Contents: Preface -- Part 1: Economics: The dismal science -- Robots, scud missiles & comparative advantage -- Bigger caves or fairer caverns? -- Cheers to Duvel for buying our craft brewery -- Malthus was wrong -- We will never run out of resources -- Human achievement hour -- Offshoring, nonsense & robots -- Part 2: Subsidies, regulations & failure -- How federal regulation screws over small business -- Tobacco farmers are better than you -- Do I deserve your waiter's money? -- Don't need no stinkin' license -- Part 3: Elections and other natural disasters -- Congressional districting as Rorschach tests -- Confessions of a campaign robot -- The multivote system -- Scrap the electoral college -- The 2013 inauguration -- Part 4: Social Tolerance -- Whale hunting & sharia law -- Do lesbians cause tornadoes? -- Our splendid drug war -- Part 5: The nanny state -- Can the government make you skinny? -- Good riddance, soda ban! -- Part 6: Blame the voters -- Political tribalism -- I don't blame congress, I blame you -- Pragmatists vs. firebrands -- Foreign policy knows no party -- Party totems -- Part 7: Education -- Everything I need to know about government I learned from bocce ball -- How student councils hurt democracy -- Praise for Washington's charter schools -- Your student debt is not forgiven -- Part 8: Food for thought -- Billionaires in space -- Matt Damon vs. the space republicans: a review of elysium -- Punish the dead -- Hoarding gold -- Sherrif Joe vs. Norway -- Part 9: Conclusion -- We have reason for optimism.