Slashdot Mirror
Obama Launches Change.gov
mallumax writes "Obama has launched Change.gov. According to the site 'Change.gov provides resources to better understand the transition process and the decisions being made as part of it. It also offers an opportunity to be heard about the challenges our country faces and your ideas for tackling them. The Obama Administration will reflect an essential lesson from the success of the Obama campaign: that people united around a common purpose can achieve great things.' The site is extensive and contains Obama's agenda for economy and education among many others. They first define the problem and then lay out the plan. Everything is in simple English without a trace of Washington-speak. The site also has details about the transition. According to many sources, Obama's transition efforts started months ago. The copyright for the content is held by 'Obama-Biden Transition Project, a 501c(4) organization'."
First Obama
Now you can be ignored by politicians faster and more efficiently than ever before!
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Well posting this on slashdot should ensure that their servers get a proper stress-test.
The Long Now Foundation
I know this is probably gonna get me marked down from some of Obama's more, ehm, "faithful"--and I'm not excusing anything past politicians have done, in either party, oh no--but this seems too much like propaganda. "Ministry of Change", heh.
It also seems like he's unveiling things he didn't talk about that much:
The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nationâ(TM)s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.
Mandatory community service? Great, let's send a bunch of unmotivated kids to do stupid work. Hell, that kind of shit would have been a nightmare for me at that age when I had massive social anxiety and was extremely uncomfortable in such situations.
Of course, people will come out of the woodwork to say how because it's something that people "should" do (because helping people IS nice, after all...) that Obama should MAKE you do it. Please, someone explain to me how you justify that leap.
How the hell did they get a .gov domain considering that they aren't even in power yet? And even if they were, is this the kind of stuff .gov was created for?
It has been a long time since that has happend.
This is the first installment of the government run media machine and how they will humor your requests http://www.change.gov/page/s/yourvision
"A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers." Hayek
The change.gov website specifically asks for your ideas. Why not use the opportunity to suggest to them to look into appointing such people as Lawrence Lessig or Bruce Schneier to positions where they can do good? (And of course to give your ideas on all other subjects which you care about.)
Oh my gawd now I've become one of them.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
no ipv6 connection=bullshit
I'm just happy that this administration appears to be continuing to embrace technology. It would be nice if they continued make use of the iPhone as well.
...now we'll see if we can get him to change his policy on Nuclear Power (a necessity for cleaner power), pay more attention to what the AMA has to say on insurance, convince him not to raise taxes in the middle of an economic crisis*, and plead with him to leave Griffin as head of NASA and keep him properly funded. Anything I'm missing?
While I'm being a little bit snarky, I think it's great that Obama has this outlet to let our voices be heard. I look forward to seeing if he listens. :-)
* The $250,000 bit doesn't matter. What's more concerning is when Bush's existing tax breaks expire. When Hoover raised taxes in 1932, it caused a complete economic collapse of an already precarious situation.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Shouldn't there be blogs and forums so users can actually communicate with each other and make their opinions known to each other? That would be a powerful force, as they could band together to keep Obama in line if he strays too far from his promises. The way it is set up currently, it simply is a bullhorn for Obama, while his users can "share their vision" with a recycle bin. I don't see much (yet) to get excited about. It reminds me of CNN's "talkback", which is heavily censored and filtered.
Why is it that Obama's charity can get a .gov domain, but the annualcreditreport.com isn't given creditreport.ftc.gov? I wonder how many folks have been bilked by going to a non-official credit report website due to naming and search engines?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Double-digit inflation would qualify as "change," as would Global Thermonuclear War. Change is the one thing we can count on, and promising it is like promising tomorrow's sunrise. Try promising improvement and you'll get my attention.
slashdot broke my sig
There is no "Office of the President Elect"
This information is already available at the Barack Obama campaign web-site and this updated version should just go there.
Having a .gov domain means it's a tax payer funded government web-site.
Apparently Obama's first order of business, before even being president, is changing the definition of the .gov tld, creating fake government offices and giving himself another venue to spew propaganda.
Work Safe Porn
Click the technology agenda and you get
"No suitable nodes are available to serve your request."
Nothing
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
That was a relevant fact five or more years ago. Today, the world has caught up with the Slashdot crowd.
Sad, but true.
