Google’s mistake
Google has been a symbol of sorts for the American way. We can still innovate. We can still make a profit and call it good. A couple of bright guys can work hard and build a successful company.
Previous articles
Mutual contempt
If the United States government finds the citizens who fund it contemptible, it invites a reciprocal response from the same taxpayers.
Interesting slide presentation about Russian hackers
The language and spirit are Snowden’s, so I’ll pretend Snowden wrote it, even though the presentation came from Canada’s Communications Security Establishment.
Presidential authority
I’ll bet the security state maintains its secret, privileged positions in government’s underground plumbing, until the country loses a major war. Then we will see competition for power among institutions and individuals that makes the infighting in Trump’s White House look pacific.
“Better safe than sorry”: police officers with guns
No truth means no reconciliation or healing. Police do not seem interested in reconciliation, or in reform. Nor do they appear to recognize the harm they do to their profession, when they act so egregiously.
Descent
If media came to appreciate their deficiency or their failure, how they enabled a once vibrant republic to reach its current low point, they would have to cut their own chains. Most addicts need help to do that.
War in Syria: revolution and protracted civil war
If you have read Revolution in the Air, or a couple of related posts on Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy, you know that I agree with Sharp’s ideas about how to resist dictatorships in order to replace them with democratic forms of governance.
Crises of the republic in the hands of fools
One helpful reminder is that nothing Trump has threatened to do, however horrible or outlandish, comes close to the damage Bush and Cheney did when they started the Iraq war.
Justine Damond’s shooting death a week later
That adrenaline isn’t the result of dry, routine training in procedures. It results from a culture of fear and threat perception turned to aggressiveness, and use of firearms as a form of aggressive self-protection. It requires a lot of firm, even obstinate leadership in the other direction to change this culture, to turn police officers into public servants again.
Justine Ruszczyk’s death in Minneapolis: advent of a police state
We realize now how completely our relationship with police has flipped. Police used to put themselves in danger to protect us. Now they put us in danger to protect themselves.
Best response to White House garbage fountain
He tweets his own foolishness, then gets mad when people don’t believe him. He throws mini-tantrums in his sleep, and uses terms like FAKE NEWS! with such abandon that few, even his supporters, care what he says anymore.
Correct direction for health care reform
We have to find a way to return simple profitability to our health care markets. If we cannot do that, the supply of high quality, economical, and timely health care will continue to decline.
