What are we to make of the news that career State Department staffers are refusing to go to Iraq?

It's a far better thing, as well as much easier, for government to act to prevent a disaster, or at least to warn residents loudly and clearly of the potential consequences of their foolish choices.

Why such a difference between the handling of the California fires, vs Katrina in New Orleans?

These bridges have needed fixing for 25 years and they're still operating?

Somewhere in the Great Beyond, Hermann Goering is laughing.

In recent years, the dream of home ownership has gotten farther and farther out of reach, as house prices have escalated. According to a recent study, the primary cause is excessive zoning laws - that is, government over-regulation.

Inspecting IDs is a waste of time and money, but it's ideal from the bureaucratic point of view because it doesn't solve the problem.

Bureaucracies never die, and India's still uses genuine red tape.

"It is the duty of every officer of His Majesty's Navy, to discharge powder and shot in the general direction of the enemy."

Brazil serves as an object lesson in how government incompetence - not greed, not really bribery even, certainly not totalitarianism, just simple incompetence - can make life difficult on an otherwise free and vibrant economy.