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Obama Significantly Revises Technology Positions
method9455 writes "Barack Obama has edited his official website on many issues, including a huge revision on the technology page. Strangely it seems net neutrality is no longer as important as it was a few months ago, and the swaths of detail have been removed and replaced with fairly vague rhetoric. Many technologists were alarmed with the choice of Joe Biden before, and now it appears their fears might have been well founded." Update: 09/22 18:07 GMT by T : Julian Sanchez of Ars Technica passed on a statement from an Obama campaign representative who points out that the changes in wording highlighted by Versionista aren't the whole story, and that more Obama tech-plan details are now available in a PDF, saying "there is absolutely no substantive change to our policy - folks who want more information can click to get our full plan."
When are people going to learn to assess politicians and parties on their actions, rather than their promises? Those that might have really introduced change have already been weeded out. Vote for the puppet of your choice, folks.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
This is exactly what I wanted.
It has worked out so well before. Another white house run by a strong VP, taking advantage of the President's inexperience.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
The technology stance is important, but there are a lot of substantially more important issues on the table right now.
We're looking at the candidate who has spoken for and stood for change and integrity from before his political career started, and the candidate who has resorted to making bald faced, demonstrably false and misleading lies that in a non-political context would be grounds for a successful slander/libel suit.
When considering technology specifically, your choices are Obama, who at least understands technology well enough to have created a successful social networking style community site, and McCain who admits he barely even knows how to turn his computer on. If you're voting technology, Obama is the clear superior choice to McCain.
I know, 3rd party candidate and all that. I'm a supporter of breaking the 2-party system we have here in the US because I think it really hurts us; but to be completely honest, in this election it is down to two candidates.
It is extremely unlikely that a 3rd party candidate will successfully run for president until there are a fair share of 3rd party candidates in congress who can prove their chops in a way that makes the lot of them look less crazy (some 3rd party candidates look that way, it gives the better ones a bad name). If you support this ideal, trying to support it top-down isn't the way to get it to happen, it's got to be bottom up - local, state, and federal officials.
In the mean time, support a candidate who has the ability and perspicacity to restore our good will with the rest of the world. The way the economy is going right now, in 2 or 4 years, net neutrality is going to be a lot less important than food on the table and whether or not our troops are committing war crimes abroad, and whether or not our government is committing anti-constitutional crimes domestically.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
When McCain chose Palin, he basically wrote off the urban and more educated voters to focus on the what has become the Republican base: rural and less educated voters.
The revisions to Obama's technology page are less about shifting policy and more about recognizing that, thanks to McCain's choice of Palin, this election is going come down to the rural and less educated voters.
Detailed technology policy isn't going to win over rural and less educated voters. To appeal to those demographics, Obama has to keep it broad and simple.
They're all rich white men
You mean, except the one black guy, right?
It is called meta-color.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Politician changes mind, big whoop.
I think what is really frustrating is the whole "Change" banner being waved by both parties. Change what exactly? Details please. Both have said "I'm going to fix the economy." Well, let's see the plan on paper and then let the folks chose which is better. Change for the sake of change isn't good nor smart.
The bottom line for most folks will (should) be who they believe will pull or put money in their pocket. No one feeds my family but me. So if you tell me to pay more taxes, I'll tell you to get bent. Call it selfish, and I'm sorry for being harsh, but you don't pay my bills.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Actually the black guy qualifies in anyone's book as a rich white guy ... Unless you're totally obsessed with skin color.
millionaire - check
ivy league educated in law - check
wife and kids - check
lives in suburbs - check
"change" - well I guess not that much change. Okay, let me revise that, no change at all.
Obama is just another lawyer. One who doesn't have a principles stance of "freedom" but "hmmm, these RIAA guys, they DO pay kinda nice".
It looks to me like they hired an editor to cut the wall of text down to size. The first huge cut under the heading "Protect the Openness of the Internet" kept the main point while eliminating a massive unnecessary explanation. Readers who are unfamiliar with net neutrality would have been turned off by the wall of text anyway. Also, notice that Versionista doesn't track when blocks of text move to different locations on the page. There are a few paragraphs that simply got moved to other sections. This is just a sensationalist headline that doesn't really belong here. It isn't a "position revision." It is an edit that takes a very lengthy page & cuts it down to a more digestible size. Yes, there's new content, and yes, there are revisions. But on the whole, it's nothing to get up in arms about.
