The Rational Bull Elk

Source: EconLog
by Richard B McKenzie

“I love elk, but I confess that I use elk mating to develop a larger point: that rational decision making happens in a setting — mating battles — Darwinians might not expect. If elk have evolved even limited rational capacity, contrary to what many Darwinians presume, why not expect lower-order species, such as voles and even ants, to exhibit limited rationality? If my evolutionary perspective is accepted, Darwinian theory needs a revision to accommodate economic thinking. Rational decision making, dictated by scarcity constraints, can (at least marginally) divert species from their Darwinian evolutionary paths.” (10/06/25)

https://www.econlib.org/library/columns/y2025/mckenziedarwinian.html

Thomas L. Knapp

SC: House of Judge Criticized by Trump Regime Set Ablaze

Source: Time

“The home of South Carolina Circuit Court judge Diane Goodstein was set on fire after she had reportedly received death threats. State law enforcement is investigating the house fire on Edisto Beach which began at around 11:30 a.m. E.T. on Saturday, sources told local news outlet FITSNews. Goodstein was reportedly not at home at the time of the fire, but at least three members of her family, including her husband, former Democratic state senator Arnold Goodstein, and their son, have been hospitalized with serious injuries. … Law enforcement have not disclosed whether the fire is being investigated as an arson attack. … Last month, Goodstein had temporarily blocked the state’s election commission from releasing its voter files to the Department of Justice, a decision that was openly criticized by Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon and later reversed by the state Supreme Court.” (10/06/25)

https://time.com/7323442/south-carolina-judge-diane-goodstein-house-fire-trump-political-violence/

Thomas L. Knapp

End the President’s Caribbean Murder Spree

Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison

“The president and his appointees are using the military to commit serious crimes. Unfortunately, they appear to have some willing executioners to do their dirty work. It doesn’t really matter why they are doing it or what they think those crimes will get them. The president is openly trampling on U.S. and international law and killing people because he feels like it.” (10/06/25)

https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/end-the-presidents-caribbean-murder

Thomas L. Knapp

Trump stops Biden’s Euro-style solution to flight delays and paves way to lower fares

Source: Fox News
by Stephen Moore

“The Biden administration spent four years placing a record level of new regulatory impediments on the nation’s airlines. An analysis by the Office of Management and Budget estimates that Biden’s Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, nearly tripled the number of transportation-related rules and regulations. There’s no evidence that all this added red tape made airline travel safer or reduced flight delays. Biden should have learned from the airline deregulations of the late 1970s, which liberated airlines from government controls on pricing and flight routes.” (10/06/25)

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trump-stops-bidens-euro-style-solution-flight-delays-paves-way-lower-fares

Steve Trinward

Immoderate Bullets

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“‘What began as a quiet October Friday in Virginia politics,’ reports Markus Schmidt for the Virginia Mercury, ‘erupted into a full-blown national scandal when screenshots of private, three-year old text messages showing Democratic attorney general nominee Jay Jones fantasizing about shooting then-House Speaker Todd Gilbert and his children were made public.’ With 280,000 people having already voted in Virginia’s race for attorney general, polls show Jones leading. ‘Like all people,’ Jones excused himself, ‘I’ve sent text messages that I regret.’ Have all of us sent texts such as these?” (10/06/25)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/10/06/immoderate-bullets/

Thomas L. Knapp

American, Japanese scientists win Nobel prize in medicine

Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]

“Scientists Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for ‘their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance,’ the award-giving body said on Monday. This year’s prize ‘relates to how we keep our immune system under control so we can fight all imaginable microbes and still avoid autoimmune disease,’ said Marie Wahren-Herlenius, a rheumatology professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.” (10/06/25)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nobel-sweden-medicine-1.7651903

Thomas L. Knapp