Aggregator

Some people out East — rich enough to not have to rough it in any four-in-a-one-bedroom share in some Hampton — patronized the Hampton Classic last week.

Autonomous crop-spraying aircraft are leading the way in pilot-free flying.

The Democratic Socialists of America are proving an old principle of politics: You can win a lot of votes by promising "free stuff" — and not worrying if you could possibly deliver.

Fresno County is on track to see a controversial road tax on the ballot later this year.

Sorry: Empowering a blatant antisemite is the opposite of serving "the needs of the world"; such unhinged hate is a warning sign of even deeper depravity.

Publicists at the suites are in a frenzy thinking about how to get their A-list clientele to the potty.

Publicists at the suites are in a frenzy thinking about how to get their A-list clientele to the potty.

Parton's star, which she received in 1984, was apparently deliberately scuffed and scratched by an unknown hand.

Parton's star, which she received in 1984, was apparently deliberately scuffed and scratched by an unknown hand.

The State Is Coming For Your Roomba

Authored by Thiago V. S. Coelho via The Mises Institute,

The federal government has discovered another menace to the republic: the vacuum cleaner.

In July, the Federal Communications Commission added foreign-produced "advanced robotic devices" to its Covered List, generally preventing new models from receiving the authorization needed to be imported, marketed, or sold in the United States. Although early headlines emphasized Chinese humanoid robots and mechanical dogs, Sean Hollister reported in The Verge that the rule also encompasses robotic vacuums, lawnmowers, delivery machines, and many warehouse robots. It potentially applies to almost any wireless, software-controlled ground robot weighing more than 4.4 pounds and capable of perceiving its surroundings.

This is not yet a confiscation campaign. Americans may continue using their existing vacuums, and retailers may sell models that were previously authorized. The prohibition falls principally on future foreign-produced models unless their manufacturers secure conditional approval. Yet the distinction makes the policy more absurd, not less. According to the Federal Communications Commission's own fact sheet, the supposed security danger is serious enough to exclude new household products but not serious enough to affect previously purchased machines - or even purchases and use by federal agencies.

The security concerns are not imaginary. Sean Hollister himself had documented in an earlier The Verge article in February how a vulnerability in DJI Romo robotic vacuums allowed a researcher to obtain information from roughly 7,000 devices, including room maps, location data, and, in some circumstances, camera access and remote control. A machine carrying sensors through every room can plainly become an instrument of surveillance when its manufacturer handles data irresponsibly.

But a real problem does not vindicate every coercive response proposed in its name. The FCC's rule does not primarily distinguish secure robots from insecure ones. It distinguishes foreign production from domestic production. Jennifer Pattison Tuohy observes in "The Ban on Robot Vacuums Won't Make Them Safer, Only Worse" that a vacuum assembled in Massachusetts is not automatically more secure than one assembled in Shenzhen. The government is restricting where machines are made without demonstrating that domestic manufacture guarantees encrypted storage, responsible data retention, local processing, independent auditing, or competent software maintenance.

From a libertarian standpoint, the first question is not whether officials can imagine a danger. They can always imagine one. The question is whether the government may forcibly prevent peaceful adults from purchasing a product because bureaucrats believe that they have evaluated its risks better than the buyer has. A person owns his home, his money, and his network. He may sensibly refuse to place an internet-connected camera on his floor. He may instead purchase one after reading disclosures, disabling cloud functions, installing firewall rules, or deciding that the convenience exceeds the risk. That judgment belongs to the property owner, not to a federal licensing authority.

The Austrian case against the ban begins with consumer choice. In his explanation of the concept of consumer sovereignty, Robert P. Murphy explains that Ludwig von Mises regarded consumer spending as a continuing plebiscite directing entrepreneurs toward the goods people value. In a market, producers retain their position only by persuading customers. The FCC reverses that relationship. Consumers may vote for inexpensive Chinese vacuums, privacy-oriented American machines, offline models, or no robot at all - but only after Washington has removed the candidates it dislikes.

