One canon, one truth
August 14, 2026 · 3 min read
In 1987, a University of Chicago professor published a bestseller arguing American universities had abandoned a single, correct body of thought for empty relativism, and that the…
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Not opposed, the same economy
August 14, 2026 · 3 min read
The country's default framing puts the Farm Belt and the Rust Belt on one side and Wall Street and Silicon Valley on the other -- two Americas, pulling apart. The single largest,…
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Three Apps in Three Months: What Building With AI Actually Looks Like
August 13, 2026 · 3 min read
The dominant narrative about AI and developers is replacement. That's not the only real experience out there. A 40-year developer's own account of shipping three real, working…
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Open Data Isn't the Same as Usable Data
August 13, 2026 · 3 min read
BLM, EIA, and FRED are all real federal data sources, integrated the same afternoon -- a silently-null field, a row that splits five ways without warning, and one that just…
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The trade we keep remaking
August 13, 2026 · 5 min read
In 1790, the federal government agreed to fund a broad public good and let the benefit land unevenly on purpose, then closed the deal with a side trade nobody wrote into the law.…
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The golden age that never was
August 13, 2026 · 5 min read
Bowling leagues, church membership, and fraternal lodges all really did collapse over the last sixty years, and the data is real. But the story that frames this as a lost golden…
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4.4 million mining claims, not enough engineers left to work them
August 13, 2026 · 3 min read
BLM's own database tracks 4.4 million active and historical mining claims on US public land. The same week that number got pulled, a $180 million federal program launched for one…
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Whoever wrote the math wins
August 12, 2026 · 4 min read
Seven states wrote a water-sharing formula in 1922, during the wettest decade the Colorado River basin had seen in centuries, and gave away more water than the river actually…
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We make our own
August 12, 2026 · 6 min read
Most countries get their identity sharpened for free, by everyday contact with a different culture right next door. The US, in general, doesn't have that kind of foreign cultural…
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The school was built to make the people, not just educate them
August 12, 2026 · 9 min read
Benjamin Franklin argued for public education in 1749. Horace Mann called it "the great equalizer" in 1848. Both were solving the same problem: a country with no shared ethnicity…
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The richest state no one thinks is rich
August 12, 2026 · 3 min read
South Dakota holds more than $900 billion in trust assets -- more than the GDP of most countries -- because state law lets a trust run forever, with a level of secrecy Delaware…
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A queer ladder of social mobility
August 12, 2026 · 5 min read
Establish a foothold by whatever means are actually available, convert it into legitimate wealth, then open doors for the next generation. That's not a loophole in the American…
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Purity, twice
August 12, 2026 · 4 min read
In 1942, a chemistry lab in Ames, Iowa solved a purity problem the Manhattan Project couldn't solve any other way. Today, the same lab is solving a purity problem behind the…
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Nothing is isolated
August 12, 2026 · 5 min read
A border is a line on a map, agreed to by people, enforceable against people. Smoke doesn't read the agreement. Neither does a falling company, a failing crop, or a signal that…
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The great equalizer, for sale
August 12, 2026 · 5 min read
Horace Mann called public education "the great equalizer." Even in Fairfax County and Palo Alto -- some of the best-funded, highest-ranked public school systems in the country --…
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Every satellite photo of Earth lives in Sioux Falls
August 12, 2026 · 5 min read
Fifty years of Landsat -- the satellite program that has photographed every square mile of Earth's land surface, repeatedly, since 1972 -- has one physical home. It isn't in…
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