Fixing Political Imbalances in the USA

The No Labels “Movement” No Labels bills itself as a responsible and bipartisan third-party alternative, although they eschew the idea that they’re a party. But, it can’t be “bipartisan” if it’s a third party, technically that would make it a coalition party. But I digress… Their major flaw, in my opinion, is that they frame…

A New Adventure!

If you’re a regular visitor to CleanUpAfterYourDog.com, you may notice a few changes today: the title and “about me” are different and the header image has changed. I’m starting a new adventure in Washington in April and I wanted to get things in place to reflect these changes. For a while now I’ve felt like…

Forgiveness

I don’t believe in forgiveness because it’s bullshit. I don’t. I don’t believe in forgiveness, primarily because humans are incapable of absolution, which is what forgiveness is. We are emotionally vulnerable animals capable of rational thought, and as such we can’t simply forget about something that has wounded us. There is no undo button, nor…

Fiscal Conservatism, an Urban Legend

Call me a policy wonk. Call me a politics junkie. Call me crazy. Call me a progressive, a socialist, a fool. Call me whatever you want, frankly I don’t really care. But what I’m about to tell you is the unabashed, unadulterated truth: American fiscal conservatism is an unapologetically implausible ruse; it’s a fairy tale;…

The Civil Competency and Qualifications Act

The Civil Competency and Qualifications Act SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS; PURPOSE. SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the “Civil Competency and Qualifications Act” or the “Civics Act of 2023”. TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents for this Act is as follows: Sec 1. Short Title; Table of Contents; Purpose Sec 2.…

AI Generated Imagery

There’s a long, complicated debate online right now about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and generated imagery. Is it art or not? Can you copyright it? Is it theft? Etc… And it’s pretty simple, actually. AI images are not art, you can’t copyright them, and they’re, essentially, theft. Let’s dive in. Art art [ ahrt ] noun the quality,…

The Pernicious Decline of Twitter

Elon Musk is not the tech-bro messiah. Full stop. Twitter is Imploding by the Whims of an Idiot First there was the mass layoff. Then the Blue Check Saga. Then the readmission of Donald Trump and the wave of racists and NAZIs. After which we saw the banning of Jack Sweeny and ElonsJet. And then…

Yellowstone Adventure!

02 September – 09 September 2022 Our trip to Yellowstone was planned in March, originally for May, but we decided to postpone the adventure because we needed far more time to appropriately prepare for the journey, the adventure, and the return. So we chose to schedule our departure for the first of September. Little did…

On Treason

So, I want to talk about 6 January 2021 and the attack on the US Capitol building in Washington, DC. There are a few reasons for this: 1) It’s important that we, as a nation, bring clarity to what happened and maintain focus on the attack until justice is served; 2) There is a concerted…