Ludwig von Mises described this mechanism precisely in chapter 39 of Human Action. Restrictive intervention forbids or makes more expensive particular methods of production, transportation, and distribution. It thereby eliminates means that people could have used to satisfy their wants. Government may redirect production, but it cannot conjure the factories, skilled labor, components, logistical networks, and accumulated knowledge that its decree assumes into existence. It can force robotic production away from locations selected through market calculation; it cannot guarantee that the replacement arrangement will be equally productive.

The consequences will appear as higher prices, fewer models, delayed innovations, and machines that remain on the market longer because potential replacements cannot obtain authorization. These losses will be dispersed among millions of households, laboratories, startups, warehouses, and small businesses. The political gains, meanwhile, will be concentrated among domestic manufacturers and contractors seeking insulation from foreign competition.

That pattern is the essence of protectionism. In Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt warned that trade barriers encourage observers to notice the immediate benefit bestowed upon a protected industry while ignoring the long-run costs imposed upon consumers and other producers. A ban is merely a prohibitive tariff: instead of making the foreign product somewhat dearer, it attempts to make the next generation unavailable. The visible result may be a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a subsidized factory. The unseen result will be every purchase forgone and every business plan rendered uneconomic by costlier machinery.

Murray N. Rothbard's analysis is even less forgiving. In his analysis of production restrictions in Power and Market, Rothbard identifies licenses, government-defined quality standards, tariffs, and geographical penalties on competitors as forms of monopolistic privilege. The robotic-device ban combines several of them. Foreign firms are excluded by default, domestic firms must satisfy political tests, and officials become gatekeepers empowered to dispense exceptions. Competition shifts from satisfying customers to securing waivers.

This will not necessarily rebuild American industry. It may instead produce an American robotics sector increasingly skilled at lobbying and progressively less skilled at competing. Entrepreneurs learn from rival products, international suppliers, consumer complaints, falling component prices, and failed experiments. Prohibition severs those feedback mechanisms. Even American startups that use foreign sensors, motors, batteries, docks, or contract manufacturing may find themselves caught by domestic-content requirements. The state is not nurturing an infant industry; it is placing the infant in an isolation chamber.

Americans have seen this paternalistic method before. Jeffrey A. Tucker recounts in "The Relentless Misery of 1.6 Gallons" how federal law limited new toilets to 1.6 gallons per flush, displacing conventional models that commonly used between 3.5 and five gallons. The mandate was advertised as enlightened conservation. Consumers experienced clogs, plungers, repeated flushing, dirtier facilities, and a reduced standard of sanitation. In that case, as now, government outlawed a proven convenience and forced the public to accommodate the resulting deterioration. The situation was famously featured in a King of the Hill episode, where Hank Hill was able to repeal the restriction of high-flow toilets, but in real life, it is still standing.

Today, the prohibited convenience rolls across the floor rather than sitting in the bathroom, but the governing conceit is identical. Officials identify one social objective - water conservation then, national security now - and suppress the multitude of tradeoffs that individuals make in real life. Performance, price, privacy, repairability, accessibility, time savings, and personal circumstances are compressed into a single command.

A free society has better answers to insecure machines. Manufacturers can offer offline operation and local data storage. Independent laboratories can test security. Insurers, retailers, reviewers, and consumer organizations can demand audits and publish ratings. Customers can contract for privacy guarantees. Companies that misrepresent their practices can face fraud claims, liability, reputational ruin, and market abandonment. None of this requires Washington to presume that every foreign vacuum is hostile and every domestic vacuum trustworthy.

The Roomba ban should therefore be repealed before it hardens into another permanent reduction in ordinary life.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 19:15

The White House on Tuesday fired back at New York Attorney General Letitia James, slamming the lefty pol amid reports that her office sought to dig up dirt on President Trump and his pals. The sharp rebuke comes after a veteran prosecutor in the AG’s office was put on administrative leave for allegedly sending an email...

Monday’s unprovoked knife attack in Times Square was “a tragedy that will not soon be forgotten,” says Tom Harris, head of the Times Square Alliance. Sadly, he’s probably mistaken.

The Bank of America VP was fatally stabbed near the Crossroads of the World on Monday afternoon.

UCSB is nowhere near top 25 party schools in 2027 rankings –– a sharp drop following high-profile sexual assaults, violent incidents and escalating concerns over student safety on campus.

