Free Software and the Future of Decision-making
This will be a big-ish essay, and take a while to get to the stinger. For those who might not feel like reading to the end but who might accept…
Purple Library Guy
On wind and solar power
One argument against wind and solar that I’ve seen over and over again is the notion that they’re just incapable of meeting our energy needs–that if you installed as much…
So turns out the Americans really are actively sabotaging the Venezuelan economy and plotting another coup
We’ve always suspected it, but it’s one of those ideas like “Yasser Arafat was poisoned“–it seems kind of crackpot when you say it even though we know there’s a track…
Paradoxes of right wing belief, III or so
Many people complain that structural unemployment is on the rise because jobs have been offshored due to the endless capitalist quest to lower the wages they pay. The obvious change…
On that Mulcair question period, and I don’t like Justin Trudeau
Taking a break from long theoretical essays. I’m afraid they’ll be back soon. For now, Short note on that question period everyone’s talking about. To me, the point wasn’t to…
BC provincial election elaboration 3: Positivity
What about the positive? Certainly I don’t think any campaign should lack a positive side. Positive and negative aren’t either or, they’re yin and yang that are both needed for…
BC provincial election elaboration 2: Negativity
So now let’s talk about going negative. I believe that narrative makes all the difference when it comes to going negative. If you don’t have a narrative, then sliming your…
BC provincial election elaboration 1: Narrative?!
A narrative is like a frame only bigger. It’s an overall frame that fits most of your policies together and sums up why you object to the other guys. It’s…
BC provincial election lessons
Well, having had my whining rant, I might as well get in on the post mortem. I’m substantially in agreement with Greg Fingas of Accidental Deliberations’ column here, which helped…
BC provincial election sour grapes
So, the BC Liberals won last night’s election. I’m sure there will be lots of post mortems over the next week or two, and some soul searching going on well…
Shorter Corporations on Temporary Foreign Workers:
“We’ve been lying all this time; turns out free markets don’t work after all.” Well I’m glad we finally agree. Let’s remind them of that every time from now on…
We need more spies
I never really believed it at the time, but more and more I run across references to poilcymakers in the US administration back in the cold war having turned out…
On North Korea–So, what if the Americans win?
The United States isn’t shy about saying that their goal with respect to North Korea is the overthrow of the regime. They then simultaneously like to claim that it’s unreasonable…
Can the US economy survive more victory?
Arguably, the US actually lost the war in Iraq and is losing the war in Afghanistan. Iraq is certainly problematic for the invaders in that the government is now more…
Hugo Chavez is dead
Read it here. I will miss him. I know many will. It’s my considered opinion that Chavez was the greatest statesman, and the strongest single progressive force, the world had…
Fracking, climate change and the world economy
I’ve been seeing some things lately that have substantially altered my opinions about how things are going to go in the medium future, yanking them first in one direction and…
Government silence and media complicity
Every so often, someone in the mainstream media will complain about the Conservative government's muzzling of spokespeople, its secrecy, its general refusal to say anything about any subject that might…
The American Military
Odd little thought. It seems to me the US military’s weapon systems can be divided into two basic types. There are the “heavy” sort, designed for the Cold War with…
Government welfare and private charity
The right has a fairly standard set of lines about what is appropriate to do about the problem of poverty. They believe that welfare is bad for the recipients, who…
Chavez wins again!
Hugo Chavez has once again done one of the things he does best: Win. Once again, we have a deeply progressive president of Venezuela. In your face, neoliberal rich dudes!…