At long last, after years of campaigning, rallies and rhetoric, and after billions of dollars spent to sway the opinions of a tiny sliver of the electorate residing in seven of its fifty states, the US 2024 elections have concluded. The people have spoken, and what they said was Donald John Trump will be the… Continue reading American Democracy 1776 – 2024
Tag: surveillance
TikTok Approaches Zero Hour
I have been writing this Web log since 2006, and I suppose regular readers have long since deduced that the Washington DC suburb of Great Falls, Virginia, where I live, is a rather upscale neighborhood. And, I would hasten to add, I am hardly the wealthiest inhabitant of the cul de sac where my home… Continue reading TikTok Approaches Zero Hour
Long Hot Summer Snowstorm
Last Thursday was the warmest day for Planet Earth in the last one hundred and twenty-five thousand years. Friday was warmer than that, and Saturday warmer still, each day breaking the previous one’s record, and today seems well on its way to surpassing them all. The geologic period that transpired one hundred and twenty-five thousand… Continue reading Long Hot Summer Snowstorm
TikTok’s Time of Tribulation
In the nineteen fifties, disaffected, sociopathic, hormonally precocious teenagers in the United States often expressed their rebellion against the adult world by engaging in games involving various kinds of reckless driving. One such practice, favored by particularly suicidal types of what were called, at the time, “juvenile delinquents,” was known as “Chicken,” so named because… Continue reading TikTok’s Time of Tribulation
Up, Up and Away in Xi’s Beautiful Balloon
Another working Saturday for Gretchen and me, although she, having completed her administrative duties and all of my consultation bookings in jig time, only needed to stay through noon. She got paid for the whole day, of course. I, on the other hand, had to remain in the office until six-thirty, dispensing advice to all… Continue reading Up, Up and Away in Xi’s Beautiful Balloon