Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander

“Sometimes places ban or restrict animals. For example, an apartment building might not allow dogs. Or an airline might charge you money to transport your cat. But the law requires them to allow service animals, for example guide dogs for the blind. A newer law also requires some of these places to allow emotional support animals, ie animals that help people with mental health problems like depression or anxiety. … Clinically and scientifically, this is great. Many studies show that pets help people with mental health problems. Depressed people really do benefit from a dog who loves them. Anxious people really do feel calmer when they hold a cute kitten. Legally, it’s a racket. In order to benefit from these rules, you need for a psychiatrist to write you an ’emotional support animal letter,’ saying that your pet is actually an emotional support animal.” (05/08/24)

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-emotional-support-animal-racket

Source: Reason
by Matthew Petti

“President Joe Biden is holding up a shipment of 3,500 guided bombs to Israel after U.S.-backed negotiations for a ceasefire and an exchange of captives with Gaza broke down. It’s the most significant exercise of U.S. leverage over Israel in a long time — and comes after Biden spent months resisting the idea of any limits on how the Israeli military could use American taxpayer aid. … Cutting off the flow of free bombs is a signal that, rather than preferring that Israel do more to protect Palestinian civilians, Washington actually wants the war to end soon. Still, the Biden administration has been keen to keep any decision-making inside the White House and out of the public’s hands.” (05/08/24)

https://reason.com/2024/05/08/is-americas-blank-check-for-israel-ending/

Source: Washington Post
by George F Will

“Time was, presidential years featured solemn sermonettes about the citizen’s duty to vote, and the virtue of prodding the apathetic to plod, even if sullenly, to the polls. There has, however, always been a twofold difficulty with such civic piety: Even in normal times — remember those? — there was no such duty. And hectoring the uninterested and indifferent to express their opinions with ballots must lower the caliber of election results. This is not a normal time. Granted, scores of millions of Americans normally — and reasonably — think their political options should be much better: The memory of man runneth not to a time when voters exclaimed, ‘What a divine presidential choice we have this year!’ Still, 2024 is so abnormal, consider, without necessarily embracing, an argument in defense of principled nonvoting. Plainly put, the argument is: Elections register opinions. Abstaining from voting can express a public-spirited and potentially consequential opinion.” (05/08/24)

https://archive.is/VO65B

Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Michael Munger

“One of my favorite cartoons chronicles a man who lives in an apartment with an aggressive cat and a nice dog. The animals can talk, and argue, but their ability to reason is about what you’d expect: crude inference based on limited observation. The man is constantly irritated by what the cat and dog call ‘The Magic Food Cupboard.’ In the pet’s minds, the shelf where their kibble is stored is literally ‘where food comes from.’ … I have some New York friends whose views of ‘where food comes from’ are not different from ‘the magic food cupboard’ in the comic.” (05/08/24)

https://www.aier.org/article/the-magic-food-cupboard/