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What do you think all the "cooperation across all governance scales" is all about, anyway?

International treaties and agreements, of course.

You have to read the entire policy Agenda to get a sense of vast scope of what they are proposing. It's huge. To get an idea of how the UN handles things when large sums of money are involved (carbon trading, support for sustainable development in 3rd world countries, and other policies require international transfers of large sums), you need only remember what happened with the Oil for Food Program.

You might also want to consider that the biggest embezzler from that program was Maurice Strong (he fled to China to escape prosecution) is also involved in the origins of Agenda 21 and helped craft the Rio convention and the initial IPCC report.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, ratified in Rio de Janeiro in 1992

As was Agenda 21. Anthropogenic Catastrophic Climate Change is the "threat" that the world's elites decided to use, and Agenda 21 is the "solution". It's an all-encompassing, cradle-to-grave, global governance model for every aspect of human life, with specifics for how each parcel of land in the world will be used (see also the Wildlands Project, the land-use companion plan to Agenda 21.

...bullshit offenses...

possession, more than an ounce.. Plenty of bullshit everywhere you look.

But the work is good, if you can get it.

let me give you a hand here:

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/manufacturing/manufacturing_qa.htm

http://www.informationweek.com/outsourcing/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=174906797

I remember reading somewhere (sorry, no link) that Toshiba has taken over or would take over the factory where IBM produces the cell processor for Sony.

Most memory is produced outside the US, here is another interesting table:

http://svtc.igc.org/icrt/corps/inttable.htm

It's a pity that one is not broken down by $amount invested per country.

However I'm left wondering how much this was affected by the Bush admin, who has been cited a number tymes for altering science they didn't agree with even though they didn't have the qualifications, suppressing it, or totally ignoring science.

USGS simply can't predict when eruptions of the magnitude that you are talking about will occur. So they are never going to say something as alarmist as "Yellowstone is due to erupt". To draw that conclusion from a mere three data points was extremely irresponsible of whatever journalist was the source of this meme. In fact USGS says this about Yellowstone's potential for a catastrophic eruption (ref)

Thanks for the link. However I'm left wondering how much this was affected by the Bush admin, who has been cited a number tymes for altering science they didn't agree with even though they didn't have the qualifications, suppressing it, or totally ignoring science.

The Iran/Iraq War is a good example of how the US gets it's hands into places it shouldn't be. Iraq (under rule of Saddam Hussein who) invaded Iran. We supported Iraq with weapons in this conflict while secretly selling weapons to Iran and diverting the money to Nicaraguan Contras which was later known as the Iran-Contra Affair, which Oliver North took the fall for.

Here's some info on early US relationships with Hussein.

"Thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands, of Jews have died because of this infamous forgery." -- Rabbi Joseph Teluskin

So, this is the propaganda that is always used when you want to get rid of people, "Sure they sound good in public, but in their secret meetings, they outline their evil plan."

I want to stress how bad al-Qa'ida has been for the world's Muslims, and how much harm its existence has done to them. As a terrorist organization, it is good at acheiving its own goals, but those have nothing to do with helping Joe (or Mohammed) in the street Muslim. They are mainly about:

1. Acheiving Political power for Bin Laden and company.

2. Scoring propaganda points to that end.

Any help to ordinary Muslims is merely a coincidental by product to these two ends. Do you think Bin Laden didn't know what would happen when his organization attacked the United States?

No Shi'ite can support al-Qa'ida because it would force them to change their religion, and the Shi'ites believe just as strongly as the supporters of al-Qa'ida. Why do you think that the U. S. is turning Iraq into a defacto Shi'ite state? Ironically, during the cold war, it was the Shi'ites who were considered the threat due to the loss of Iran, which is why U. S. (which created al-Qa'ida, I'll note, as a force to use against Soviet Russia in Afghanistan) supported Saddam Hussein for all those years.

Isn't this why we have the 2-letter country code top-level domains? Germany runs the name services for .dk , the US runs the name services for .us, etc. Countries who aren't capable of running their own TLDs can hire somebody else to do it (The TLD for Thailand was run by igc.org until 1999 or so).

And with IPV6 there are plenty of IP addresses to go around, but the protocol lacks support.

