March 24, 2026

INCENTIVES, HOW DO THEY WORK?

Reagan’s old adage needs updating for today’s Democrats: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, tax it some more. If it stops moving, levy a death tax.”

Posted at 9:52 am by Stephen Green

SPACE: A unique NASA satellite is falling out of orbit—this team is trying to rescue it.

The 21-year-old spacecraft is falling out of orbit, and NASA officials believe it’s worth saving—for the right price. Swift is not a flagship astronomy mission like Hubble or Webb, so there’s no talk of sending astronauts or spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a rescue expedition. Hubble was upgraded by five space shuttle missions, and billionaire and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman—now NASA’s administrator—proposed a privately funded mission to service Hubble in 2022, but the agency rejected the idea.

Swift may be a more suitable target for a first-of-a-kind commercial rescue mission. It has cost roughly $500 million (adjusted for inflation) to build, launch, and operate, but it is significantly less expensive than Hubble, so the consequences of a botched rescue would be far less severe. Last September, NASA awarded a company named Katalyst Space Technologies a $30 million contract to rapidly build and launch a commercial satellite to stabilize Swift’s orbit and extend its mission.

The Swift observatory is flying in low-Earth orbit, where the outermost layers of the atmosphere still exert some aerodynamic influence on satellites. The spacecraft launched in November 2004 on a mission to detect gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the known Universe. Despite its age, astrophysicists still rely on Swift’s multi-wavelength instruments to identify and locate gamma-ray bursts for follow-up observations by other observatories.

If they can pull this off, a $30 million launch to protect a $500 million investment seems like a no-brainer.

Posted at 9:37 am by Stephen Green

DOES ANYONE STILL LISTEN TO MCCHRYSTAL?

Posted at 9:21 am by Stephen Green

THE MANSPLAINERS interview FT. Roger Devlin, author of Sexual Utopia in Power:

Posted at 9:12 am by Helen Smith

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: ICE at the Airports Is One of Trump’s More Brilliant Moves. “This should play out like another instance of Trump playing 4-D chess while the Democrats are just learning checkers. Despite all of the lying about the president by the Democrats and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media, the Trump 47 administration doesn’t let any of the false narratives get legs. This is because they are proactively doing things that are good for the country while the Democrats can only keep reassuring people that they hate President Trump. That’s the only policy they have now.”

Posted at 9:06 am by Stephen Green

NO SWEET 16 BIRTHDAY FOR OBAMACARE: Yesterday was the 16th birthday of the Obamacare program, but the only celebrations likely were held in the corporate suites of the healthcare insurance industry.

Posted at 8:56 am by Mark Tapscott

WINNING: Toyota to invest $1 billion to increase U.S. production in Kentucky, Indiana plants.

The new investments include $800 million at a plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, to increase production capacity of the automaker’s Camry sedan and RAV4 crossover. The remaining $200 million is to increase capacity for the Toyota Grand Highlander SUV at a plant in Princeton, Indiana.

“Toyota’s investment in the U.S. is for the long-term, tied to our philosophy of building where we sell and buying where we build,” Toyota Motor North America Chief Operating Officer Mark Templin said in a statement.

Toyota in November confirmed plans to invest up to $10 billion in its U.S. plants through 2030. That came roughly a month after President Donald Trump said during a speech that such an investment would come from the Japanese automaker.

It certainly did.

Posted at 8:35 am by Stephen Green

OMNIPOTENT TOURIST SYNDROME:

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 8:22 am by Ed Driscoll

I’M LOVING IT.

Posted at 8:21 am by Glenn Reynolds

NEXT!

Posted at 8:19 am by Stephen Green

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE:

Posted at 7:45 am by Stephen Green

TO BE FAIR, TLAIB SUPPORTING TERRORISM ISN’T EXACTLY BREAKING NEWS:

Posted at 7:44 am by Ed Driscoll

FAIL, BRITANNIA: The Imperial ‘Woke’ Museum didn’t want to display my war medal collection – at least there’s still one place that values duty, bravery and sacrifice.

So farewell ‘Imperial Woke Museum’, hello National Army Museum.

For those who missed the announcement, the latter has agreed to display my collection of Victoria Crosses (VCs) and George Crosses (GCs), the largest of its kind in the world.

This is the very same medal collection that the Imperial War Museum decided was no longer suitable to exhibit.

I am grateful that the National Army Museum, a mile and half up the Thames, still holds dear values such as bravery, duty and sacrifice.

The ‘Imperial Woke Museum’, however, has other priorities, which is why, after 15 years, it decided from the end of September last year to shut the Lord Ashcroft Gallery.

This was the gallery that, at the request of the IWM, I had spent £5million creating in 2010.

The museum’s new priorities include focusing on LGBTQ+ history. A virtual tour, ‘Exploring LGBTQ+ Stories in Times of Conflict’, was launched late last year.

Britain basically neutered and downsized its once-proud military into near non-existence — was it really necessary to take the degradation ever further?

Of course it was.

Posted at 7:30 am by Stephen Green

HOW WELL DID ICE PERFORM REPLACING TSA AT AIRPORTS? THIS WELL:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE:

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds