Military spending by the United States is higher now than it was during the Cold War. That means the US taxpayer is now on the hook to pay for more military personnel, bases, and weaponry than was the case when the Soviet Union controlled an area three times the size of the United States, and was an avowed ideological foe of the West.

In March of this year, the North Carolina state government passed legislation with at least two controversial components. The law requires that people use bathrooms according to what their birth certificate says regarding sex and it removes legal protections against sexual orientation discrimination at private firms. Government agencies are exempt from this provision, and may still be sued for discrimination regarding sexual orientation. As far as I can tell, private firms may still set their own bathroom policy to be as traditionally binary or progressively fluid as they prefer.

Prior to 1933, the name “dollar” was used to refer to a unit of gold that had a weight of 23.22 grains. Since there are 480 grains in one ounce, this means that the name dollar also stood for 0.048 ounce of gold. This in turn, means that one ounce of gold referred to $20.67.