Karl Popper once argued that the defining virtue of democracy lies not in expressing a collective will or fulfilling a historical destiny, but in something more modest—and more radical: fallibility. A democratic society, in Popper’s view, is one that accepts its own capacity for error. It builds institutions that allow rulers to be removed without violence, policies to be revised without catastrophe, and political conflict to unfold through open debate rather than force. Democracy matters not because it guarantees truth or justice, but because it institutionalizes the possibility of being wrong.

This vision of the open society remains one of the most compelling defenses of liberal democracy. Yet today, it is colliding with political and economic realities it was never designed to withstand. Across much of the world, the procedures of democracy persist in form while their substance erodes under mounting inequality, imperial coercion, and authoritarian drift. The result is not simply democratic decline, but democratic hollowing—institutions that survive even as their capacity for self-correction withers.

A new Israeli law calls for all Palestinian hostages including children to be executed by hanging, electric chair, and/or poison has been passed. It would be carried out after 90 days of passing laws with no right for an appeal. The law also applies to 20 Lebanese hostages taken in Lebanon last year but the law does not apply to Israeli lawless settlers or IDF terrorist soldiers who murdered Palestinians.

Israel is currently holding about 9,300 Palestinian hostages for many years without charges or trial. 5,000 of them were detained in Gaza during the war while the others were arrested during raids in the West Bank or at checkpoint or re-arrested released prisoners.  

These people are illegally held and they deserve the right to freedom from the Israeli concentration camps. Basic element of democracy required Israel to either charge or release them immediately.

There are a million Iranians in the streets facing bullets and torture who don’t agree that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a poor victim of US and “Zionist” imperialism.

We should take their cue. Don’t let Trump pick our heroes for us. Trump ain’t gonna do a damn thing for the Iranian people. He’s letting them sell oil illegally because he wants the world price to come down. The Iranian people, in his view, despite his saber rattling, don’t mean a damn thing to him.

But they mean a lot to me.

The right to choose our own leaders is not an American right. Freedom is one of the “unalienable Rights” of Americans “endowed by their Creator” — and neither Trump nor Khamenei, as Destroyers, qualify.

Those who cannot choose their own leaders, who are forced by violence to bend to authority, are slaves. In America, we still have, for a moment, a choice: We can be Kings or we will be Slaves. Choose today.

For MLK Day, I will pray that Iran, Ukraine and Minnesota will be Free at Last.

And for Yolanda Renee King, MLK’s granddaughter, playing the piano for me. She is our future. If we dare to dream it.

Imagine your ancestors’ burial sites being concreted over so to make way for a factory that builds killer flying robots. As surreal as this sounds, that is exactly what could happen as defense contractor Anduril, the Pentagon, and certain State of Ohio offices rush to build the Arsenal-1 factory.

Anduril’s autonomous drones may be flying over northern Pickaway County and southern Franklin County within a few short years. The defense contractor coveted the location for Arsenal-1 because it is adjacent to Rickenbacker International Airport, ten miles south of Columbus.

But the mad dash to build Arsenal-1 might not entirely be about defending freedom. It could be about slipping a fast one past our First Nations, who would demand the project be delayed or canceled altogether if Native American burials were discovered.

Global EV Sales Rose 20 percent in 2025
Last year global electric vehicle adoption grew by 20 percent. There was significant growth in every major region except for North America, according to the research firm Rho Motion. Global consumers bought 20.7 million EVs, an increase of 20 percent from the prior year. China accounted for the majority of that total, with 12.9 million cars and light trucks sold within its borders, up 17 percent.

The highest percentage growth was in Europe, which was up 33 percent with 4.3 million in sales. In North America, where the market was hurt by the cancellation of tax credits for EV buyers, sales of new EVs hit 1.8 million, down 4 percent. To put this in perspective, in 2025 approximately 16.2 million light vehicles were sold in the US.  EVs accounted for approximately 11 percent of all vehicles sold within that region.