Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“When I was a kid, we celebrated Washington’s Birthday on February 22nd, each year. That officially recognized day honored George Washington, first president and the ‘father of our country,’ began in the 1880s (even before I was born). Then in 1968, someone discovered that Abraham Lincoln also had a February birthday and was apparently feeling slighted. So, what could we do but get the two big guys together for a mega national holiday? Lincoln was a pretty consequential president, after all. But the holiday came to be known as Presidents’ Day … and as the Encyclopedia Brittanica notes, ‘is sometimes understood as a celebration of the birthdays and lives of all U.S. presidents.’ Is this some sort of ‘everyone gets a trophy’ thing?” (02/17/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/02/17/greatest-man-in-the-world/
Source: New York Post
“The ‘steroid Olympics’ has clinched a ‘double-digit’ million-dollar cash infusion from investors led by Donald Trump Jr. as the controversial sporting event pursues an American debut, The Post has learned. The funding round closed last week, Australian businessman Aron D’Souza, president of the Enhanced Games, told The Post during a Monday interview. He declined to provide additional details on the fundraising. ‘Getting the Trump name behind the Enhanced Games was a monumental effort,’ D’Souza told The Post. ‘This is now a very American project.’ The first Enhanced Games will include events in track, swimming, weight lifting, ‘combat’ and gymnastics, and will likely take place later this year in a ‘warm’ US city ‘conducive to winter months,’ D’Souza said. ‘We wouldn’t have hosted the games in the United States if Biden was elected,’ he said, noting the company was previously considering host cities overseas.” (02/17/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/02/17/business/enhanced-games-raises-millions-from-backers-led-by-donald-trump-jr-as-steroid-olympics-plots-us-debut/
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison
“As usual, Trump intends to go along with whatever the Israeli government wants.” (02/17/25)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/trumps-pro-war-understanding-with
Source: New York Times
“The South Korean government said on Monday that it had temporarily suspended new downloads of an artificial intelligence chatbot made by DeepSeek, the Chinese company that has sent shock waves through the tech world. On Monday night, the app was not available in the Apple or Google app stores in South Korea, although DeepSeek was still accessible via a web browser. Regulators said the app service would resume after they had ensured it complied with South Korea’s laws on protecting personal information.” (02/17/25)
https://archive.is/RJBSE
Source: The Bulwark
“Americans So FURIOUS They’re Lifting Up Madmen (w/ Michael Strain).” (02/17/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1rvRKzIFZE
Source: EconTalk
“Who Won the Socialist Calculation Debate (with Peter Boettke).” (02/17/25)
https://www.econtalk.org/who-won-the-socialist-calculation-debate-with-peter-boettke/
Source: Association of Mature American Citizens
by Robert B Charles
“A recent study says we have 2000 federal agencies, departments and commissions – although they are not sure. Is that not government beyond control? What would our Founders say? Interestingly, the first thing they would say is that power without limit is tyranny. On this, they all agreed. If limits are not imposed, government is soon oppressive. ‘Our Constitution is an instrument for the people to restrain the government,’ wrote Patrick Henry. If one branch dominates, oppression follows. Wrote Madison, ‘Wherever the real power in a government lies, there is the danger of oppression.’ Nor are assaults on liberty – by bureaucrats or others – always noisy. Sometimes they are quiet. Rights are taken, authorities asserted, money spent imperceptibly.” (02/17/25)
https://amac.us/newsline/society/founders-applauding-trump/
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“The Trump administration has begun firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, according to the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) union, weeks after a fatal mid-air plane collision in Washington DC. Several hundreds of the agency’s probationary workers — who have generally been in their positions for less than a year — received the news via email late on Friday night, a statement from PASS’s head, Alex Spero said. It is a part of a cost-cutting drive, driven by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), that aims to drastically cut the federal workforce. Spero called the firings ‘shameful’ and said they ‘will increase the workload and place new responsibilities on a workforce that is already stretched thin.’ The BBC has contacted the FAA and department of transport for comment. ” (02/17/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly9y1e1kpjo
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Ian Proud
“Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelensky has agreed to hand over to the U.S. $500 billion worth of his country’s rare earth minerals. On the back of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s comments ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine, this looks like a dreadful deal on the surface. But it may be the best one available.” (02/17/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-minerals/
Source: Space.com
“The sky is awash with radio-frequency interference (RFI), but thanks to two astronomers who tracked down a stray TV broadcast reflected off a passing airplane, there may be a new way to wipe out some of the rogue signals that plague our radio telescopes. … [Jonathan Pober and Jade Ducharme] were able to track a television signal back to an airplane traveling at 38,400 feet (11.7 kilometers) in altitude and at a velocity of 492 mile per hour (792 kilometers per hour). They even found that the television signal was on the frequency band used by Australian digital TV channel 7. This signal was being broadcast somewhere outside the radio quiet zone and being reflected off the hull of the airplane. Identifying the source of the RFI opens the door to the interference being modeled so that its pattern can be recognized and ultimately filtered out, keeping the data usable to astronomers.” (02/17/25)
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/tech/astronomers-realize-mysterious-tv-signal-in-their-data-bounced-off-an-airplane
