A beautiful map of the field, courtesy of the late GRAIL satellites.
World War I
Did it really end, or are we just entering a new phase?
“When You Raise Taxes And Roll Out Burdensome Regulations”
“…a contracting economy is only a surprise if you’re an idiot. Or a member of this Administration and the press. But I repeat myself.”
Based on Megan McArdle’s assessment that the economy is bad news for Democrats (but, again, good news for liberty in the long run).
The US Alliance With Poland
Poland’s top diplomat thinks it’s worthless.
But to be fair, that’s only because, under Barack Obama, it is.
The VA Scandal
It’s the face of government as it actually exists.
Between ObamaCare, the IRS, the VA, and now the EPA, it’s been a bad year for cheerleaders of big government. Which means a good year for liberty. We’ll see what it means in November.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Note Glenn’s quoting of Pournelle’s law of bureaucracies:
…the strongest priority of most bureaucracies is the welfare of the bureaucracy and the bureaucrats it employs, not whatever the bureaucracy is actually supposed to be doing.
I often say that there are a lot of good people at NASA, and there are. But they are trapped in a similar system.
The Populist Uprising Against Common Core
It’s libertarian, and it’s winning.
We need to abolish the Department of Education.
Here Be Dragons
Stewart Money has a book out on the history of SpaceX.
Today’s Stupid Space House Hearing
Jeff Foust has a report.
[Update a few minutes later]
Frank Morring on why we explore space.
This all misses the real point, which is that exploration is a means to an end. As long as we imagine it’s just a search for knowledge, we can’t possibly justify the insane amount of money (for so little activity) that NASA spends on human spaceflight.
A Series Of Unfortunate Events For The IRS
Yeah, right:
That these events represent an unconnected string of unfortunate events — all of which just so happen to benefit the Left and its IRS allies while hurting conservatives and IRS critics — beggars belief. Add to that mix the willful dishonesty, the staged press rollout, complete with planted questions, intended to preempt questions about the internal investigation and its results, the naked lie that the wrongdoing was limited to a few nobodies in Cincinnati — the only way to believe that story is to desire very deeply to believe it.
The alternative and much more likely — undeniable, to my mind — explanation is that the Internal Revenue Service is engaged in an active and ongoing criminal conspiracy to misappropriate federal resources for political purposes, to use its investigatory powers, including the threat of criminal prosecution, for purposes of political repression, and to actively mislead Congress and the public about the issue; that the Justice Department is turning a blind eye to these very serious crimes for political purposes and is therefore complicit in the cover-up; that these crimes were encouraged if not outright suborned by Senate Democrats; and that the White House is at the very least passively complicit, refusing to lift so much as a presidential pinkie as the IRS runs amok.
It will continue until Congress grows a pair.
Safe Is Not An Option
The Nook version is now available. The last frontier is iTunes, which is a PITA for me because Apple insists on my having an Apple device to set up an account and upload it to their store. I think I can set up an iTunes account if I fire up my Windows laptop, but not sure how to do the book upload.