When a Chicken Isn’t Just a Chicken

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Patrick J Lee

“A man stands at a farmers market stall. His wife is talking to the farmer. He picks up a chicken. Paper-wrapped, no barcode, a handwritten tag on the twine. He holds it close to read the label and sets it back down fast. The price is an insult. What are these people thinking? A minute later, another man reaches for the same bird, reads the same label, and smiles. What a deal. Same chicken, same label, same words. … Mises was clear that prices don’t emerge from some objective measure of worth. They emerge from subjective valuations, each party to an exchange believing—at the moment of transaction—that what he receives is worth more than what he gives up. The price is not a fact about the chicken. It is the meeting point of two different minds reading the world differently.” (04/27/26)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/when-chicken-isnt-just-chicken

Faith Should Form Our Political Beliefs, Not Justify Them

Source: The Dispatch
by Andy Smarick

“The recent scuffle between Pope Leo XIV and the Trump administration, Vice President J.D. Vance in particular, reveals a great deal about the role faith principles play in shaping (and not shaping) those in public life. This ugly episode confirms what our era has been teaching us: America would be far healthier if more of our leaders were faithful to principles instead of partisanship, pique, or personal ambition.” (04/27/26)

https://thedispatch.com/article/catholicism-converts-pope-leo-jd-vance/

Sri Lanka: Monks arrested after 110kg of cannabis discovered in their luggage

Source: BBC News [UK State Media]

“Twenty-two monks have been arrested at an airport in Sri Lanka after officials discovered 110kg (242lbs) of cannabis concealed in their luggage. Customs officials said each monk was found with around 5kg of Kush — a particularly potent form of the drug — hidden within ‘false walls’ in their luggage when they arrived in the capital Colombo on Saturday. The monks, who were mainly students, were returning from Thailand after being treated to an all-expenses-paid four-day holiday by an unnamed sponsor when they were detained. A 23rd monk, believed to have organised the trip, has since been arrested in a suburb of Colombo, police told BBC Sinhala. According to the acting police spokesman, the monk — who did not join the trip — had told the other monks that ‘these parcels are a donation’ and that a van would come to collect the packages.” (04/27/26)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4v4nzwj94o

“The Wealth of Nations” and 250 Years of Economists Missing the Point

Source: The Daily Economy
by Daniel J Smith & Gabriel F Benzecry

“From trade policy to public debt, today’s economic debates echo those of 1776. The problem isn’t a lack of knowledge — it’s a failure to teach and apply enduring principles.” 904/27/26)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-wealth-of-nations-and-250-years-of-economists-missing-the-point/

Active Shooters Swimming in Big Tech’s Swamp of Hatred and Division

Source: Common Dreams
by Thom Hartmann

“The attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Saturday night shouldn’t surprise us. Not only does America have the world’s most active small-arms industry that essentially controls the GOP (the reporters got a taste of what American — and only American — schoolkids experience every few months from their ‘realistic’ active shooter drills), but we also host the world’s largest and most profitable hate-amplification industry. Algorithms that amplify hate and division in order to “increase engagement” have made Mark Zuckerberg into one of the richest people on the planet, complete with a super-yacht and a doomsday bunker estate in Hawaii; Elon Musk’s X has turned into a sewer of Nazi-style rhetoric while Musk himself has posted, according to The Washington Post, nakedly white supremacist slogans and statements over 850 times just in the past seven months.” (04/27/26)

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/big-tech-mass-shooters

Shield of the Republic, 04/27/26

Source: The Bulwark

“Eric and Eliot review an extended buffet of jackassery before turning to the current state of affairs in Iran. They assess the prospects for a negotiated settlement to the war, and whether we could end up in a ‘no war, no peace’ situation. They also discuss the mutual incomprehension that leaders in both countries exhibit regarding the interests and intentions of the other, Iran’s new collective leadership in the wake of Ali Khamenei’s death, and the structural similarity to the situation faced by Soviet leaders after the death of Stalin. Finally, they respond to reports that the administration is considering deporting to the Democratic Republic of the Congo roughly eleven hundred Afghans in Qatar who were evacuated in 2021 amidst the US withdrawal.” (04/27/26)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dm3kMrnPYE