are afraid to practice it.

Source: Expression
by Nate Honeycutt

“A libertarian law professor who responded to FIRE’s recent national survey of law faculty offered a striking admission: ‘Whether justified or unjustified, I regularly hide beliefs from colleagues who are openly discussing important topics in the public interest out of fear of retaliation, particularly as a junior faculty member.’ No administrator had disciplined him. No student had filed a complaint. Yet by his own admission, he and another colleague routinely conceal their views at faculty meetings and other public events, not because anyone ordered them to stay silent but because they worry that candor can carry professional costs. That kind of silence is tricky to measure, but carries serious implications. And new data suggest it is relatively common in American law schools.” (06/22/26)

https://expression.fire.org/p/law-professors-say-they-support-free