But still, somewhere in there, you would need some central authority to setup new TLDs--- does East Timor get it's own 2-letter country code or not? Does China need to recognize a code for Taiwan? Are there root servers to handle all of the TLDs, or should this be deferred to each country?

The .com, .org, .gov was a second, different idea that took off in the US. And since US customers dominated the Internet in the early days, the .com/.org/.gov idea stuck.

As for his claim of buying and selling links - a quick search on Google for "buy links" verifies that is very true. Sites such as LinkAdage act as EBay-style auctions for links on sites of various pagerank, various Free-For-All sites allow you to post your links for free for a certain period of time and of course Blog-spamming.

Google says they often identify these "link farms" and drop you from search results if you appear in one. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's a big risk to take.

-Voma
--
Volunteer and Non-profit jobs:
www.igc.org/jobs.html

The West has always been on the forefront of human rights and worker's rights. Ditto for the environment.

Check out the last study by the Silicon Valley Toxics coalition. The study evaluates each computer companies' commitment to the environment. The top-ranked companies were all companies based in Western countries (e.g. Japan and the USA) and run on Western principles.

In the study, Dell received a failing grade. That Dell is finally cleaning up its act is good news.

Note that all the Korean and Chinese (including Taiwanese and Hong Kong) companies received failing grades. Interestingly, Korean and Chinese clothing factories in South America and Southeast Asia are notorious for abusing garment workers. Abuse includes beatings and rape.

The companies that treat garment workers best are American and Japanese.

If you hate the state of world affairs, join me in writing the following on the November ballot.

president: Bill O'Reilly
vice-president: Tammy Bruce

And because we burn pure hydrocarbon compounds in our power plants.

While coal is definitely the worst, petroleum plants in general produce all sorts of shit in our air. Check it

One big reason for this is because ethanol needs to be very pure for combustion, the main thing being that it can't have any other liquids like water in it.

Not true. Ethanol only needs to be pure when mixed with gasoline. I believe you can burn wet ethanol (mixture of 90% alcohol/10% water) in most flex fuel cars without modification. In fact, we used to burn a 180 proof mixture in our cars and trucks on our farm in the late 70's with minor modifications.

What part of the economy can we be competitive in with the current trade agreements. We have a 500 ***billion*** trade deficit right now!!!!!!

The problem with NAFTA and the WTO is that we gave away the farm. We didn't insist that other countries rise to our level (i.e., with labor standards, environmental standards, etc.) and as a result, we're grossly mismatched. You can't expect any part of our economy to compete with another country that doesn't have similar regulation. Just not going to happen.

As a matter of principle you did insist on a rise in environmental standards with NAFTA. Hence the formation of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation.

However in reality, NAFTA has worked as a tool for lowering of environmental standards, in all countries involved, due to the way it allows big business to sue governments for protecting the environment & health of its citizens. See: Billion Dollar NAFTA Challenge To California MTBE Ban, Canada's First Province-Wide Ban of Cosmetic Pesticides Threatened Under NAFTA, and Metalclad vs. Mexico: The Toxicity of NAFTA's Ruling.

On the other hand, sometimes governments do steal property from businesses, or intimidate them, and it's not necessarily a good thing. Cronyism and corrupt officials exist everywhere, at all levels (not just the rich), so NAFTA's mechanisms are not entirely without merit.

The danger to workers in the USA isn't unfair trade relationships with other countries. It's inappropriate relationships with wealth and power in your own country. Next time you notice a huge trade or budget deficit, at any level, ask yourself this: if every government in the world is in debt at the same time (and that is possible), who do they owe it to? What does that mean in terms of power and influence? And is that good for workers?

Corporations, a legal fiction created a century ago to facilitate American capitalism, have become first class citizens in America, relegating humans to second class citizens. Corporations have the rights of humans, specifically property, but without the liabilities. They can't be arrested, incarcerated, or face criminal corrections. If convicted of an offense, they can be fined, and restrained from certain specific acts. But it turns out that they can be executed. Revoking a corporation's charter, granted at incorporation by one of the several states, effectively cuts out the heart of the corporate entity. Corporate malfeasance was forseen as a risk when invented by the 19th century government, and mitigated by this recourse. But it requires citizens to protect ourselves, and to organize to use our state attorneys general to protect us. Corporations are not sacred; there should be more of them on Death Row than are humans.

