Microsoft Windows is of course the dominant operating system on the personal computer, with Linux dominating basically everything else (even smartphones; Android is based on Linux). What if that was different? I’ll go through a couple of scenarios, one hewing more closely to real life … Continue readingOperating System What-Ifs
Boy, they’re going full-bore with the Obama era nostalgia this year. For 2022 this is even extending to bringing back talking points for Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, really. For Thanksgiving 2013, the earliest example I have in my records, Reverend Al Sharpton posted these “turkey tips”. … Continue readingRevenge of the Thanksgiving Dinner Talking Points
The other day on the road, which was lined with garbage and litter, I saw groves of trees being cleared, leaving poor little raccoons homeless, to build “luxury housing”…but not luxury enough to keep any of the woods it seems. That arouses several thoughts in … Continue readingGermanic America’s Strange Dearth
“Extremism can come in many forms,” President Biden said at a speech recently. “It can come in the rage of a mob driven to assault the Capitol. It can come in a smile and a fleece vest.” “Extremist” or not, turns out coming in a … Continue readingTriumph of the Fleece Vest
We should abolish elections and replace them with sortition, random selection from the citizenry, thus guaranteeing a representative body. I’ve posted about that before. But if we must have elections, what voting system should we use? Pure proportional representation, that’s what; specifically multi-winner ranked choice … Continue readingFor Proportional Representation
The results of the 2020 United States Presidential election are well known by this point, and much analysis has been offered, including by myself on Twitter. For the first time on this blog I would like to offer some of the thoughts I’ve expressed in … Continue readingChecking in on American Politics: 2020 Edition
Does conservatism have a future? It might seem a curious question to ask. After all, a political platform of fiscal restraint coupled with resisting social change, recognizably “conservative” to us, is applicable to so many times and places as to be veritably eternal. Yet many, … Continue readingThe Twilight of Conservatism
What if we abolished elections and replaced them with a system that was much more democratic? Sounds fantastic? It shouldn’t, because “democracy” as everyone understood it until a couple centuries ago had nothing to do with elections. Rule by the people meant just that: political … Continue readingAbolish Elections: For Sortition and Direct Democracy
But for a twist of fate, today we would have seen the second of three Presidential Debates in the United States for the upcoming Presidential election, this one having been scheduled to be a “town hall” style debate. Combined with the generally negative reaction to … Continue readingPresidential Debate Reform: A Radical Proposal