Source: Bloomberg
“A cockpit voice recording of doomed Air India Flight 171 indicates the younger co-pilot asked his more experienced colleague why he turned off the plane’s fuel-supply switches, according to people familiar with the matter. The information, from people who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly, reveals for the first time who said what in the flight deck. The exchange was first mentioned in last week’s preliminary report from India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau probing the June 12 crash in the western city of Ahmedabad, but without identifying the speakers. The report had shown two fuel switches in the cockpit were moved to a cut-off position, causing the Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner to lose lift and crash 32 seconds after takeoff. The other pilot had denied turning off the switches, according to the AAIB, which had extracted data from the cockpit voice recorder.” (07/17/25)
https://archive.is/nLV8E
Source: The Daily Beast
“How Creepy Epstein Tried to Keep His Crimes Secret.” (07/17/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xggo5DWV0DQ
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“In The Struggle for Liberty, Ralph Raico — one of the twentieth century’s foremost libertarian historians — offers a sweeping and penetrating critique of John Stuart Mill. With clarity, historical depth, and a touch of well-placed fire, Raico demolishes the myth that Mill belongs in the pantheon of classical liberalism. Instead, Raico exposes Mill as a forerunner of the modern progressive state: one who stripped liberalism of its essential emphasis on economic freedom and opened the door to a new, coercive moralism enforced by government. This critique is more than academic — it goes to the heart of how the liberal tradition is understood and misrepresented, even by those typically reliable in defense of liberty.” (07/16/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/john-stuart-mill-an-enemy-disguised-as-a-friend
Source: The Bulwark
by William Kristol
“Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem: Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity. It’s known as Occam’s razor. If you’re trying to solve a problem or to understand a phenomenon, consider the simplest or most straightforward explanation. What’s the simplest explanation for Trump’s refusal to release any information about the Epstein files? What’s the most straightforward explanation for Trump’s far-fetched attempts at deflection? What’s the most likely explanation for his lashing out at supporters who aren’t obeying his instructions to shut up? It’s that there’s information in those files that Trump doesn’t want to see the light of day. We don’t know just what that information is. We do know Trump is insisting on not releasing it, and that he’s not even bothering to advance plausible reasons for not releasing it.” (07/17/25)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/a-crisis-of-maga-faith-trump-epsitein-files-q-anon-conspiracy-theories
Source: SFGate
“U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz signed a landmark treaty on Thursday that pledges to tighten defense ties and boost law-enforcement cooperation against criminal people-smuggling gangs using the English Channel. ‘This is a historic day for German-British relations,’ said Merz, making his first official visit to Britain since taking office in May. ‘We want to work together more closely, particularly after the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. It is overdue for us to conclude such a treaty with each other.’ Starmer said the agreement — signed at London’s V&A Museum, which is named after Queen Victoria and her German husband, Prince Albert — was ‘a statement of intent, a statement of our ambition to work ever more closely together.’ Starmer has made it a priority of his center-left Labour Party to curb the gangs behind cross-Channel people smuggling.” (07/17/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/leaders-of-the-uk-and-germany-to-sign-a-treaty-on-20773315.php
Source: New York Times
“Connie Francis, who dominated the pop charts in the late 1950s and early ’60s with sobbing ballads like ‘Who’s Sorry Now’ and ‘Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You,’ as well as up-tempo soft-rock tunes like ‘Stupid Cupid,’ ‘Lipstick on Your Collar,’ and ‘Vacation,’ died on Wednesday. She was 87.
Her publicist, Ron Roberts, announced her death in a post on Facebook. He did not say where she died or cite a cause. … Between 1958 and 1964, when her brand of pop music began to fall out of favor, Ms. Francis was the most popular female singer in the United States, selling 40 million records. … Concetta Franconero was born on Dec. 12, 1938, in Newark and grew up in the Ironbound neighborhood. Her father, the son of Italian immigrants, was a dockworker and a roofer who loved to play the concertina, and he put an accordion in his daughter’s hands when she was 3.” (07/17/25)
https://archive.is/938mt
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“Do We Live in a Simulation? | Robert Wright & Preston Greene.” (07/17/25)
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/68862
Source: The Dispatch
“An Inconsequential Term?” (07/17/25)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/advisoryopinions/an-inconsequential-term/
Source: Reason
by Damon Root
“There’s a basic principle of free speech that the censors always seem to forget. Namely, the act of suppressing speech only tends to add more fuel to the speaker’s fire. Don’t believe me? Just ask Karl Marx. … the censors did not leave Marx alone. They hounded him out of Germany. And their efforts backfired spectacularly. Not only did the censors fail to throttle Marx’s work; they actually turbo-charged his radicalization and greatly furthered the spread of his ideas.” (07/17/25)
https://reason.com/2025/07/17/a-free-speech-lesson-from-karl-marx/
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie
“[O]ne cannot help but notice that all of those previous stages of the ongoing Industrial Revolution involved job losses as mechanical power replaced manpower. Freeing up time, boosting efficiency, and reducing costs involve using less labour, and that means fewer jobs. The jobs most immediately at risk from AI are those with repetitive, rule-based, or data-heavy tasks. This includes roles like data entry clerks, telemarketers, basic customer service representatives, and some roles in manufacturing and transportation. Additionally, jobs in finance, legal, and market research are also facing increased automation. … the wealth that came in the wake of the increased productivity they generated led to many more new jobs that added more value. Most of the jobs our predecessors did 100 years ago do not exist today, and most of the jobs we do now did not exist then.” (07/17/25)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/ai-prospects
