Considering the massive role a warped kind of religious fervor is playing with American fascism, we should rule nothing out merely because it sounds unscientific. I've found the theory that this madness you speak of is the result of "minds that are willingly given over to spiritual darkness to be manipulated " to be a fitting explanation. Tucker Carlson may have been accidentally but literally correct when he called Trump a "demonic force". Less supernatural sociological and psychological explanations exist, but none seem fully convincing. Higher IQs and higher education give some natural resistance but do not make one fully immune from whatever this fascist plague is.

Had Ford made Nixon face the music then Trump’s mob boss presidency would not have happened — As a historian of U.S. legal history, I’ve been fascinated (and horrified) as I watch the predictable outcome of one fateful decision made on Sept. 7, 1974. Ford gave higher priority to lesser considerations over the foundational ones. The temptation to do so was understandable. But it led to a…

Capital footage used to lie about the January 6th violence — To their credit, Republican senators, and other responsible adults, are already denouncing Fox News’ attempt to lie about Jan 6th violent coup attempt via manipulated and cherry-picked video footage. One senator called it bullshit. …

The training has been going well since the adoption — Since my naughty, untrainable Twitter ran away a few months ago. I signed up to adopt a Mastodon using Tony Stubblebine's emailed instructions, which included changing my too-long Medium username to something Mastodon-friendly. It was easy. After we spent a bit of time getting to know each other, Mastodon and…

And the MAGA Lord said, “Follow me, and I will kick ass for you”. — On Saturday, March 4th, at CPAC, Donald J. Trump delivered the most perfect inspiring message for Christians ever to be uttered since the hippy-dippy Sermon on the Mount. “…I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution,” —…

When I first read about this a couple of days ago I thought it was extreme hyperbole acting as clickbait. I fact-checked the headline, and to my shock and horror it was real. This would have been considered too farfetched to ever happen prior to the MAGA movement. Now, any fascist thing could happen if we don't push back hard.

I still hope our relationship will be repaired — Dear Friend, And you are dear to me. I treasure our friendship, and it breaks my heart when we are at odds. I hate the way things are. We should hate things that are bad, like both of us used to in better times. …

Practice Zero-Guile and Use Due Diligence — As A.I.-assisted writing becomes mainstream, it’s important that questions be asked about the ethical conventions of authorship. For example, what is the difference between slapping your name on something written by ChatGPT and something written by a ghostwriter? How are both not plagiarism if you don’t divulge that you didn’t…

It was probably fine — It’s going to take time for people to sort out the social mores and norms of A.I. in daily life. The recent flap over Vanderbilt University’s letter to its own students in regard to the Michigan State University student murders brought up a question: Why is a computer-generated message different…