The main page got changed, not the actual plan pdf, which is available at the bottom of the page, and is the exact same as the old page was.
It looks like they just cut down the word count for people who want to glance, and hid the details a layer under.
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/technology/Fact_Sheet_Innovation_and_Technology.pdf
no matter who gets elected president the direction the government is going is the same, the rich & powerful will continue getting more money and power while whittling away at fair use and the rights of citizens, GWB created a debt that will not be paid off for decades...
it is the nature of all governments (including ours) to usurp more power and authority at the expense of the freedoms and rights of its citizens and it is going to take a hell of a lot more than a change of presidents to fix that...
Voting= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u6lCBnRoHQ
The Big Club= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ4SSvVbhLw
Religion is Bullshit= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o
Carlin may be a comedian but his insight on these topics are on the mark
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet."
Yeah, if Harvard and the University of California count as big evil corporations. Refresh my memory, will you please, how many lobbyists work for John McCain again?
You just got troll'd!
This post is pretty much pure bullshit.
If you look at the revisions, Obama has shortened some bullet points to make them more readable.
He still lists what he supports, but he does not going into massive detail in each one of them.
For instance, his current stance on network neutrality is now (emphasis mine):
"* Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet."
Instead of:
"* # Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet. Users must be free to access content, to use applications, and to attach personal devices. They have a right to receive accurate and honest information about service plans. But these guarantees are not enough to prevent network providers from discriminating in ways that limit the freedom of expression on the Internet. Because most Americans only have a choice of only one or two broadband carriers, carriers are tempted to impose a toll charge on content and services, discriminating against websites that are unwilling to pay for equal treatment. This could create a two-tier Internet in which websites with the best relationships with network providers can get the fastest access to consumers, while all competing websites remain in a slower lane. Such a result would threaten innovation, the open tradition and architecture of the Internet, and competition among content and backbone providers. It would also threaten the equality of speech through which the Internet has begun to transform American political and cultural discourse. Barack Obama supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others. This principle will ensure that the new competitors, especially small or non-profit speakers, have the same opportunity as incumbents to innovate on the Internet and to reach large audiences. Obama will protect the Internetâ(TM)s traditional openness to innovation and creativity and ensure that it remains a platform for free speech and innovation that will benefit consumers and our democracy. "
So instead of a massive (and unreadable) paragraph, it is now a very simple bullet point saying that Obama strongly supports network neutrality. How on earth is this "downplaying" network neutrality?
have out-and-out banned the industry altogether
Seems to me there are an awful lot of bans, confiscations, laws, rules and regulations in "the land of the free".
I figure if you're dumb enough to get a loan at 25%+, you deserve to lose your money. Conversely if you're willing to lose your entire principal once in a while by making loans to people with poor/no credit, the 25%+ interest rate reflects this risk.
But will someone please think of the meth addicts?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If you look at method9455's user info, this submission is his/her only activity since registering, which is quite recently if you go by the user number (1368959). No doubt this is just another republican troll.
The view was horrible and the smell was even worse; Julie severely regretted becoming a proctologist.
Obama is just another lawyer
Could we please stop attacking lawyers just for being lawyers? Do civil rights attorneys bother you? Consumer rights attorneys? How about the lawyers who argued Brown v. Board of Education? How about Clarence Darrow (argued for the defense in the Scopes Trial)? What about John Adams (Founding Father)? What about Ray Beckerman (aka: NewYorkCountryLawyer)?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that not every lawyer is a RIAA extortionist.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Open Secrets shows Obama accepted far more money from the employees of large corporations than John McCain.
Fixed that for you.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Change what exactly? Details please
Well, for starters Obama has (from the very beginning -- read Audacity of Hope) decried the deregulation that got us into this financial mess and been in favor of restoring some of the regulations that have been gutted over the last 16 years.
Both candidates have the details of what they intend to do up on their webpages. The only thing you can do is view those details and take their history into account when deciding how much you believe them (i.e: seems odd that McCain recently embraced regulation after spending two decades opposing it). If you are looking for "details" in the stump speeches or television advertisements you are going to be pretty disappointed though.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
These are guesses, or even hopes. I agree that any of the viable candidates are going to serve the corporate interest, but there are important differences.
