State-sponsored gladiator fights for a hand-picked audience of the absurdly wealthy, the inexplicably powerful and some soldiers who met the aesthetic requirements; remotely viewable by anyone who paid a fee to the President’s friend. That was … a thing that…
Bad About Religion: 180 Down, 31 To Go
You may have heard that last week the Department of Defense dropped 180 religions from its “faith codes” list, reducing that list from 211 to 31 recognized religions. This has been widely regarded as a bad thing. Mainly because it…
America: It’s Authoritarians All The Way Down
The Democrats really are no less authoritarian than the Republicans. They just get authoritarian in different ways and about different things. The Republicans tend to be authoritarian about flashy (and fashy) things, that result in armored stormtroppers stomping around in…
Oh, Delaware: It Was A Joke, Not A Challenge
In one of the early posts on this blog, I made a joke about Citizen’s United meaning that corporations would get the vote one day. It was a joke. I said: corporations can now hold religious and political views, have…
Electoral Dysfunction: A Little Blue Pill For The Orange Chaos Goblin
Just slightly over a year ago, I said here that the courts would be too slow to be of any help in dealing with this coup. And that is proving to be the case. Today’s example of this is: This…
Still Ain’t Representin’: South Carolina
Last summer, I calculated what the U.S. House of Representatives would look like if the U.S. used statewide proportional representation by party registration to elect congresscritters: Those focused specifically on Texas and California, but since the gerrymandering wars have continued…
Metaphorical Intelligence: On Generative AI And The Library Of Babel
Paul Campos, the author at the Lawyers, Guns & Money blog who I’ve mentioned the most times here, has a post up today linking to some recent incidents with LLMs and listing some ideas about LLMs that he’d like to…
MAGA: Massive American Grift, Again
I don’t have much time today, but this is historic so I want it noted here. This “settlement” is the largest, and most brazen, act of corruption in U.S. history. This is, amazingly, not hyperbole. The lawsuit it’s connected to…
Oh, Jared: A Thoroughly Typical Modern Democrat
Jared Polis is only the third worst Jared in national politics these days; it’s hard to compete for the bottom in a field that includes Jared Kushner and Jared Golden. But yeah: he’s still terrible. Most recently, of course, is…
Still Ain’t Representin’: Alabama
Last summer, I calculated what the U.S. House of Representatives would look like if the U.S. used statewide proportional representation by party registration to elect congresscritters: Those focused specifically on Texas and California, but since the gerrymandering wars have continued…