Dictatorship It Is
Today electing a president is not about issues, nor is it about changing minds, nor is it about who looks better and sounds better of TV. The election is not about a personal popularity contest. Electing a president is now simply about opposition. In short, there is no middle ground just as the middle class has grown increasingly small.
If you identify Republican you are likely going to only vote for Republicans because you think all Democrats are crazy and will destroy the country. Likewise, if you identify Democrat you will only vote Democrat. If you really don’t like your candidate you will not vote, or write in Mickey Mouse rather than cast a vote for the opposing party.
The consequence is that the candidates only say what their “base” wants to hear, and it doesn’t even matter of what is said is true. Candidates don’t really try to change people’s minds. In this environment, do we really need debates? Worse, there is little for few remaing, truly “independent” voters to hear, and frankly doing a bunch of research is too much work for the average voter. Increasing numbers of these disenfranchised voters will simply sit out.
Unfortunately, I think Democrats think the lesson learned from 2016 is to focus on their base and ignore the middle because they think there are more liberal/progressives voters than conservative, Republicans, or independents. An extreme shift left is viewed by their opposition as further evidence of crazy Democrats.
The authors of the U.S. Constitution foresaw this type of fanaticism that democracy enables and thus created a structure to prevent it. Unfortunately, over time political idealogies have trumped preservation of the Republic concentrating more power within the Presidency. A party aligned, rubber stamping Congress and Supreme Court is a defacto dictatorship and this is effectly today’s U.S. government.
Mike Caulfield releases Walkthru;
Back in January I started working on a web-based application to help teachers and others make fact-checking infographics as part of a Misinformation Solutions Forum prize from RTI International and Rita Allen.
Mike had to change course and turn this in to a Windows app, but it is now working and available for those who run Windows.
Given how partisan Congress is, I wonder what would happen if a 3rd party candidate was elected POTUS?
Google announced they are making Pixel phone smore helpful via a series of feature drops.
Actually, I am looking forward to seeing how well the Call Screening “feature” works. Right now I have Do Not Disturb enabled to only allows calls from phone numbers in my contacts. While this is effective for blocking the robo calls, it has also blocked legit calls when I forgot to disable Do Not Disturb.
Today I realized that my 30 year anniversary at work came and went without any recognition by anyone, including myself. The worst thing that has occurred over my career is the institutional de-valuation of people with experience in corporate America. Talk is cheap; actions, or lack there of, speaks volumes.
Upon further review it looks like my Pixel 2 doesn’t know how to display the signal strength when the phone connects to the AT&T Microcell in our home. When I leave the house it displays fine, but when I come back and it connects to the Microcell I actually see it show all bars and then the bars disappear. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that the microcell only provides 3G data, which I don’t care about because I use WiFi for data at home. In the the number of bars don’t really matter so long as my call connections work and don’t drop, but it’s annoying.
I have installed the December 2019 security update to Android 10 on my Pixel 2. Ever since the update the cellular signal strength indicator on my shows no bars even when I put the phone right next to the microcell in my house. I think the update borked this display!
I have completed the first week of using the Raspberry Pi 4 as a remote personal desktop computer during my work day. Call it an experiment of whether the Pi 4 can really serve as a desktop. The Pi4 is no where near as fast as my Pixelbook, but I find it good enough for the web browsing and reading that I have been doing.
One thing I don’t understand is why people don’t get that Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat. When he is not running for President Bernie has an I by his name, and frankly I see him as using the party. It is fair to say Bernie is a Progressive, but that does not necessarily make him a Democrat. If people thought about it, they would also realize that a person who considers themself a Conservative does not necessarily mean they are a Republican, nor should one assume that a person calls themself a Republican that means they are a Conservative.
Dave Winer makes an important point here. I think it is likely the intent for the pressure on Ukraine to announce investigation of Biden is to re-create the Hilary email scenario that Trump leveraged in 2016. The question I have to Trump supporters, if your guy is so good, why does he need to resort to all these shenanigans?
A year ago today I built my Federated Wiki server and since then I have added 274 pages.
If you are a Constitutional Originalist then you know that the original writers of the Constitution gave Congress the power to elect and remove a person from the Presidency. You also know that original Constitution does not create a pure democratic government it creates a Republic composed of an administrator (the President) elected by an Electoral College and if needed Congress, a Senate elected by state legislatures, a House of Representatives elected by citizens, and a Supreme Court nominated by the President and approved by the Senate.
Today is my two year micro.blog anniversary.
Is the economy really better than it was in 2016?
Scriptures do not offer rational certitude
They offer us something much better, an entirely different way of knowing: an intimate relationship, a dark journey, a path where we must discover for ourselves that grace, love, mercy, and forgiveness are absolutely necessary for survival in an uncertain world. You only need enough clarity to know how to live without certitude! Yes, we really are saved by faith. People who live in this way never stop growing, are not easily defeated, are wise and compassionate, and frankly, are fun to live with. They have a quiet and confident joy. Infantile religion insists on certainty every step of the way and thus is not very happy.
I wish that micro.blog could put “Edit This Post” link at the bottom of posts so that when I view my blog and see an error I could simply click it to go directly to the editor rather than having to first open the micro.blog site. @manton
I am thinking about what are the best ways to manage a library of PDFs. I found a site that has several PDFS of programming notes that I have downloaded to a folder in Google Drive using my Chromebook.
A nice thing about Chrome OS is that it enables to to work with folders in Google Drive as if they are locally on your computer. By default PDFs open in a Chrome tab and you can create a bookmark but the URL is unique to Chrome OS and will not work on other platforms, so I created a “From Pixelbook” folder in Chrome bookmarks and put these bookmark there.
The lines of code that changed everything.
To shed light on the software that has tilted the world on its axis, the editors polled computer scientists, software developers, historians, policymakers, and journalists. They were asked to pick: Which pieces of code had a huge influence? Which ones warped our lives?
I finding the history of computing fascinating, mostly because it coincides with my lifetime.
To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us – and He has given us everything.
Concern rises in Pentagon over Trump’s decision making - CNNPolitics
I am guessing that the President who thinks he can’t commit a crime thinks people in the military can’t commit a crime.