1. Obama will engage in diplomacy with Iran, and hopefully in covert ways with Hezbollah, Hamas, and the nationalist Iraqi forces. If you're serious about ending terrorism, you have to engage the enemy dipomatically and address the conditions that lead to it. Protip: killing more muslims with western weapons isn't helping.
2. His Administration will sweep out the Bush/Reagan Administration, while McCain would probably keep a lot of it. That's worth my vote right there.
3. Obama does not pander to Jerry Falwell or any of his imitators. It's America, so he has to recognize the religious element, but he doesn't associate with the fundamentalist nutcases.
4. Obama has shown his distaste of the Bush and Clinton Dynasties. Change is good.
Most importantly, Obama is not McCain. McCain has turned from a moderate Republican, who I would have seriously considered voting for in 2000, to a complete shill, pandering to evangelicals, touting proto-fascist military slogans, and most importantly, has shown the same inability to engage in serious self-criticism that has truly frightened the rest of the world in regards to the Bush Administration. McCain also claims to believe that the Iraq war has something to do with counterterrorism or the spread of freedom, which to any serious observer, is total fucking nonsense.
"Actually the black guy qualifies in anyone's book as a rich white guy ... Unless you're totally obsessed with skin color."
Or checklists.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
true enough, but I would prefer a world without lawyers to one with 'good' lawyers and 'bad' lawyers.
I realize we need laws but the very large majority of the lawyers is simply parasitic to society.
It should be possible to get by with far far less of them then there currently are.
MP3 Search Engine
Okay, well. He fulfills the requirements of 'blackness' for racial stereotyping, or at least he fills in the checkbox on two items on the list, for the camera.
Sarah Palin was a star Women's Basketball player. In the 70's before women's sports turned into an 'entitlements' thing.
That is being racially intolerant of his mother. Or does black plus white equal black?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Yes, but if all lawyers were good lawyers (crazy, I know), wouldn't the problem fix itself?
I think the legal profession is a bit like a priesthood, it actually thrives on obscure interpretations of language and on serious consequences of failing such interpretations. It's like an arms race, if your opponent has a lawyer then you'd better get one yourself and so on. The end result is a legal system that is well beyond the average smart persons capability to interpret.
It should have never ever gotten this far.
If you simply removed all lawyers and let the parties argue their own cases exclusively we'd see two things:
- a significant drop in caseload
- a return to reasonable verdicts instead of verdicts on technicalities
Of course it's a pipe dream (especially in criminal law) but like with most extreme positions it has a grain of truth in it somewhere and it would be nice to be able to shift the 'middle ground' to the point where lay people would stand a chance against a seasoned lawyer, and where verdicts would actually make sense to an informed outsider.
MP3 Search Engine
Okay, well. He fulfills the requirements of 'blackness' for racial stereotyping, or at least he fills in the checkbox on two items on the list, for the camera.
Er, he also fits the white guy by racial stereotyping. Is it any wonder the blacks in America have such a crappy time if people question their "blackness" as soon as they start to achieve? It's like to be black is to fail from these posts.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
Ummmmmm ... yes. Until such time as they start writing laws in a language that the average person can read and understand and so, can defend themselves. Of course it would require much clearer and more straight forward laws and rules with less chance for built in loop holes for weasels to find their way through. There is a reason they get well paid... it takes forever to learn how to wade through the self made bullshit. I don't trust any self regulating industry very much. Yeah someone will make the 'don't you trust doctors' comment. Two things: the human body is complex on its own, the doctors can't help that and aren't the ones responsible for it being complex. But I still don't like the fact that they are the only ones on disciplinary committees. There is too much tendency to 'protect your own' than in taking a guilty party to task. Lawyers on the other hand work with legislators to word our laws such that simple ideas and other things are too complex for the common man to understand. Job security.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
US law schools churn out far more lawyers than we need, yet we have a looming shortage of family physicians since the insurance companies (i.e. their employers) don't want to be bothered actually paying them. The average salary for non-ivy league lawyers is far lower than you might think, particularly if you exclude the hapless drones working at the big lawsuit factories.
We will be able to do without lawyers once we can all agree to make and abide by the rules rationally, i.e never. We COULD do with fewer lawyers which could happen but probably won't.
