POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES, Confederacy of Dunces edition, is up. While I appreciate the need to 'remove' the Stars & Bars (first picture), this remains my favorite:

I'd prefer to ban the easily offended, however. Go see the rest; there are some very good ones this week.

NOEMIE EMERY: "What is it that South Carolinians know that people in Maryland, New York and Missouri do not?"

The claim is that the [Confederate] flag stands for racism and rage, and as such may have inspired the killer, and this may have substance. But the fact is that while the Confederate flag flew over the capitol, the state underneath it has become one of the most diverse and least polarized states of the union, and perhaps the most tolerant.

Of the many cases of white-on-black deaths that have roiled the country in the past year, the massacre in South Carolina has been one example in which death united, and did not divide, the whole population. South Carolina has been the one state in the union in which black people seem to feel they have found justice. If what's in a flag is what one sees in it, what some people saw may be wrong.

In 2010, the first Tea Party election, South Carolina chose 38-year-old Nikki Haley to become one of only six female governors, and the second governor descended from Indian immigrants (the first was Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, another southern conservative state). In the same year, Tim Scott, then 44 years old, defeated a son of Strom Thurmond in a primary election for Thurmond's old seat in Congress, becoming the first black Republican elected to the House from the Deep South since Reconstruction.

In 2013, Jim DeMint left the Senate, and Governor Haley appointed Scott to replace him. In 2014, Scott won a special election, making him the first black person elected to the Senate from the old Confederacy since 1881. His margin of victory was 23 points. South Carolina is now the one state in the union whose top three elected officials include two racial and ethnic minorities and only one white male.

It is also the one state in which killings of black men by whites did not lead to violence.

Maybe, just maybe, the flag doesn't stand for what the racists on the Left think it does. They might think about asking, not assuming, sometime....

NEW HORIZONS SPACECRAFT faces its toughest task: finding Pluto.

SWEDISH SUPERCAR goes from zero to fabulous to zero in record time. And then I catch up at the next stoplight....

I'D SETTLE FOR MORE LEGROOM: Technology to make air travel less stressful in the future.

PRIVACY? DATA SECURITY? In the era of Big Government, surely you jest.

EXPLAINING WHY I no longer subscribe to the Washington Post.

MONA CHAREN: "I wouldn’t expect the government to accept liability for screwing up, now or ever."

Smart lady.

NO EXCEPTIONS: Organized labor's push for an exemption to the $15 minimum wage they fought hard for has been refused.

Their slogan, "a union job at less-than-minimum-wage, or no job at minimum wage" hasn't seemed to catch fire....

TECHNOLOGY: Cheap lidar for automatic braking.

Sorry, but this strikes me as a feel-good by Nanny-Staters with too much time on their hands. The lidar is only good for 'parking lot' collisions where the Nanny State has already mandated (fundamentally worthless) collision-resistant bumpers.

Practically, the only winners are the auto repair shops, who benefit from increased inattentitive driving.

BENGHAZI INVESTIGATORS: Is the State Deptartment lying, or is Hillary?

Why not both?

'UNCLE SUCKER' falls for another food scare. And of course it is the innocents who are perfectly capable of making their own choices that are the ones who must suffer.

Progressive nanny-staters should must be forever banned from the levers of power.

PILLSBURY PHARMACEUTICALS is still behind the curve in aggressive pandering. Watch any cable channel (preferably a news channel) for proof.

IT'S GONNA GET CROWDED UP THERE: Europe's Airbus Group will design and build about 900 satellites for privately owned OneWeb Ltd, which plans to offer high-speed, space-based Internet access to billions of people worldwide.

Inevitably there's going to be a bit shortage somewhere....

VOTE SMOD 2016: I love the bumper sticker....

More here. And here.

CarlyforAmerica.com

BEND OVER (AND SMILE): ObamaCare set to affect more small businesses in 2016.

The bright side, perhaps, is that maybe enough people voters will be hurting in 2016 to force an abortion.

KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON: We have officially reached peak Leftism. Heinlein's 'crazy years' have finally come to pass.

Decline to follow? We can only hope.

LET IT: House poised to let Export-Import Bank expire.

THE PROGRESSIVE MIND explains racism.

RACISTS FOR HILLARY: Oh, never mind.

DARPA'S TOP SECRET WEAPONS:



It's long (45 min), and having had modest experience with DARPA in my engineering career, a little overblown, but interesting nevertheless. Here's the YouTube link.

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT: putting women on U.S. currency.

Why don't we try something new? Transgender, maybe?

GROCERIES: Not for sale in Vermont. Let them eat Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

Seriously, if I were a grocery manufacturer, I'd simply mark my products 'Not for sale in Vermont' and get on with life.

THE PROGRESSIVE'S N-WORD.

HOW TO CRIPPLE THE POWER GRID: shit on it.

REDISTRIBUTION: coming to a neighborhood near you.

Only the Obama administration is redistributing poverty, not wealth.

Random thought: I wonder if Obama read Asimov's The Caves of Steel as a youth....

SAYING WHAT NO ONE ELSE WILL: "Your ass gonna be in jail with them."

MAY THE FARCE BE WITH YOU: Reflecting on the 2-1/2 years since Obama's reelection, I'm reminded of this Karl Marx quotation:

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

We're well into the farce phase of progressivism.

ROBO-TRUCKS come to Canada's oil sands.

[T]he move will eventually replace some 800 people, saving an average of CAN $200,000 per person.

Progressive perfect. Disemploy more burly [white] men.

JOURNALISM 101 FOR 2016: