Author Archive: Stephen Green

A VERY PUBLIC EDUCATION: It’s impossible to fail in Philly: It’s too much paperwork. “On paper, Philadelphia students can fail courses, or be retained in a grade, so long as they are offered appropriate interventions and supports,” according to the Inquirer. “But many teachers said that they were discouraged or forbidden by their principals from flunking students, or that they have given out failing grades that were overridden.”

SPACE: Could we actually terraform Mars? Scientists are trying to find out.

Edwin Kite, an associate professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, detailed the plan here at a Space Resources Roundtable, which was held from June 2 to June 5 on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines.

Kite’s talk showcased a mission concept prototype to validate aerosol dispersal to warm Mars’ atmosphere as a first step toward terraforming the Red Planet.

“Creating sustainable habitats and biospheres beyond Earth is an enormous scientific and technical challenge, but it’s one we’ll have to surmount if we’re going to extend life beyond Earth,” Kite told Space.com.

“We do not yet know enough to create a biosphere from scratch,” he added. “Applied astrobiology, like planetary science, requires contributions from many disciplines.”

Of course, the only way to know for sure is to try.

INDEED:

No clue how this ends, aside from “not well.”

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: California’s Glock ban sets stage for nationwide gun control.

There’s more than just a ban:

Beginning July 1, firearms dealers will also be required to complete comprehensive, state-approved training designed to help them identify customers who might pose a danger to themselves or others.

On the surface, the measure sounds entirely reasonable, even noble. Nobody wants firearms falling into the wrong hands or arming someone who hears voices in the drywall.

The catch, as always, is the inevitable consequences of these supposedly well-meaning grand plans. Once private businesses are forcefully transformed into behavioral screening centers, subjective judgments hijack the purchasing process.

What actually constitutes suspicious behavior? Who decides the baseline for mental stability at a retail counter? What protections exist for ordinary individuals who are wrongly flagged based on an employee’s personal biases, political views or a simple misunderstanding?

Suddenly, a minimum-wage store clerk is acting as a state-mandated psychologist with the power to deny a constitutional right, transforming a retail transaction into an amateur interrogation.

Conservatives and civil liberties advocates nationwide should pay very close attention to this shift. California has a long, documented history of exporting its political trends to the rest of the country. Policies that begin as Petri dish experiments in Sacramento almost always become the blueprint for progressive lawmakers elsewhere.

Tell me about it: Colorado To Restrict Ammo & Reloading Supplies Starting July 1, 2026.

FRAUD ALL THE WAY DOWN: How Government ‘Affordability’ Turns an $18 Antibiotic Into $2,500. “Nothing makes anything less affordable than a government promise to make something more affordable, and a Texas pharmacist revealed this week how an $18 generic antibiotic gets listed for $2,500. But from there, things get so seriously stupid that you just know there must be a government program involved.”

MORE NUKES IS GOOD NUKES: Trump administration announces $17.5 billion in loans for 10 new large nuclear reactors.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright cited “tremendous interest” among developers of data centers that would buy the power, as well as utilities and energy companies. The nuclear plants could begin construction by 2030 and become operational in the mid-2030s, Wright and other officials said Tuesday.

“This is the start,” Wright said on a call with reporters. “We’re going to move with the players that are ready to stand up and move quickly. Once that supply chain is up and running, do we think there will be dozens of these built going forward? I’d be very surprised if there were not.”

Faster, please.

TREAT THE MENTALLY ILL, DON’T CODDLE THEM:

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE WAS LAST SEEN ORDERING BOTTOMLESS MIMOSAS: Montana cut income tax rates, and revenues more than doubled.

For years, opponents of income tax relief have warned that lowering tax rates would reduce state revenues and threaten government services.

Montana’s own tax collection data tells a very different story.

Over the past decade, individual income tax collections increased from $1.06 billion in Fiscal Year 2014 to $2.24 billion in Fiscal Year 2024. That’s an increase of more than 111 percent.

Corporate income tax collections grew even faster, rising from $147.6 million to $312.3 million over the same period—an increase of nearly 112 percent.

In other words, Montana’s two major income tax sources didn’t stagnate after lawmakers began reducing individual income tax rates. They more than doubled.

Those numbers should force policymakers to reconsider one of the most common arguments in tax policy debates. The claim that lower tax rates automatically lead to lower tax revenues simply isn’t supported by Montana’s experience.

The problem is that too many policymakers don’t see taxes as a way to raise revenue, but as a means for punishing their enemies.

WELL, WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT…:

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Big Night for Comrade Mamdani’s Commies in New York Primaries. “The power players at the Democratic National Committee are no doubt hitting the Prilosec and Xanax reserves after Tuesday’s results in New York. That’s all about losing power, however. There is no real ideological rift between them and the Mamdani crowd — the Dems all took the communist/socialist plunge ages back.”

FUNNY HOW THAT WORKS:

From the replies: “From NIMBY to NIYBY!?!?”

The sudden appearance of an anti-data-center movement is about as genuinely grassroots as anything else the Left does.

I LEARNED A WHILE BACK TO TRIPLE-CHECK ANYTHING FROM POLYMARKET: Polymarket Allegedly Faked Videos Of People Winning Up To $100,000 Because Everything Is Now Fraud Or Gambling And Sometimes Both. “The videos featuring creators winning massive sums on ridiculous bets were reportedly fabricated using a dummy version of Polymarket’s website, allowing the platform to fake the winnings without having to actually pay out any money. WSJ also notes that the creators Polymarket used to promote said fake bets on platforms such as X updated their bios on social media to include the phrase ‘@polymarket partner’ after being contacted by its journalists.”

ICYMI: Yeah, You’d Better Scratch China Off Your Bucket List. “While it isn’t like China will send secret police to arrest me here in the U.S., my new Japanese acquaintance noted that ‘the moment you travel to China or even just transit through a Chinese airport, you risk being detained out of nowhere.’”

WOEING: Inside the secret struggles of the Air Force’s T-7 Red Hawk. “An internal Air Force presentation, dated August 2025 and viewed by Breaking Defense, says that for the first several years those aircraft will come with a ‘serious’ airworthiness risk, stemming from what the document calls ‘non-compliance’ on the part of contractor Boeing to obtain necessary information on the training jet.”

More:

Among this investigation’s findings:

  • The first 82 T-7 aircraft are projected to fly with a “serious” airworthiness risk.
  • Sources familiar with the program are concerned that attempts to get the T-7 to the fleet faster could increase risk for junior pilots.
  • The Air Force has assessed sustainment of the aircraft as “high risk.”
  • Internal Air Force documents say Boeing’s failure to provide certain data on the aircraft amounts to “non-compliance” on the part of the company.
  • The plane currently cannot fly in the rain, and the program has struggled with a ground-based simulator.
  • Air Force and Boeing officials are mulling a plan to change how the government buys the aircraft’s engines, at an “additional” taxpayer cost of up to $1.5 billion, which could come in exchange for technical data Boeing would provide on the company’s 747-8i jumbo jet.
  • Two sources who spoke with Breaking Defense said the Red Hawk shows promise, and believe officials are dedicated to safety. But they raised concern about the aircraft’s speed of development.

    Speed? The trainer has been in development since 2016.