_
Even more interesting than what is there is what is not. For example, no mention of NASA (and yes, the site is indexed on Google already).
Yikes -- That's a lot of spending on that site. He claims he's going to pay for everything with corresponding cuts and revenue increases (i.e., taxes), but I'd sure like to see as much detail put into where money was going to be saved as there is how money is going to be spent.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
as well as many others, have fought important wars with drafted soldiers
"Mandatory community service? Great, let's send a bunch of unmotivated kids to do stupid work. Hell, that kind of shit would have been a nightmare for me at that age when I had massive social anxiety and was extremely uncomfortable in such situations."
so you have a problem with the fighting forces of world war i and world war ii? where we gave 18 year olds guns and made them serve on the front lines of mayhem and death? i'm just saying, you'd better have a problem with the idea of a military draft, for the sake of intellectual honesty
although, i've heard stories of many countries with mandatory military service as nothing more than a chance to learn smoking and peel potatoes. so mandatory civil service might prove stupid... or really good, can't tell
but i do like the idea of paying off part of your student loans this way. because it serves as a carrot and a stick. if your civil service effort is poor, you would be punished by having to still pay your loans in full, for example. this at least provides motivation
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Hmm, I just went to whitehouse.gov and energy.gov, looks like a bunch of propaganda crap to me.
/sarcasm
What gave you that kind of idea?
The government is paying a good chunk of your tuition in exchange for 100 hours of community service. Sounds like a fair exchange for me.
Do you know what this program is? The government lets you to earn college credit while you are in high school. Many of my classmates were able to graduate with a bachelor degree a year before us chumps who didn't take uncle sam up on the offer.
How do you know this? Maybe it would have got you over it sooner. In fact, I wager most of the people in head start did it to get away from their high school foes and sit around people who respected smarts.
If you dont want to do it, pay full freight on your college tuition instead! Nobody is pointing a gun at your head saying "cash this government check!!"
http://www.change.gov/americaserves
Classic double-think
"When you choose to serve -- whether it's your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood....
Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.
Obama's chief of staff choice favors compulsory universal service
Obama and Hillary Call for a Draft Live on MTV
Text of H.R. 393: Universal National Service Act of 2007
Obama Calls For National Civilian Stasi
Constitution, what Constitution?
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Joe the Plumber has launched:
http://www.secureourdream.com/
Yes, sadly now that his dreams of owning a plumbing business have crashed to the ground, he decided to become a political watchdog and "take it to the streets."
Who knows what we'll be saying about him 4 years from now? A 1 year "Freedom membership" costs a mear $14.95 .
Freedom, who among us is against that?
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
He DID say - and DID run oo the platform for - "change"...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Quoting http://www.dotgov.gov/help_qualify.aspx
Registrations that qualify for a .gov domain
* U.S. Governmental departments, programs, and agencies on the federal level
* Federally recognized Indian Tribes (-NSN.gov domain)
* State governmental entities/programs
* Cities and townships represented by an elected body of officials
* Counties and parishes represented by an elected body of officials
* U.S. territories
Noteably not present:
* Incumbent presidents
* Chapter 501 C organizations (as is referenced in the copyright)
Shut up and drink your kool-ade n/t
I already liked the guy, but I'm honestly impressed by this. Any information from the government can be suspected as 'propaganda'. At least this site puts forth their agenda in an easy to navigate, plain English fashion.
As for the 'submit your own idea' functionality, I think it's a great move. Even if they ignore most/all of the suggestions, isn't that the same results as not asking for them in the first place? At worst this is a waste of time and at best it's a huge step forward in citizen understanding of and participation in government.
story summary: obama and team put up website communicating their efforts
take home message, pro obama: all the good i feel about an obama administration is taking effect
take home message, anti obama: all the bad i feel about an obama administration is taking effect
its just a communication tool folks. last i checked, communicating what you actually intend to do is never a bad thing
for those of you who don't like obama, think of it as your enemy telegraphing his punches, allowing you to prepare your rebutal, or providing a convenient record for you to accuse him of not doing what he promised to do. see? its good all around
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
How did the Obama transition team get a .gov domain name? I never heard before of a transition team having any government status. Of course they're free to meet, discuss and plan agendas, strategies and appointments, but I don't see how they have any power or official government standing until January 20, 2009 (in the afternoon).
