March 24, 2026

I’M STILL NOT TIRED OF WINNING:

Posted at 7:07 pm by Glenn Reynolds

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA to spend $20 billion on moon base, cancel orbiting lunar station.

Isaacman, who was sworn in at the agency in December, made the ⁠announcement ‌at the opening of a day-long ⁠event at NASA’s Washington headquarters at which he outlined a raft of changes he is making to the agency’s flagship moon program Artemis.

“It should ‌not really surprise anyone that we are pausing Gateway in its current form and focusing on ​infrastructure that supports sustained operations on the lunar surface,” Isaacman told delegates at the event.

The Lunar Gateway station, largely already built by contractors Northrop Grumman
and Vantor, ⁠formerly Maxar, was meant to be a space station parked in ‌a lunar orbit. Repurposing the craft for ‌a lunar surface base is not simple.

“Despite some of the very real hardware and schedule challenges, we can repurpose equipment and ⁠international partner commitments to support surface and other program objectives,” Isaacman ⁠said.

Lunar Gateway was designed to serve as both a research platform and a transfer station for astronauts to board moon landers before descending to the lunar surface.

The Lunar Gateway never made much sense, except as a multibillion dollar kludge to cover for SLS not having enough lift to make Artemis work. The real solution was to cancel SLS and Lunar Gateway, and work with SpaceX to get Starship up and running.

Posted at 4:51 pm by Stephen Green

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: ‘Bostonian of the Year’ ordered to pay back $224K she stole from her own nonprofit. “Monica Cannon-Grant, the former community organizer who rose to fame leading a massive 2020 Black Lives Matter march through Boston, was ordered Monday by U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley to forfeit every dollar she made from her crimes — from diverting donations from her own nonprofit, collecting fraudulent pandemic unemployment benefits, and pocketing rental assistance she wasn’t entitled to.”

Posted at 3:49 pm by Stephen Green

NIFTY: F-22 Raptor “2.0” Spotted Undergoing Flight Testing. “Most obvious on the model are the new stealthy fuel tanks, a critical addition to ensure that the F-22 is able to better cover the vast distances that would be involved in a potential future conflict in the Indo-Pacific. In the past, the Raptor’s notoriously short range has been mitigated by using non-stealthy 600-gallon tanks, but these are not a realistic option when faced by more capable hostile air defenses.”

Posted at 2:47 pm by Stephen Green

MUCH MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE:

 

Posted at 2:40 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE DEEP STATE IS REAL…:

…and doesn’t give a damn about what you “little people” might have voted for

Posted at 2:32 pm by Stephen Green

QUESTION ASKED: Why Are Climate Doomsayers Never Fact-Checked?

The “climate emergency” pushers have pompously predicted planetary doom within ten years for more than 30 years. Why are they never checked? Author Kevin Mooney has a new book titled Climate Porn, and we discuss the remarkable imbalance of climate coverage and the nasty tendency on the Left to punish people who even gently question the panic.

MRC Business Associate Editor Joseph Vazquez joined the conversation. The subtitle of the book is How and Why Anti-Population Zealots Fabricate Science, while Targeting American Capitalism, Freedom, and Independence. In the year we celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, Mooney — who was a colleague of ours with CNSNews.com back when George W. Bush was president — argues that the climate doomsayers threaten a climate crisis to undermine our prosperity and liberty.

One of the most embarrassing alarmists of our times, the biologist Paul Ehrlich — who became famous with his book The Population Bomb in 1968, has just passed away at the age of 95. The New York Times was mocked on X when they suggested “his predictions proved premature.” He predicted mass famines in the 1970s. In 1989 and in 1990, NBC gave over chunks of the Today show to Ehrlich. He was not interviewed. He was the reporter-slash-narrator. We never stop talking about his prediction that soon, you’d tie your boat to the Washington Monument. That never happened.

Bryant Gumbel putting the “That’s good stuff” button at the end just adds to the unintended comedy of this bonkers 1990 clip:

Still though, why take chances? Tax the blue zones.

More wacky aquatic urban predictions here: Mile Markers on the Road to Detroit Atlantis.

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM AL-BRIṬĀNIYĀ:

Posted at 1:59 pm by Stephen Green

FAIL, BRITANNIA: The Shocking State Of Britain’s Navy In 2026. “Successive governments have seen fit to think that only six destroyers are adequate, which is clearly deranged and incredibly irresponsible. So, out of six vessels, how many are operational in March 2026? A grand total of two. HMS Dragon, a vessel recently in the news that was supposed to be sent to Cyprus to protect British interests there, and HMS Duncan. The other four are all laid up for one reason or another. The class leader, HMS Daring, is preparing to return to service after an absence of eight years under refit. Given that it generally takes three to five years for a complete stem-to-stern overhaul and refueling for an American aircraft carrier, eight years for a destroyer seems beyond excessive.”

Much more at the link, all of it bad.

Posted at 1:45 pm by Stephen Green

ANOTHER REGRETTABLE EDUCATION FAD: It’s flashy! It’s fun! It’s a waste of students’ time and attention!

“I ain’t saying you treated me unkind,” sang Bob Dylan. “You just kinda wasted my precious time.”

From X:

Figen posts a video of a teacher who brought a PlayStation to class to use Assassin’s Creed to teach about the Industrial Revolution.

This is a distraction and a waste of time, responds Tom Bennett. It gets students to expect bells and whistles.

SoL in the Wild agrees it’s “100% terrible.” He blames constant messages to teachers to make lessons fun, fun, fun. Learning is supposed to “feel relevant to students’ lives, be fun, and revolve around engaging, activity-based experiences,” he writes. But, dressing something as a game “distracts from the content and decreases the likelihood that students actually learn the concept you’re trying to teach.”

I don’t recall any of my best teachers being particularly fun. Just demanding.

Posted at 1:45 pm by Stephen Green

THANKS, BARRY!

Exit quote:

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

SERIOUSLY, DON’T MISS IT:

Translation: “Don’t miss this editorial that the Washington Post dedicates to Pablo Iglesias and his comrades on their tourism-committed trip to the miseries that torment Cuba.”

Posted at 1:31 pm by Stephen Green