I didn’t vote for Barack Obama in 2008, or in 2012. As regular readers will know, I also didn’t vote for the Republicans in those elections. I wanted to vote for him in 2008, came very close, but ultimately decided…
Tag: Politics (n.): a strife of interests masquerading
The Singularity is Already Here
The Singularity is already here. It’s corporations, not computers. You’ve probably heard of the Singularity. It’s a hypothetical future event, dystopian in nature, wherein the need for human intervention in human affairs is swept aside by super-intelligent computers who self-teach,…
Our Need for an Enemy: America’s Adversarial Obsession
“Down the corner by the hotdog stand I seen a man I said ‘Howdy friend, I guess it’s just us two’ He screamed a bit and away he flew Thought I was a Communist” -Bob Dylan, “Talking World War III…
What We Could (Should) Have Done for Aleppo
As a pacifist, one of the most frequent criticisms I face is that I am advocating “doing nothing” in the face of atrocities near and far. There are just bad people in the world, the argument goes, who will kill…
Expectations of American Power
I almost titled this “Donald Trump and the Expectations of American Power”. Just as you could title anything in the last decade “Harry Potter and X” and have it be an instant hit, so too does placing a “Donald Trump…
We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby
Look at that headline. Look at it! I know I was excited in my 6,000 word election recap to observe that the problems with our reported unemployment figure and its relationship to labor force participation data had become a mainstream…
A Radical Leftist in Donald Trump’s America
“I vote for the Democratic Party They want the UN to be strong… Once I was young and impulsive I wore every conceivable pin Even went to the socialist meetings Learned all the old union hymns But I’ve grown older…
All Politics is Personal: The Epic and Foreseeable Failure of Hillary Clinton
Disclaimer: I have deliberately waited a week to post this since the election because most of my friends and people I care about have spent the week grieving. If you are still grieving, if you are tender from the election…
Don’t Stand for It
During the Iraq War, I made an effort not to stand for the United States’ national anthem while it played. The context for this was almost always sports games, because even though ESPN Radio (which I listen to a lot…
Ryan Lochte’s America
By now, you know the news that Ryan Lochte, whose claim of being robbed at gunpoint with friends overwhelmed Olympic coverage in Rio for days, was lying. He made the whole thing up, claiming to be pulled over by armed…