Even the traditional briefings of the president-elect, the White House tours of the "First Lady -elect", and other inclusions in the outgoing government's operations are, AFAIK, courtesies extended by the current government to the incoming government. Extended in the interest of continuity of government, the national interest, and avoiding being thought a first-class "jerk" for dissing the incoming people. But I don't see Bush/Cheney extending that courtesy to allowing someone without government standing to register a .gov domain under the US Federal government.
But maybe that's what happened. If so, maybe getting back on track and solving our problems will be a lot faster and smoother than we expect. I hope so.
On the other hand, there does seem to be some legislation creating a "Presidential Transition Team office with official standing. But the statute cited doesn't seem to create this change.gov site, or standing to get one. Government is complicated.
--
make install -not war
but this was known if you followed right wing blogs. The idea was to pay college students $5000 if they completed 100 hours of community service. So that works out to $50 an hour. Obama may be changing his mind and skipping out on the pay and just requiring the work.
I got my currently salaried position as a developer without a degree. I'm going to be encouraging my daughter to focus on her talents early like I did so she can start on her career before she finishes college. Not many students do that. A lot of them expect to go to college for four years, never have a job prior and then get a high paying job.
I did end up getting a degree but it wasn't entirely necessary. If I felt like a requirement to get the piece of paper was too absurd I could have just passed on it and been fine. Most students can't do that.
Work Safe Porn
The www.change.com is much more interesting than Obama's site.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Unlike claims by McCain, I've never heard Obama say he was against nuclear power. At some point, he might have said he was against some specific form of power plant design or something, but never against the concept. McCain must have lept on that statement and blew it up to make it sound like Obama was against all forms of nuclear power.
In fact, I think the "no more nukes" people have become such a small base that it would be politically safe to revisit nuclear power. Do you know anybody who is really against it? Most people I know are really concerned more about how to dispose of the waste, not really concerned about the power plant itself.
But that all said, if you could develop power sources that are cheaper per megawatt then nuclear power, why bother? From what I understand, wind power is going down in price per megawatt that it is almost competitive with coal!
So when is the Ministry of Peace going to start-up the Nightwatch, ummmm, I mean Civilian Security Corps? I sure could use an extra fifty credits a month.
I know you are new to politics so I thought I would let you know. Now that you have won, you can stop campaigning for about 3 years.
Obama's future cabinets members found in DNS(?) and other Change.gov oddities:
http://www.binrev.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=39495
Come on guys! Slashdot that f**ker!
Uncle Mantis
I can only remember a few days ago when most people, even at slashdot, were excited to get a new government. Now people are beginning to complain about him already. YAY for government propaganda! It's such a shame that pravda is out of print.
"Who can say that I've been changed for the better"
-Wicked (Broadway play - the song For Good)
Change alone is not necessarily a good thing; it must be for the better.
WHOO HOO! Change! We got change! Yes we can! F___ you, boss!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families:Barack Obama and Joe Biden will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills.
In other words, to tackle a situation where production is low and consumption is high*, you tax the producers and increase consumption? Brilliant!
* - this was true 6 months ago; with the current gas prices, I'm not sure if politicians still want to rail against greedy oil companies.
But I have always liked this idea of a community service requirement. I think countries with mandatory military service have a better sense of community, shared purpose, citizenship. I mean, come on people, compared to being held upside down and shaken every year for endless taxes, this isn't much to ask.
But of course, not everyone is cut out for the military, especially the US military. So I've always thought that the military could be but one of the types of service. I only hope President Obama remembers to include military service as one type of way to serve your country.
It is funny coming from Obama though, since his campaign themes seemed to be more about what your country can do for you. But I'll give the guy a chance in his first 100 days and not be a petulant baby, as the left did to Bush, right out the gate.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
I expect the front page of this site to have the following entry boxes:
"Amount owed:" and "Amount paid"
followed by an area labeled "Change", with categories of "pennies", "nickles", "dimes", and "quarters".
It will obviously deduct 30% from your change, to distribute to those who "need" it more.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Where in the Constitution is the Government given permission to force citizens (and/or their children) to labor for it? Call it what you want, that's what it is.