I'd suggest we would do better with a major reform of the health insurance industry so every doctor doesn't feel compelled to specialize in order to make their investment of time and effort to become doctors (which is far more difficult than in law) pay off.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
Eh, I just don't see a line-item veto as anything more than a power grab by the Executive. Have the balls to veto the whole bill if the riders are that bad.
If you really want to fix this problem then I'd suggest starting with gerrymandering and not the line-item veto. If Congressional races were actually competitive maybe our Congress-critters would be more responsive to the citizenry.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
10-second civics lesson for you: America has a president, not a dictator. Congress wields considerably more power. No single person, not Bush or McCain or Palin, not even Obama, has the capacity to wreck the country. Or to fix it, for that matter. Much less the entire world.
This is why America will fall. As I see it, you just turned having an ivy league education into a negative point...
And, he's a rich white guy because he's got a wife and kids? Really? Couldn't think of anything else?
No, you're right. There's absolutely no change between a white child of privilege who's father and grandfather's influences gave him his education and career, and a guy from a single family mixed race household who went to college on scholarship, earned his admittance, and finished in the top of the class.
sorry, but by the looks of it from the outside in you might as well have a dictator. Your president is ignoring the laws of his own country as though they did not exist (or at least do not apply to him), let's not even get started about the vice president.
That he has a lot of people enabling him goes without saying but it is a very serious situation nonetheless.
MP3 Search Engine
Early on, I was really quite excited about this election with an actual candidate that seemed to have values I do and wanted to make positive changes, but it looks like the rich people have gotten to Obama. Whether the changes to the website are anecdotal or not, Obama voted for telecom immunity and choose Biden for VP. I don't think I am voting for the presidential candidate this time around (will vote in the other elections), and will wait 4 more years to hope a great man does appear (with a backbone and conviction) that wants to try to run the country. Things might be bad enough then.
For you to say 'Europe's ever-leftward growing interests' means that you have no clue about European politics.
There is a very strong right wing revival in Europe in full swing as you write this and it is a source of some concern.
As they say, 'education has a left wing bias', unfortunately the US of A does not even have a left wing to speak of. Nader, maybe... Not that he stands a chance of ever getting elected.
Winner takes all is the American way, this disenfranchises a very large part of the population, coalition government is the european way and it seems to work a lot better in getting some actual representation.
MP3 Search Engine
"Ummmmmm ... yes. Until such time as they start writing laws in a language that the average person can read and understand and so, can defend themselves."
"Thou shall not murder" seems pretty clear and look what happened to that.
". Of course it would require much clearer and more straight forward laws and rules with less chance for built in loop holes for weasels to find their way through."
It's human nature to see what we can get away with. Just ask any parent.
"There is a reason they get well paid... it takes forever to learn how to wade through the self made bullshit."
Much like any technical profession.
"Lawyers on the other hand work with legislators to word our laws such that simple ideas and other things are too complex for the common man to understand."
What's complicated about the fact that some things can have subtle and shaded distinctions?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
What a troll.
The anti-lawyer rhetoric on this board is pretty ridiculous. In case you forgot, the drafters of every open source license are lawyers. Lawrence Lessig is a lawyer. Charles Nesson is a lawyer. The people representing the defendants in RIAA suits are lawyers.
Obama is just another lawyer ... who ... ha[s] a ... stance of ... "hmmm, these RIAA guys, they DO pay kinda nice."
[citation needed] buddy. This truthiness crap is ridiculous. Unless you can prove the RIAA has employed Obama, that's libel. Watch yourself bub.
I'm a right wing Republican whose endorsing John McCain but I am appalled at the way you liberals are once destroying yourselves and your candidate with your withering self doubt. We have on the right have a joke, that is, only Democrats could be so smart as to figure out a way to blow election after election and here you go again.
Can you please have some hope?
What Obama did with his web site was to basically rewrite it from the mishmash that it was into something more coherent. There is nothing substantively different about this restructuring. Obama has always been in favor of strong IP legislation, but, so what of it?
Do you really think that a man who spent his formative years arguing in favor of some form of socialism will suddenly turn his back on that?
Do you really believe that a man who has worked his entire life organizing his own liberal constituency into an election machine is suddenly going to come out looking like Reagan?
I mean, seriously, don't you think Michelle would kick his rear if he even thought of selling out?