Gee, the EU took someone into their fold for money? Who would have thunk it?
I've read ESA's press release several times now, and while I came across references to "international cooperation", "common interest" and the like, no reference was made at all to money. You're probably just overly focussed on the subject because of its closeness to home.

People can bitch about Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, etc. all they want, but they pale in comparison the magnitude of what China did in simply the last 3 decades.
If we were only to deal with countries with impeccable human rights records, we'd all sit alone in our rooms. Or are you suggesting that China's worse than the rest, so it's okay to deal with (for example) the right-wing tyrranies that the US has been propping up for those self-same decades because they're not as bad as China?

Your problem (and that of a lot of others here) is that you think your way is the only way of doing things. Bill Clinton's policy on North Korea was working quite well until Bush's asinine "axis of evil" speech, which turned the DPRK from a country heading towards normalisation back into a paranoid rogue state. How does China's record over the past five years compare with the previous fifteen? And how much of that improvement is down to US posturing, and how much to increased contact with the rest of the world?

I live in Dublin, Ireland, and it's slowly becoming a cosmopolitan city, home at the moment to Chinese people that number in their thousands. Would the world be better off if we told these people to fuck off, that their evil communist leaders were such bastards that we weren't going to let them into the country until it was a Shining Beacon of Democracy?

Oh, and to everyone who's fond of mentioning the Marshall plan: here's your chance to get your money back. Gradually phase out GPS and use Gailileo instead. In the long run, you'll save billions.

> There is no doubt in my mind that the
> worst pillages of nature have all been
> initiated in the minds and by the greed
> of the western capitalist system,

Hm. You might find the destruction of Lake Baikal and other environmental disasters under Communism to be interesting data points.

Terrorism is really a path to world socalism and a world government - in the same vein as the UN. Every time an "terrorist threat" appears, there is always a call for money. Money from the government. Also, each new claim comes with associated calls for limits to our freedoms.

It's easy for (some of you) Americans to shout "socialism!" everytime there is something you don't like, isn't there?

i hunt and fish, and love the outdoors as much as anyone. but, i think capitalism and freedom are far more important. do you really want the corrupt third world dictators telling the US how to run its economy?

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty damned sure I DON'T want the US telling the world what to do. I mean, how can the US sit and pontificate when their Congress" is corrupt? Or how about profiteering from a war which the US started preemtively and unilaterally on "humanitarian" grounds? Or actively supports terrorists" and backs dictatorial regimes when they are in the apparent best interest of the US? Or the best interests of certain member's of government?

Do I really want the corrupt nuclear supperpower to be telling the world how to run their affairs? No. And you should be worried too. The US is becoming the Land of the Progressively Less Free.

(I apologize for this being off-topic. When someone spouts off like this person did, I feel a need to respond. As for the current war in Iraq and the soldiers on the ground there: I support you and hope you come back safely. I do not support the government who sent you, or the reasons they give for doing so.)

Alot of the Slashdot Libertarians will post their negative views on unions (And I agree with some of those negative points), so I'll post a positive view.

I'm actually amazed that IT wokers don't organize. IT workers are willing to bend over backwards for their bosses: 15 hour work days, no weekends, cancelling vacations, endless workloads, changing goals. You would rarely see this in a union shop.

I used to work at one of the only unionized IT shops in the US: www.igc.org (Some of you may remember IGC from the early-web days. We provided usenet, web, and mailinglist services to nonprofits and NGOs). I served as a union rep for 1 year.

After 2.5 years in a union shop and 2 years at a non-union-shop, I prefer the Union. Here's why:

- At the union, we all worked 40 hours a week, sometimes more to meet the deadlines. I rarely worked weekends. We got more pay for pager duty.

- Most union members get Wage pay vs Salary (but this isn't specific to the union). More then 40 hours = overtime pay. This financial incentive encourages management to hire enough staff. With Salary pay, it doesn't matter if you work 70 hours vs 40 hours, you get paid the same. Management has a financial incentive to squeeze you for as much time as they can get

- At the dotcom, I worked 50-70 hours a week. Refusing the work was not an option. Even though I made 20% more money at the dotcom job, I made LESS PER HOUR then at the Union.

- Equitable pay rates. None of this "John and Jane both do the same job and have the same experience, but John makes $30K more then Jane because he was hired during the dotcom boom" bullshit.

- You can still get more pay with more experience

- You can still get bonuses based on merit and goals.

- You can have a Union rep on the board of directors/management team/leadership circle . None of this "Managment is switching all of your tasks. You need to have project Y done by next week! Now get going!" crap that I see in typical businesses.

- The union reps have special legal protections in most states. A union rep can go to the head of the company, and say that their plan is doomed to failure. In a typical business, you might get fired or disciplined for 'subordination'. That can't happen to you if you are a union rep (In most US States).

- We had monthly union meetings to make sure that our shop was on track

- Union reps were elected in a fair, anonymous, democratic process

Note: Most of the above points can occur in any business. But it's rare unless the workers organize.

At the same time, none of the above issues are mandatory to a union. It's your union, and your membership can decide what it wants to do. You can be as strict or as flexible as you want.

In 1 AD, there were about 150 million humans worldwide (Source), and according to Columbia University there were ~6B people in 1995 (a growth factor or 40).

As best as I can figure, that means we are 40 times more likely NOW that someone on the planet will develop a significant new gene mutation than we were at the birth of Christ (give or take 15 years, but that's another story entirely). I wonder what the factor is if we had an idea of the population in 198,000 B.C. I couldn't find a source.

At any rate, I guess my point, or question, is this; Given that it's 40 times more likely that someone will have experienced a significant gene mutation today than in 1 A.D., and the factor probably goes up a tremendous amount given the population difference between 198,000 B.C. and the birth of Christ, isn't it possible (maybe even likely) that just ONE of the people in this world who claim Extra Sensory Abilities might actually be telling the truth?

Now OTOH (On The Other Hand), it's also JUST as likely that some mutation will come along which will wipe out these beneficial mutations, but those mutations won't spread like beneficial ones.

This also leads me to a question: How did the first person with the ability to speak spread the gene? It's not like they had anyone to TALK to. I'm guessing the first person to speak was a man. Here's why:

Man Speaks First:
Man: "Hey baby, you want to come back to my cave and check out my wall paintings?"
Woman: "Grunt"
(Man and Woman go back to cave, presumably check out wall paintings, have children...)

Woman Speaks First:
Man: "Grunt"
Woman: "Buzz off, loser. You don't have a fast enough rock." (Man goes off and kills deer)

Just my humble opinion.

I live near Takoma Park, MD, which voted itself a Nuclear Free Zone about 15 years ago. The ordinance prohibits the city from purchasing anything from companies "knowingly or intentionally engaged" in nuclear weapons production. To my knowledge, there have only been two waivers in the 15 year period (try finding a company that makes streetlights that isn't involved in nukes!), and the residents of the town consider it generally a success, even if the police department had to drive Chryslers (eewwww!).

Of course, this is not your most conservative-leaning electorate - I think the #2 registered party is the Greens (after the Democrats) - so keeping the political goodwill to enforce a choice like this was easy. Of course, Snohomish or King County may be a different matter entirely.

Did we have no right to stop nazi germany from killing millions of jews?

Ask any nazi and they'll tell you that you had no right whatsoever and that they, the old nazis, were right. What makes you think you are truly right? Can't you stand it when other people hold an opposing view?

Pardon? We are in this for the money? Those 5000 people that died is just some opportunity for us? Do you realize how much money we are spending everyday being over there?

When did you last read your country's foreign policy for the middle east? 10% of the oil consumption in the U.S. comes from the Persian Gulf, and the U.S. spends between $30 and $60 billion each year on their military presence to ensure that that oil keeps flowing the right way. See e.g. http://www.igc.org/infocus/. The bombs that the US is dropping are cheap in comparison.

There is no explicit mention of the word "privacy" in the constituion. The closest thing is in the 4th Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure.

