How often have you heard the latest appalling thing some (in)famous person was caught doing and thought, “Who acts like that?”

The sort of people who are most likely to achieve wealth, fame and power... that’s who. Our society is broken in terms of what it takes to succeed.

Re: Partisan vs Racial gerrymandering

Sometimes I think being involved with law or politics rots your brain.

Any ordinary person would understand that “I’m the dealer, so I get to stack the deck!” is not a good argument.

This anthem is 55 years old. We might be needing it again.

@imwithherband.bsky.social is the definition of a supergroup: three incredibly talented musicians who come together to make even more than the sum of the parts. I can’t say enough good things about their 2025 album:

imwithher.bandcamp.com/album/wild-a...

Listen if you can.

Is it a bad sign that whenever I see something described as “idiot-proof,” my first reaction is to take that as a challenge?

It seems obvious that an unstable and irresponsible country, ideologically at odds with the modern world and controlled by leaders obsessed with revenge and twisted religious fantasies, should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, the US already has them.

For fifty years (at least), politicians have been raving about “the national debt” and how catastrophe was immanent. Thanks to Trump, now the conditions are ripe for those fears to come true.

KOSA is being reintroduced today.

It's always been a dangerous censorship bill.

But in this environment, with Trump weaponizing every aspect of the Federal government to suppress speech he doesn't like, KOSA is a catastrophic attack on human rights.

We have to stop it.

StopKOSA.com

Protecting kids from “harm” means protecting them from anything that supports LGBTQ people’s right to exist; anything that supports a woman’s right to make choices about her own body; anything contradicting the narrative that DEI is nothing but prejudice against white men.

I went to log in to my bank’s web site and saw the caption:

“FDIC Insured • Backed by the full faith and credit of the US Government”

and realized that’s not nearly as reassuring as it used to be.

Nearly every important collective-action problem that can’t be solved by capitalist profiteering is addressed by some agency — CDC, FAA, FDA — that is dependent on the executive branch of our one central government. It seems Elon Musk understands the concept of a single point of failure quite well.

The difference between stupidity and arrogance is that stupid people can learn that they are well-advised to listen to people who know more than they do.