I mean come on liberals. You are getting a guy whose is your best standard bearer for your commy liberalism in easily 40 years, if not since Roosevelt, and arguably all time. Obama knows well that which he argues and that's why on the right hate the son of a gun so much. If you are liberally inclined, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Obama is a committed idealist with the trappings of greatness about him and in spades. A minor shift in a political position or a rephrasing of a web site is not going to alter the overall thrust of this man's policy or his life.
So, don't lose faith because some staff member re-edited the web site. Obama is going to deliver for you liberals nearly everything that you believe in if he is elected. Obama is the real deal of liberalism. This is your chance. Don't f--- it up.
Now, quit whining, liberals, as you so often do, and get off your asses and vote for this guy. He's the best you'll have in your lifetime and now is the time to go for it.
This is my sig.
Exactly. Furthermore, Obama didn't say he would unconditionally accept public financing. He said he would accept it if he could come to an agreement with his opponent that it would be done in a fair way, with no loopholes being exploited. McCain refused to make such an agreement, and as I recall, McCain had already used a loophole to raise over $60 billion before Obama rejected public financing.
I don't get why people don't understand that the public financing is a sham. McCain can continue to raise all the money he wants...it just can't go directly to him. It has to go through the Republican party (as if they won't use it exactly how McCain wishes), or the state committes, or "independent" 527 groups that buy ad time on his behalf. So the only difference it makes is that donors redirect who their donations go to, and that McCain gets an $84 million bonus on top of all of that.
So please tell me in what way the public finance system is better than private financing? Everything stays the same except that the candidate gets an $84 million bonus from the taxpayers' pockets. The only way it makes any sense is if the candidates go above an beyond what the public finance system calls for in terms of restricting donations. That's what Obama tried to do, but McCain would have no part of it.
WRONG. Congress is ALLOWING him to break and ignore the laws of his own country. The GP is right. None of this would've happened if Congress didn't give him that type of power he has. Blame Congress for where we are now.
You don't understand... there's a glass ceiling of black education. If they break through that ceiling, they suddenly lose the street cred and become white. Now, if he had made his money off of music, then he'd be a hero. It all makes sense if you just ignore logic.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
If you removed all lawyers and let all parties argue their own cases, you'd immediately see a drastic shift in power to the upper class and more educated, who would actually know the law, and have time to study and interpret it. The reason we have lawyers is so that EVERYONE has an expert on the law on their side. Also there'd be a shift in power towards prosecution, since the state pretty much by definition has to have a lawyer, or at least one person who puts forward cases against a multitude of defendants.
Honestly, while I care about the candidates' views on technology, I think long-term impact will be felt far more strongly based on who they appoint to the Supreme Court ("SCOTUS"). The reason I say this is because, by-and-large, republican nominees have been more willing to clamp down on civil liberties, with special attention to interpretation of free speech. (Alas, they've all proved pretty wrong-headed when it came to Eldred v. Ashcroft, a/k/a the unfettered expansion of copyright... but that's where the difference between interpretation and legislation comes in, and, alas (for this case), the SCOTUS isn't nearly as revisionary as the fundies would have us believe.)
So, anyway, I care about McCain and Obmama's positions. But I care far more that the Court is becoming substantially unbalanced, and worry that a republican in office will have decades-long influence over most every freedom we currently take for granted.
It's not watered down or vague -- its politically expedient. "Technologist" only were only needed during the primary and he needs to appeal to both sides of the issue now.
Y'all are probably wishing you voted for a proven flip-flopper than a promising flip-flopper now.
Could we please stop attacking lawyers just for being lawyers?
Turn on any TV channel less high-brow than The History Channel (and maybe even that one; I don't watch it because I'm not that high-brow). Wait 15 minutes. You will see at least one advertisement for lawyers who want you to get rich from asbestos exposure ("even second hand!") or to get you that social security disability check that "you know you deserve". This probably accounts for 90% of the average person's contact with the legal community. Can you really blame them for thinking poorly of the profession?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I can't wait to see the discussion here on Slashdot once the government tries to subpeona the IP logs for this thread's Anonymous Coward author. After all, "Vote with a bullet" could reasonably be construed as a veiled death threat against one of the major candidates.
Somebody's gonna have a strange knockin' at the door real soon...
