The Post-Partisan Emporium

  MAGA in One Step By  Karen Kwiatkowski ok ocracy and elections.  It’s about getting something for nothing, always and necessarily from someone else’s pot. Electing an executive, who in turn spends trillions of borrowed and stolen money every year – mainly to buy the next election, enrich themselves and their allies, always unaccountable, always unauditable, always failing to deliver more freedom and more prosperity – why, that how it works, isn’t it? H.L. Mencken was correct in his assessment of democracy and elections.  It’s about getting something for nothing, always and necessarily from someone else’s pot. Electing an executive, who in turn spends trillions of borrowed and stolen money every year – mainly to buy the next election, enrich themselves and their allies, always unaccountable, always unauditable, always failing to deliver more freedom and more prosperity – why, that how it works, isn’t it? Trump, with no third term to game, and with a new and extraord...

  Our Fragile Infrastructure: Lessons from Hurricane Helene Ellen Brown Buncombe County North Carolina – damage after Hurricane Helene floods. NCDOTcommunications, CC BY 2.0  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0,  via Wikimedia Commons Asheville, North Carolina is known for its historic architecture, vibrant arts scene and as a gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was  a favorite escape  for “climate migrants” moving from California, Arizona, and other climate-challenged vicinities, until a “500 year flood” ravaged the city this fall. Hurricane Helene was a wakeup call not just for stricken North Carolina residents but for people across the country following their  tragic stories  in the media and in the podcasts now  favored by young voters  for news. “Preppers” well equipped with supplies watched in helpless disbelief as homes washed away in a wall of water and mud, taking emergency supplies in the storm.  Streets turned into...

  The Hollow Empire The civilization has become hollow, but we do not have to be. Morgoth In an earlier, more innocent internet age, a joke went around that if you typed ‘‘Google’’ into Google search enough times, the internet would meltdown and destroy itself. It never happened, though not for the lack of trying on my part. Still, I always enjoyed the idea, its call-back infinity loops, an inversion of the Asimovian paradox of artificial intelligence saving humans by enslaving them or, more recently, eradicating ‘‘transphobia’’ by eradicating humans. I asked Xitter’s ‘‘Grok’’ AI to justify its existence morally, and it replied with reems of technocratic waffle about increasing positive outcomes, encouraging human flourishing, and even being a friend to lonely hearts. Its summary of its own purpose is: The moral justification of my existence, therefore, hinges on balancing these benefits against the potential harms, ensuring that my development and deployment are guided by ethical ...