The Lakers coming up short in their pursuit of Jonathan Kuminga, who’s joining the Timberwolves, will have a trickle-down effect on the rest of their roster.  One of the biggest questions moving forward: Who will be the Lakers’ fifth starter once the 2026-27 season starts?  If Kuminga was on the roster, he would’ve been in...

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday complained President Donald Trump has failed to fulfill an 11-month-old promise to restore millions in federal funding to New York’s homeland security operations. Trump said on Truth Social last year he had reversed cuts that took New York’s federal counterterrorism budget from $287 million down to...

“It should help stimulate Pattaya’s economy in the short term."

The Jets 2026 season opener in Nashville doesn’t arrive for another 12 days and yet the doom-and-gloom prognostications hover over them like smog over the L.A. skyline.

Trump Mentions Tapping The 'Older Stuff' While Dismissing Reports Of Missile Shortages

The below Trump exchange with reporters in the Oval Office on Monday seems a tacit admission from the Commander-in-Chief that yes, the United States is running out of standoff munitions...

Q: Several military leaders have reportedly told Hegseth that a prolonged, large-scale operation in Iran weakens our ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the homeland. Have you heard that?

TRUMP: We're very respected. Nobody else would be crazy enough to do it... We have unlimited amounts of... older stuff.

Q: Several military leaders have reportedly told Hegseth that a prolonged, large-scale operation in Iran weakens our ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the homeland. Have you heard that?

TRUMP: We're very respected. Nobody else would be crazy enough to do it. We… pic.twitter.com/nBbjAXhxmn

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 31, 2026

The suggestion here is that the "older stuff" will of necessity be tapped in order to both support allies abroad and keep the 'homeland' safe from external threats.

The White House has at this point been dealing with similar media inquiries for months. It has batted down such claims as a dwindling Pentagon missile arsenal, due to the simultaneous and costly Iran and Ukraine wars.

For example, Trump himself in an August 6 Truth Social post asserted: "The U.S. has massive amounts of 'munitions,' especially of certain types." He had added at the time: "Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the US as needed."

Perhaps the Iran conflict hitting the six-month mark made the White House realize that if sporadic military tit-for-tat continues on the current track, then missile stores are in serious trouble, and the 'old stuff' must be increasingly relied upon.

While the full exchange involved Trump seeking to reassure that in his view there's no problem with American stockpiles, the reference to 'mid-grade' and 'older stuff' has some analysts worried - and also given the somewhat defensive reference of blaming Ukraine:

REPORTER: And back on Iran, several military leaders have reportedly told Secretary Hegseth that a prolonged, large-scale operation there weakens our ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the homeland. Have you heard those?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, number one, we have nothing else in mind. Number two, we're very respected. Nobody else would be crazy enough to do it. Number three, we have so much ammunition and munitions, as they like to call it, all over the world that we can always take from if we want.

And this is a relatively little war for us. This is not a big war. You know where the money went was Ukraine. The money was really taken out - the ammunition, if you talk about low, we have tremendous amounts, unlimited amounts of mid-grade and older stuff that's also very powerful. Unlimited amounts.

We're only talking about what we call the elite - the elite stuff - and even that, we're in very good shape. But we can always take from other sources. But I don't think we're going to need it because nobody's going to mess with us.

Trump is meanwhile said to be considering a Hegseth-backed CENTCOM plan for periodic strikes on Iranian radar, air-defense and anti-ship missile sites - particularly in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

A little Russian media trolling...

US stockpiles 'DEPLETED' in Europe and Asia due to Iran war — Wall Street Journal

Patriot and ATACMS missiles reportedly at 'CRITICAL' levels pic.twitter.com/m3DAX9TW1h

— RT Intl (@RT_on_X) August 29, 2026

One official told Axios this would be akin to "mowing the grass" from time to time (borrowing Israel's disturbing phrase related to Gaza) - but clearly this is on an indefinite timeline, setting up for potential 'forever war'. And this is where the missile arsenal would likely come up short, according to some estimates.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 18:50

The U.S. Open has proven to be the place to be in New York for this time of year, come sun or rain, apparently.