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
I totally agree with you, right now it is all about telling your point in the simplest way possible and making that emotional connection (hence the heavy prevalence and inclusion of Science and Math two subjects that America ranks about 23rd worldwide at 7th and 8th grade level).
End of line
Since when is quoting the Constitution trolling? If I had to wager a guess, I'd say, "when truth is worth less than opinion". Typically, that's what political news articles tend to be on Slashdot. Indeed, political posts anywhere tend to devolve into opinion-based arguments, but, for some reason, when this happens on Slashdot, I'm always a little disappointed. But then, your question was probably rhetorical.
line item VETO (if implemented correctly) would only give the executive more power, if the way laws were worded remained unchanged.
IE their could be no more submarine a good bill by loading it with crap. Granted it would technically only stop the party that didn't have the president behind them. However in congress/senate it is a negotiation IE the dems allow the repubs to stick in a rider, in exchange they know they'll get their chance next time.
By letting the (R) president veto Democrat riders, it will cause the Democrats to make sure and kill the Republican riders, before their bill gets to the Pres.
So my theory is that it should put a end to unrelated things put together in the same bill, just to be vetoed out.
Of course this doesn't work when you got a super majority in both houses, and president all aligned. Then again they can just then just pass the individual bills they want in that scenario without worrying about line items.
McCain's income is missing his wife's, which should be fair game to include. All reasonable people would consider that "household" income anyway. Good job playing games with the percentages though.
If anybody bothered to read the diff, it is obvious that the page was re-written to improve accessibility, so that more voters can understand the issues. Long paragraphs were shortened.
The original page is a huge amount of text -- 5462 words on the page. This is like "War and Peace" for a web page. The new version only has 3319 words on the page and the text has been simplified.
The average person reads around 200-250 WPM for fifth grade reading material. For technically detailed information (the earlier version of the webpage), the rate can drop to 70-80 words per minute.
The first version had a large number of technical details and was extremely long. Assuming a generous 100 WPM for non-technical readers, it would have taken nearly an hour (54 minutes) to read. The new version is much less wordy and the technical details have been simplified a bit so if we assume a faster reading speed of at least 200 WPM, it will still take most people over 15 minutes to read.
What Obama really should do is make the web page smaller still - to the 5 minutes-to-read range and then have an extended document like the original page that you can download to read over an hour or two if you want the technical details.
But it's a state issue. You'd need to lobby your state government to do it.
That would be the same state government that drew the horrible districts in the first place. Good luck with that. Especially since no state's going to want to be the first to do it, since the party currently in control of the state government would end up losing power on the national level. The only real way to accomplish something like that would to make it nationwide all at once, which would probably require a Constitutional amendment. Which would, of course, fail, since undoubtedly one of the two major parties would gain congressional seats in the first "fair" redistricting, and when it became clear which would benefit the other party would easily prevent the amendment from passing based on the short-term damage it would do to them.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Yea, because of course, we don't want to make people spend more than five minutes doing something as inconsequential as choosing who gets to be the most powerful man on the planet.
I hate printers.
Yes, Barack Obama, by mentioning arugula, has shown he is the elitist among the major party candidates.
John McCain, on the other hand, is just chock-full of mavericky goodness and simple values, and isn't elitist at all, despite the fact that he and his wife own a private jet and 8-12 homes on 8 properties (McCain says he doesn't know... it must be hard to keep track), spent $273,000 on household employees last year, and THIS JUST IN: own 13 cars. Oh, and despite McCain's claims that he has only bought American cars all his life, those cars include a Honda, a Lexus, and a Volkswagen, and also in the family is the Prius he boasted about his daughter buying just last year when he was pandering to voters with different concerns.
Oh, and Cindy McCain may have worn a $313,100 outfit on the first night of the Republican convention and said you just can't get around Arizona without a private plane, but trust the people who brought you the Iraq war: she's as down-to-Earth and "simple folk" as they come.
Those "uppity" Obamas, with their one house, on which they got a better-than-average mortgage deal (gasp!) based on Obama's senate income and book proceeds, have one car for the family. And both Obamas paid for their education with student loans, with Barack, who was raised by a single mother and his grandparents, ending up as president of the Harvard Law Review. John McCain, the son and grandson of Navy Admirals, was practically the definition of a legacy admission at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Yeah, that arugula comment really tells the whole story of who's an elitist.
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner