I think it could be ambiguous in certain situations. Let's say I wanted to conditionally set a variable to one of two negative constants. In the current syntax, that would look like:

  x = -1 if y else -2

However, with your syntax, it would look like:

  x = if y -1 else -2

Which could be possibly confused with trying to subtract 1 from y.

Ah, and Python uses whitespace and colons to disambiguate, which would ruin the efficiency of this form.

Of the books I've read by Dick, I would say "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said" is probably the most dystopic.

I have never read it but want to. I wonder what the title means? It sounds sinister

It's been a while since I've read it, but I believe it's partially a reference to a lute song called "Flow my tears" [1], but it's also a reference to a moment near the end of the book when one of the policemen has an embrace with a man he just met at a gas station following the death of the policeman's sister.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow,_my_tears

#3 is still valid

Not everyone knows the difference between their timezone and UTC. I always end up looking up the difference, and it really doesn't matter to me what timezone people use, so long as they state it.