While cleaning up some email, I saw a “note to self” about Dave Winer’s demo of his WordLand application for WordPress. This demo occurred in October 2025 at WordCamp Canada. I reviewed my postings and did not see a link to this event, so wanted to make a post to capture this:
WordLand is still available online, but when the WordPress community did not show a significant uptake for WordLand, Dave Winer moved on to other projects. Still, this video give an idea of where Dave Winer was headed with the development of this product.
Doomsday Pack: 90 days of food, water and basics for a small apartment (site list supplies and provides Amazon links for purchase (via ReaderJohn on micro.blog)). Interesting!
Mississippi Free Press: Liveblog of the Mississippi 2026 US Senate race – fascinating coverage of county updates and background articles.
Election Law Blog: After a Few Days of Accepting Reality, Donald Trump Back to Calling Election Results into Question, Saying Dan Sullivan Won Alaska – screen caps of Truth Social posts – a counterpoint to Election Day comments from Trump
Anchorage Daily News: Like in past elections, Alaska is still counting ballots. When will we know who won? (via Election Law Blog) – more results should be available this week…
Pluralistic/Cory Doctorow: America cannot undo Trumpism – “If the old order is over, then we will never again be able to trust America to serve as the world’s cop, banker, ISP, IT department and consumer of first resort.” – sounds a lot like Season 4 of “The Diplomat” tv series….
Josh Bernoff: The midterm election winners were the best communicators – Democrats articulated their message better than Republicans (sidenote: Lauren Kapp worked with James Talarico (more background here on Lauren).
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I signed up for a one year subscription to be able to get access to NYT Cooking. Here are some recent recipes I have made (all were excellent! (gift links below)):
Overall, the Democratic Party had overwhelming success across the nation, taking control of the House and Senate in Congress. In addition, the federal government did not interfere in Election Day activities. Election Law Blog has several posts on this topic, suggesting that the preparation of state and local election leaders helped create an environment that supported voter access and stood ready to fight interference.
Our Democracy Was Hanging By A Thread: Here’s How It Held (link)
Vindication For Those of Us Who Said Throughout We Would have Free and Fair Elections Without Major Disruptions (link)
Why the Trump Election Interference Strategy Failed (link)
It Was Failed Election Meddling, Not Absence of Election Meddling (link)
Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic magazine also had thoughts on Election Day:
In my home state (Oregon), results generally favored Democrats. Democrat Tina Kotek had a 100,000 vote lead over the Republican Christine Drazen on Election Day with mail-in ballots still coming in through next week. With mail-in ballot volume since Election Day, it is very unlikely that Drazen can overtake Kotek, yet Drazen has refused to concede the race. As of November 6, Kotek’s lead has increased to 130,000 votes.
Two other races I was interested in were the US Senate race and the US House District 6 race. For US Senate, Democrat Jeff Merkley was running for reelection against Oregon House rep David Brock Smith. In past US Senate elections in Oregon, the Democratic incumbents Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley have spent little effort to campaign in Oregon (advertising, candidate debates, other engagement). This happened again in 2026, but Merkley was able to easily beat Brock Smith (57% for Merkley, 39% for Brock Smith).
For the House District 6 race (a new district created in 2022), Andrea Salinas was running for reelection against former Dundee mayor David Russ. In her first two elections, Salinas faced businessman Mike Erickson. Both candidates spent quite a lot on negative ads. Andrea Salinas managed to win both times by 2-3% margins. In this year’s contest, David Russ raised about $15,000 versus $600,000 for Salinas. In this year’s race, Salinas had no advertising or engagement, yet she continued to send out almost daily fundraising texts – ugh! Even with Russ’ low financial support, he still managed to get 42% (with Salinas getting 57%). To me, this shows that there is a significant amount of Republican voters within the district, and that Salinas could face headwinds if a credible challenger could be found.
