Source: The Atlantic
by Conor Friedersdorf
“Consider America’s roughly 14,000 Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controllers. If each of them spends just 10 minutes opening their work email, finding this request, drafting a response, proofreading it, and sending it off, that adds up to 2,333 hours of work. Can you think of a more cartoonish example of government waste than using 292 workdays’ worth of man-hours to clarify that, last week, air traffic controllers monitored airplanes? I actually can think of a more cartoonish example, in that it is even bigger in scale: Some 74,000 U.S. Postal Service letter carriers deliver mail on foot, making roughly $29 an hour on average. If they spend 10 minutes each, or 740,000 total minutes, drafting emails, that works out to nearly $360,000 in labor costs. For what? And how long will it take other workers to read ‘I was delivering letters’ 74,000 times?” (02/24/25)
https://archive.is/E2iqa
Source: MarketWatch
“Bitcoin slid below $90,000 on Tuesday, hitting a level not seen since November, amid a broader struggle for cryptocurrencies this year so far. The No. 1 cryptocurrency was down 4.5% to $89,791 and hit a session low of $88,268, a level not seen since around mid-November. Bitcoin’s price is down 4.5% year to date, following a 120% surge in 2024. The price of Ethereum was down over 8% to $2,407, and is down 28% year to date.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-drops-to-lowest-since-november-as-struggle-into-the-new-year-continues-for-cryptocurrencies-5f3f3875
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“We’re all thrilled that Ross Ulbricht, the man who created a tax-free platform for selling illegal narcotics, weapons, and much more, now freely walks the streets of America. But what should libertarians think about people born in other countries who illegally come here to grow food, wash dishes, clean hotel rooms, and care for kids? Shouldn’t we support massive government efforts to exclude and deport them of all people? To answer my own rhetorical question: Obviously not. If libertarians won’t stand up for the rights of foreigners that our government treats like criminals for doing hard jobs without getting government permission — permission that is, by the way, almost impossible for them to obtain — then we stand for nothing and we are nothing.” (02/24/25)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/who-exactly-should-we-be-letting
Source: Reason
“Are Democrats Actually in Disarray?”
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/02/24/are-democrats-actually-in-disarray/
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Hamas says talks with Israel about further steps in the Gaza ceasefire deal are conditional on Palestinian [hostages] being freed as agreed. Israel said on Sunday it was delaying the release of more than 600 Palestinians in return for six living and four dead hostages who had been freed, accusing Hamas of repeated violations including ‘humiliating’ handover ceremonies. A senior Hamas official said the decision exposed the entire agreement to ‘grave danger’ and called on mediators, especially the US, to pressure Israel. The deal’s first phase and temporary six-week truce is set to expire on Saturday but indirect negotiations on the second phase and an end to the war have not yet begun.” (02/24/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgw7rrlvmjo
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“Politics is cutthroat. One tactic is insidious and effective: DARVO — Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. Though often described in the context of Cluster B personality types, DARVO is more than just a psychopathology. It’s a strategic weapon wielded by those who seek to seize control of the narrative, silence their opponents, and dominate the public discourse. It’s no wonder. Politics selects for sociopaths. Those who deploy DARVO don’t just deflect blame — they invert reality. They deny wrongdoing, attack those who challenge them, and claim to be the real victims. But this is no ordinary deflection. It’s an unwholesome maneuver designed to keep adversaries on the defensive while rallying allies through manufactured grievance.” (02/24/25)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/psychopathology-as-strategy
Source: CBS News
“A federal judge in Maryland blocked the Trump administration on Monday from carrying out immigration enforcement actions at certain places of worship for Quakers, Cooperative Baptists and Sikhs, who filed a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s unwinding of a Biden-era memo that barred immigration arrests at certain protected locations. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang granted a request for a narrow preliminary injunction sought by the religious groups as they pursue their challenge to Mr. Trump’s directive allowing federal immigration authorities to conduct enforcement actions at places of worship. Chuang’s order does not block the administration’s policy nationwide, and only applies to houses of worship owned or used by the challengers — the Quakers, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Sikh Temple.” (02/24/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-judge-immigration-arrests-places-of-worship-quakers-baptists-sikhs/
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“I recently had a conversation of a kind that will be familiar to many of you. Anonymous Jones remarked that we Americans probably work too much and should spend more time with our families. I concurred, but added that American work habits are not an arbitrary corporate imposition but an aspect of a complex, organically evolved system of production and consumption, and that this cannot simply be rearranged according to the aesthetics and personal sensibilities of would-be social managers. (I’m tons of fun at parties, really.) Jones’[s] smugly offered response to all that was: Well, then, maybe we should consume less and be happy with that. Harrumph, etc. To which I added: But you aren’t talking about consuming less — you are talking about consuming more, in the form of leisure time.” (02/24/25)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/immortal-stupidity-revisited-141500486.html
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Doctors Without Borders has said it is suspending its work in a famine-stricken camp for displaced people in Sudan’s North Darfur region, as an increase in violent attacks has made it too dangerous to operate. In a statement on Monday, the medical charity – known by its French-language acronym MSF – said fighting in and around Zamzam camp near the town of el-Fasher had made it ‘impossible … to continue providing medical assistance.’ … MSF was one of the few humanitarian groups still working in the camp, which houses about half a million people displaced by Sudan’s devastating 22-month civil war.” (02/24/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/24/msf-halts-operations-in-camp-in-sudans-darfur-region-as-violence-rages
Source: EconLog
by Pierre Lemieux
“The Zizians add their story to the list of ignorant scientists. Ted Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber, a mathematics Ph.D. and Berkely professor, was cut from the same sort of cloth. These stories would be ludicrous if they had not involved murders of innocent people and wasted lives, including the criminals’ lives, and if they did not suggest deeper knowledge problems. … Frederic Hayek explained the problem of ‘scientism,’ which he defined as an improper and naive application of the methods of the exact sciences to the study of society. It is very tempting, especially for narrowly focused scientific experts with no knowledge of economics, to neglect the varied preferences that motivate individual actions and to ignore the unplanned social order that results. A social order efficient for satisfying individual preferences is impossible to engineer and reconstruct from above.” (02/24/25)
https://www.econlib.org/scientists-are-often-ignorant/