A forum that citizens "talk back" to a presidential blog would be the largest community website on the planet. Could you imagine how many comments a single blog post would get? I bet a single blog post, especially if it was even slightly controversial, could easily generate thousands of comments. How would you design the UI to navigate 5,000 comments? How would you moderate it? How would you even design it? Nobody would interact on such a forum either, it would be one blog post and 5,000 direct replies. No threads, nobody talking to each other, nothing. Just 5,000 comments that all sound the same.
You can already see how this works by visiting the comments pages of any major national newspaper. Nobody reads other comments, and everybody replies directly to the article. You basically get pages of comments all talking to nobody.
Personally, I dont think it is possible to allow comments on a presidential blog. I dont even know if it would be productive. It would just be a mess.
Which "great things", other than electing Barack Obama, can the method claim? Would we be as cheerful for KarlRove.gov celebrating his no-lesser achievements?
Woo-hoo! A StraightTalk Express!
Copyrighted content under .gov-domain? Khmm... I didn't realize, Obama-supporters believe in imaginary property at all...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Obama-Biden sounds so much like... Osama Bin...
It may be "plain English" instead of "politispeak", but it's just more BS. The Economy page for instance, takes flawed and skewed statistics and asserts them as fact, then tries to create a solution based on these so-called "facts". The whole approach is laced with rhetorical fallacies built on a massive instance of the "straw man" fallacy.
I am not a McCain supporter, not an Obama supporter, and I'm discouraged that this approach will probably work for both parties.
If it is true that a country really does get the government they deserve, then I am even more discouraged.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Hey, I know where Africa is, and I can name the countries in NAFTA... and I'm running for US Senate as a Republican in 2010! :-)
We deserved to lose this last election, and its time to set aside our own bitterness over how the left wing trashed Bush, not act like kids in retaliation, and do everything we can to help Obama succeed. We can dicker over free enterprise vs the government when we all have jobs and this country is at peace.
This is my sig.
I bet it is simpler. Cost.
How much hardware would it take to fuel a blog that could generate 10,000 comments per entry?
How many people would you need to hire to maintain and moderate such a thing?
Since moderation *would* be required on such a forum (dont kid yourself either), how could you do so and still remain legal and constitutional?
Basically, allowing comments on a presidental blog is just a huge, huge can of worms. There would be no community and no organization either. It would just be miles and miles of comments that all sound exactly the same.
i would modulate your comments by saying it depends upon the situation. a draft for vietnam, for example, was incredibly stupid. you had kids dying for the sake of geopolitics. vietnam didn't threaten us. communism DID threaten us, but i hardly see the war in vietnam as a high stakes battle in the cold war. vietnam went communist anyways eventually, so there you go on the pointlessness of the military involvement, nevermind the draft
however, a draft for something like world war ii made sense, since the threat pretty much was dire to the united states. a europe consolidated under nazism or the far east consolidated under imperial japan were direct and real existential threats to the usa. such that the unmotivated, inexperienced cannon fodder of draftees was still a necessary element of that war
you could fight vietnam without a draft (to the extent military involvement was helpful or even necessary), but you couldn't fight world war ii with a volunteer-only army. its simply a matter of understanding the scale and seriousness of the nature of the conflict
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If ready.gov is legitimate, then surely change.gov is.
How can he make a proper uninformed rant if you expect him to read anything first?!?!?!
THIS.... IS.... SLASHDOT!!!
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
Should we regress to that era as well?
I already see a lot of posts about how this is a waste of time and how the government will never read the submissions and how this is a poor use of the .gov domain.
Even if all those things ARE true, isn't a webpage that encourages two-way communication between citizens and the highest level of government *LONG* overdue? Regardless of how you feel about Obama or how much you believe this website will help or how much you believe in the "change" message, I would think that slashdot readers - of all people - would agree that it's ABOUT TIME the Executive Branch implemented an idea like this.
I mean, think about it for a moment - I've been able to communicate with fantasy baseball experts, tech support workers, musicians, and videogame reviewers online for more than a decade. Yes this is the first time a president has thought to do something like this.
Regardless of how well it works, this IS a step in the right direction.
Pay Inequity Continues: For every $1.00 earned by a man, the average woman receives only 77 cents, while African American women only get 67 cents and Latinas receive only 57 cents.