With the current tapping abilities, both legal and illegal , it looks like soon, if not already, warrants will be unnecessary for law enforcement to peruse all of your communications. Also, remember that your cell phone has a GPS chip in it, so you are carrying a "leaky" communications device with a tracking chip built into it.

Unreasonable search is what we're talking about here. If the government decides to allow tapping into 100% of my communications, even though I'm not conversin with people about illegal activities, I want to make sure that I have the right to avoid plaintext and keep what I talk about unavailable if I so choose.

This is my right. It is being trampled.

Did you notice that the cell phone calls that have been reported throughout this whole ordeal were recorded and traced? Doesn't that frighten you in the least? Don't you feel you have the right as an American to some modicum of privacy?

"During the meeting, factory management confirmed the use of Indonesian (Marinir) soldiers in the factory; workers reported the deployment of several dozen more troops nearby the factory gate." [troops deployed to halt contract negotiations]

"Indonesia has maintained a 'security approach' to labor relations, keeping the military on strike-breaking duty in defiance of a 1994 agreement with then-U.S. trade representative Mickey Kantor. With that pledge, Indonesia was able to keep the prized special tariff treatment of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). But since 1994 Indonesia has made a mockery of its promises, pushing striking workers back into factories at bayonet point and jailing independent union activists."

One more for you:

"For decades, Indonesia's economy achieved dramatic growth. Economists measure growth by such standards as the gross domestic product. It is true that recent decades saw a rapid industrialization in Indonesia. For maybe 200 families, many of whom became multi-billionaires, there also was a rapid growth in wealth. For the great majority of Indonesians, however, this has been a period of immeasurable pain. By design and by default, the agricultural foundation of Indonesia's economy has collapsed, causing millions of peasants to leave the land and to head for the cities, where they became a desperate army of the unemployed, lined up outside the sweatshop hiring gates."

What you're saying is tantamount to saying, "don't blame the slave traders, blame the African governments who sold their people." Such ignorance never fails to astound me.

-Legion

Are there any fusion protest groups yet?

Against the National Ignition Facility

"Friends of the Earth" Europe say: "The commercial use of nuclear fusion is pure fantasy. Already 25 years ago the same people had predicted that in 50 years fusion would be a viable energy resource, but it seems like we are always 50 years away from fusion becoming economic. The European Council has to stop this waste of millions of taxpayers money."

Green groups say Fusion is a Scam

"Friends" of the Earth wants to "Terminate existing tokamak reactors, cancel construction of the similar spherical torus reactor, and adhere to a withdrawal from the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) program."

Sierra Club The dangers posed by the probable releases of tritium used by fusion plants, the problems with decommissioning these plants, and their high costs lead the Sierra Club to believe that the development of fusion reactors to generate electricity should not be pursued at this time.

While it hasn't happened in ages, it is entirely possible for a corporation to have its charter revoked. Activists have been trying to get California to do this to Unocal for the past few years,

No changes in law are needed, only a change in the attitude of the people and the state toward corporate criminals.

Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/

I've been trying to find numbers about the relative radioactivity of uranium fuel rods before and after use. The only number I could find in my intensive 15 minutes of research (;-) is that the spent rods are "millions of times more radioactive" than fresh fuel. That site didn't sound terribly reliable from a scientific point of view, but if spent fuel is at all more radioactive than fresh fuel, you couldn't put it back in the same place without raising the levels there. Maybe someone who knows what the numbers really are can chip in here.

Yes, why don't they?

Because there isn't a safe and economical way to reduce its radioactivity to background levels, and people living near proposed burial sites of highly radioactive waste are naturally sceptical of the ability to contain it for several thousand years. There's also a tremendous lack of trust (see this site, for example) of the parties responsible for disposing of the waste. Do you believe that the corporations and bureaucrats disposing of waste wouldn't cheat if they thought they could get away with it?

please donate money to PBS

1. Pacifica Radio. Still good, even with all the current problems. Be sure to listen to Democracy Now! with your RealAudio player.
2. Radio for Peace International Free Speech non-commercial shortwave station broadcasting from Costa Rica
3. Public Access Television. NOT affiliated with PBS. On your local cable network. Watch it, and support it by taking the classes and MAKE YOUR OWN SHOW!
4. Deep Dish TV. Available on Public Access and on some Satellite networks.
5. Free Speech TV. Available on Public Access and on some Satellite networks.
6. Paper Tiger TV. Available on Public Access and on some Satellite networks.

Online I've found at best a casual mention of IBM's foreign labour practices.
On a related note, but cursory to my original post are some troublesome studies on miscarriage at hightech factories in Silicon Valley. (IBM is mentioned)

It's possible that the slashcode based nologo website I discovered as result of this search will have more information as it develops it's content.

Now that we have cloning (or are about to, in any event), it's clear that we need to remove some redundancy from the human species by abolishing gender. No longer is it necessary to have two separate beings for the purposes of propagating the species, so it's safe to do away with the separation between the sexes.

I don't advocate abolishing only men, and I don't advocate abolishing only women. We should abolish both, in one fell swoop.

Andrea Dworkin describes such a utopian future future of the "androgynous community" where the perceived "deviance" of sexualities disappear and we're all free to become what we already feel we are but repress. So many of the problems our society faces are because of these artificial attributes we assign to gender (which itself is completely artificial), but it's always been hard to get rid of gender before; the presence of biological "sexes" always breathed life into the outmoded and pernicious fact of gender.

Now that we can get rid of sexes altogether, we can finally slay the vile gender beast and realize Andrea Dworkin's vision. I'm tingling in anticipation.

Global Warming Is Here: The Scientific Evidence

Rumbles in the Arctic - strange new events, never seen before in the Arctic, are terrifying the locals

Scientists Now Acknowledge Role of Humans in Climate Change - yes, it's not just happening coincidentally

Hopefully, we can get a sensible discussion going here?

Stop Prisoner Rape has more information along the lines of what you're looking for. I don't think you'll find it as pleasing as you hope, though.

-1, Offtopic and bang goes some Karma, never to be recovered, but prisoner rape is less funny than you might imagine.
--

State Electoral Commissions oversee (in some places) County State Electoral Commissions oversee (in some places) Municipal Electoral Commissions. Voting technology can be specified at any level & are most often left to the local areas.

Results are generally tabulated & reported via telephone calls by designated offficials to specified telephone numbers using pre-agreed-upon passwords to identify themselves with call-backs to confirm authenticity. This also varies widely with computer-based systems becoming more common but the call/password/call-back is cheap, established & reliable.

The Press & Campaigns are notified via two methods - either they'll have a person on site at the Election Commission Office or they'll also use the call-in method using passwords.

Furthermore as most should know by now (it's a standard news story that gets dusted off & rerun every year) a vote for US President doesn't actually mean a vote-for-the-president. Instead there's an Electoral College making sure your Vader2000 write-ins don't go anywhere. Finally not all places use Simple Majority for local elections, for example Cambridge, Mass. uses Proportional Representation for it's local candidates.

I thought it was an intelligent post that brought up a very valid point. The representative system, like any system, was a product of its time, and it was subject to environmental constraints. It was the only feasible way that people from Maine, New York, Georgia, etc. could have their views represented in a Congress that would eventually meet in Washington, D.C. It served its purpose well, but it is obsolete now, and it has been for quite some time.

At the time it was created, there was no Internet, no radio, no telephone, no telegraph. These developments changed the very face of the world -- but Congress remains basically the same. And it is dangerously outmoded.

Our communities are much larger and much more diverse. People living in Boston or Baltimore have much more in common with each other than they do with people living in the rural areas near those cities. Large groups of people have no voice in Congress at all due to our "winner takes all" voting system and the ruthless gerrymandering of political districts, which favors certain minorities while necessarily excluding others. The notion of representation by "districts" and "states" is increasingly meaningless in today's connected world. I personally don't think that representation based on geography has much place anymore.

Most democracies throughout the world use a proportional-representation system. In this system, 60% of the votes win 60% of the seats in any given district and 40% of the votes win 40% of the seats. In our antiquated system, 60% of the votes win 100% of the seats and the 40% minority is completely disenfranchised. There is an organization that is trying to promote the adoption of this system in the U.S. See this site for more information.

Of course, even this system is fairly old (100-150 years IIRC). Now that we have the Internet (and for non-netizens, toll-free numbers), we could do much better, by integrating Internet-based voting with some form of proportional representation. The mechanics of this are another discussion entirely, but doing something like this would improve voter participation dramatically. Voter turnouts are at an all-time low, and getting worse. People know the system doesn't work, so they don't participate.

By the way, regarding the threat of a "tyranny of the majority" -- the judicial branch of government was established for the express purpose of checking the power of the other two branches, for this very reason. There is no reason to believe that it wouldn't be able to do so if the legislative branch were reworked.

- Firedog

As for third parties, it's really another dynamic--the fact that voting your third-party favorite ends up helping the guy you hate the most. This can be fixed with instant runoff voting: You pick your first choice, second, third, etc. Count up all the first-choice votes. If no one gets over 50%, eliminate the candidate with the least, take all the people who voted for him as first-choice, and count their second-choice votes. Continue until one candidate has over 50%.

This way if, say, you like Keyes and hate Gore, you can vote for Keyes first, Bush second, and Gore last. You don't abandon your first choice just because the media says he can't win, but if he doesn't win it's just like you voted for Bush.

For you lefties:IGC - a great place to find yourself a few causes.

For everyone, I think... Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

Also check out Plugged In for a look at a 'drop in center' for inner city youth in East Palo Alto. I'd really like to start something like this up in my own town. Just need more time/money/cajones.

-hc-

First off, best of luck to you. I honestly hope you are succeed where so many have failed but I cannot resist some loaded questions.

Some groups believe that the lack of issue focus in American politics is the direct result of the structure of the electoral system in the United States. In other words, a electoral system demanding a majority causes bland, middle of the road politics and elections. In this view, the secret to electoral success is not offending people and mouthing popular ideas; not taking a stand on issues.

Do you believe this is true? Why or why not?

If you believe this is so, how do intend to overcome the structural resistance against issue based politics?

Do you believe most Americans vote for a canidate or against a canidate? Why?

If you believe most people vote against a particular canidate, who do think will dare take a stand as you are suggesting?

Do you see your cause as appealing to mostly "third party canidates" or having a wider appeal?

Official political party sites

Democratic National Committee

Democratic Socialists of America

Green Parties of North America

Labor Party

Libertarian Party

Natural Law Party

Reform Party

Republican National Committee

Socialist Party USA

Workers Party

Official candidate sites

Gary Bauer

Bill Bradley

Pat Buchanan

George W. Bush

Steve Forbes

Al Gore

Orrin Hatch

Alan Keyes

John McCain

Donald Trump

Fine...your troll worked.

Let's take a look at some typical feminist quotes

Why are over half of your "typical feminist quotes" from the same person? Are there only 3 "typical feminists" in the country.

Oh, and I can play your game too:
"It is shamefully easy for us to enjoy our own fantasies of biological omnipotence while despising men for enjoying the reality of theirs. And it is dangerous--because
genocide begins, however improbably, in the conviction that classes of biological distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination." -- Andrea Dworkin, Biological Superiority: The World's Most Dangerous and Deadly Idea, 1977

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. To be honest, I have no idea who Andrea Dworkin is, but it took me all of five minutes to find something supporting a view I hold. Hell, I could probably quote Phyllis Shlafly in order to support my view.
I hope this sheds some light on the folly of using out of context quotes to support your view.

--GnrcMan--

Yes but do we need these things to be publicly funded? Often highly inefficient IMVAO

Hell yes! Are you seriously suggesting privately funded education? ("Welcome to MSClassroom 1.0, I'm your teacher Mrs. Vendu. Please take your seats. crrreeeeeaaaakk... Seats and desks all collapse, maiming most of the 200-student class)

In all seriousness, there are some things that private interests should not be allowed to do; education is definitely one of them. It's bad enough as it is. See also here and here for a few more examples.

I don't know about money for highways, but I do like to be able to use public transit (relatively) cheaply. Both of these, however, pale in comparison to the importance of keeping advertising out of education. Is anyone else thinking of Huxley's Brave New World here?

Steve 'Nephtes' Freeland | Okay, so maybe I'm a tiny itty