Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds

A SMALL MEASURE OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

JONATHAN LEAF: News That’s Been Drowned Out By The Sound of Battle, Part III.

Under pressure from the United States, the government of Cuba pardoned and released 2,010 political prisoners.

The total number of people who have died in Canada in legal assisted suicides may soon pass 100,000. That’s more than twice as many Canadians as lost their lives in World War II. Moreover, in 2025 roughly one of every twenty Canadians who passed on did so in a case that the Canadian government labeled as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID).

There’s been a dramatic change in the rate of acceptance of American immigration asylum claims. During the Biden administration, the rate went up and down, but it was typically around 50%. This led to some embarrassing cases in which immigrants were granted asylum in the United States and then publicly endorsed the oppressive policies of the countries that they claimed to have been obliged to flee. The Trump administration has fostered a much more restrictive regime, and approval rates have dropped all the way down to 7%.

The U.S. Postal Service is rapidly going broke. Its losses are piling up so fast that it’s asked Congress if it can stop putting money aside for its contributions to its workers’ pension plans. It’s also seeking a $19.4 billion boost in the amount of debt it can carry on its books and a 4-cent increase in the cost of a regular postal letter stamp, which would go up in price to 82 cents.

If you’re wondering why so much business and so many people are re-locating to Austin, Texas, you might wish to take note of a recently published study by the Pew Research Center on apartment and home construction in the city. As in much of Texas, this is relatively unregulated. The study found that over a nine-year period concluding in 2024, 120,000 new units of housing were built in Austin. This increased the total by 30 percent. During that same period, average monthly rents in the city fell from $1,546 to 1,296. The average monthly rental in Manhattan costs more than $5,000 per month.

If you build it, they will come.

I GUESS WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE ANY WARSHIPS, CALLING A CONFERENCE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO.

THIS IS THE MORAL STRUCTURE OF HIS PARTY:

DON’T ASK HER TOUGH QUESTIONS, SHE’LL JUST CACKLE AND CHANGE THE SUBJECT:

JUST ASSUME EVERYTHING FROM THEM IS A LIE AND YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG:

AS USUAL IF YOU IGNORE THE NEWS YOU ARE UNINFORMED, IF YOU FOLLOW THE NEWS YOU ARE MISINFORMED:

THE LEFT WILL RALLY AROUND ANYONE THEY SEE AS CURRENTLY USEFUL:

On the other hand, anyone is disposable once they aren’t anymore.

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

WHAT IF? What If Consciousness Exists Beyond Your Brain? “Is consciousness produced by the brain, or is it a deeper feature of reality? This question is a key focus of Christof Koch, one of today’s leading neuroscientists, in his presentation at the 15th ‘Behind and Beyond the Brain’ Symposium, organized by the Bial Foundation and held April 8 to 11 in Porto. . . . Koch outlines three major areas where current understanding struggles. First is the challenge of fully reducing conscious experience to physical processes in the brain. Second is the difficulty modern physics faces when trying to define what is truly ‘real.’ Third is the persistence of unusual experiences – including near-death experiences, mystical states, and episodes of terminal lucidity – that do not fit neatly within existing scientific explanations.”

Somewhat related, I was interested in the story of the woman who spent three weeks in a medically induced coma and dreamed an entire life, which seemed so real that upon awakening she grieved for her “lost” children.

YEAH, IT’S ALL BULLSHIT.