Author: the Author
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Apparently America Had Too Much Transparency
There are many ways to fight corruption. You can prosecute bribery. You can follow suspicious money. You can expose shell companies. You can make it harder for criminals, oligarchs, politicians and their friends to hide behind corporations whose paperwork tells you everything except the one thing that actually matters: Who owns it? Or, if you’re…
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In the Shadows of Giants: The Legality and Legacy of Fan Fiction
Fan fiction sits at a curious intersection of law, creativity, and community—a liminal space where love for someone else’s universe births new ones, often without permission and sometimes without apology. It’s a realm where legal threats, literary innovation, and teenage Tumblr dreams coexist, mostly in peace, but never without tension. And while millions continue to…
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Department of Economic and Agricultural Development (DEAD)
Directive 47: Termination of the Family Farm The Department of Economic and Agricultural Development (DEAD), in pursuit of national unity, economic strength, and total food security, decrees the following: 1. Abolition of the Family Farm Effective immediately, the family farm ceases to exist as a legitimate economic entity. Sentimental attachment to ancestral land is no…
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The Human Scale and the Rarity of Giants
If we take the measure of a human being, our reach defines a natural sphere of influence: about two meters in every direction. Within this intimate radius, we grasp, build, fight, and embrace. It is the space in which we most immediately experience the world, and it anchors our sense of proportion. Everything beyond that…
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The AI Renaissance in Governance — How Generative Intelligence Can Make State, Local, and Tribal Governments Exponentially More Efficient
For the past century, the machinery of government has been built on paper, people, and process. Even as computers arrived, the underlying structure barely changed — we digitized the forms, but not the thinking. Generative artificial intelligence now offers something different: a chance not to automate government as it is, but to reinvent government as…
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Benjamin Franklin Wrote About Farts, and You’re Taking Me Seriously?
At approximately 74 years old, Benjamin Franklin—scientist, diplomat, revolutionary, philosopher, Founding Father, and a man whose face would eventually appear on the hundred-dollar bill—sat down and wrote an essay about farting. Not metaphorical farting. Actual farting. Franklin proposed that scientists investigate whether something could be added to food that would make human intestinal gas smell…
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Welcome to America. Your Lobbyist Will See You Now.
There was a time when political corruption was refreshingly straightforward. A businessman wanted something from the government. He slipped an envelope across a desk. A politician did him a favor. Eventually somebody found the envelope, somebody went to jail, and Hollywood made a movie about it. We have apparently evolved beyond such primitive arrangements. Consider…
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The Managed Democracy Temptation: An American Drift
There is a sharp but often overlooked distinction between rule of law and rule by law. The first is the foundation of a liberal democracy: laws bind everyone, government and citizen alike, and are applied impartially. The second is its mimicry: laws exist, but they are bent into instruments of power, drafted and enforced selectively…
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Please Share This Crap
I have a small favor to ask. If you have ever read one of my posts and thought, “Huh. That wasn’t a complete waste of four minutes,” please share it. That’s it. That’s the entire sophisticated marketing strategy. I currently make absolutely nothing from these posts. No advertising empire. No lucrative sponsorship deal. No yacht…
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Corruption, Cronyism, or Coincidence? Follow the Money Behind America’s 250th Birthday
America only gets one 250th birthday. Congress began preparing for it a decade ago. In 2016, it created the United States Semiquincentennial Commission to oversee the celebration and the public-facing America250 effort. Congress later appropriated $150 million for activities commemorating the anniversary. Then Donald Trump returned to the White House, and something peculiar happened. A…