Tell me at a single company that a fresh out of college $minority engineer is making less than a white male engineer. They're NOT! That is complete BS. You can say that there aren't as many $minority engineers or as many $minority doctors as there are white males on average...fine! That becomes a question of education. You can't educate people that don't want it. I live in Florida. Here, if you get a 3.0 average in high school (which is a freaking joke) you get a 75% scolorship to a Florida university. If you get a 3.5 average you get %100. If you ask me, anything less than a 3.0 you're either borderline retarded, illiterate, or don't care and just wanna sell drugs, or be a rapper, or be on welfare. So don't tell me the opportunities aren't out there for education. Don't tell me that "on average" $minority people make less...its their choice.
Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars -- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon -- on the road by 2015...
You wanna say 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars, fine. Don't say 150 miles per gallon. That means nothing on a plug-in. Tell me how many miles per gallon it gets on gas alone and tell me how many miles per kilowatt on the battery side. You can't combine these things. I could buy a Chevy Volt, plug it in, drive 20 miles without the engine ever kicking in. So, if my calculations are correct... 20 / 0 = INFINITE MILES PER GALLON!!!
, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.
Here is some more BS. We live in a global economy. If anything has hurt the American auto industry it is the retarded Joe Sixpacks our there that buy GM or Ford because its American. It let our auto makers get complacent and comfortable and look what happened. Foreign car makers are ahead of us in almost every area. People need to buy what is better. When GM or Ford's sales go down, they will need to react. They can't react if you have rednecks buying American just to say they bought American and they can't react when we have an idiot president(-elect) talking about "making sure" these cars are built here. That sounds like a bailout of the auto industry.
As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn't have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.
Repeal the Tiahrt Amendment- This would be a very bad idea go read up on why the Tiahrt Amendment exists that information should remain unavailable to the public for privacy reasons if nothing else. Also the reasons given there are incorrect at best.
Making guns in this country childproof- Safe storage is a good idea, but I have yet to see a good safe storage law.
Making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent- This is very bad.
I prefer this guy because he is better than the alternative, but I knew this was coming and it concerns me.
I could have modded you down, but I feel a point deserves to be made.
Mandatory community service?
The "mandatory" part is what you added to the idea to poison any possibility that the generally lazy citizens like yourself would get up and do something. FYI, voting is not doing something.
If there are problems with the government that you can identify and pay attention to longer than your entertainment saturated mind can handle, then I'm positive there is a special interest group out there pursuing the same kind of changes you want. Who else will change them? McCain? Obama? Paul? You.
When you get home from work, keep the tv turned off and find a cause to volunteer for. Commit 1/4 of the time you would otherwise spend consuming entertainment on giving something back to this country. I don't care what your politics are, find something that you believe in and volunteer. THAT is what makes a vibrant Republic.
Please, stop poisoning good ideas.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
If OOOObs wrote the word "change" on a napkin, the napkin would suddenly be worth $700 billion. He has renamed barackobama.com with the same content & the reality distortion field has declared its new content created in the last 4 months.
Of course, I tried e-mailing them yesterday to point out that their privacy policy looks to not match their actions (as they're linking to Google Analytics, so the cookies used to tracking people _are_ being shared with another website), and the e-mail address _on_their_privacy_ page bounced with an authentication error.
So I e-mailed postmaster@ptt.gov, and got:
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Given that he's already received a presidential briefing about our covert ops, what we *really* know about Iran, the location of the crashed UFO in Roswell and so much more, I think getting a .gov isn't such a big deal.
Dont forget he was a senator too.
Make the U.S. a Leader on Climate Change.
I dare say the US is already the leader on climate change. On a serious note though, good initiative.
"People's problem is not that they are mortal, but that they are suddenly mortal" Terry Pratchett
land of the free. where freemen understand that freedom is protected by banding together, and fighting off threats to freedom. threats that exist abroad, in battle with evil ideologies that are antagonistic to freedom, or domestically, in poor areas of the country where freedom is threatened by economic misery
you are not free if you are poor. the battle for maintaining freedom is a domestic and a foreign battle. if you think it is only a foreign battle, you do not truly understand the nature of freedom
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Thanks to the US people we didn't get that p**** P****. Our ***** would have been so full of luke warm ******.
...that this is coming from a democrat so i dont have to hear the words 'propaganda' '1984' all over slashdot.
I know this is supposedly only to be required for middle school, high school, and possibly college students: but that's not what the sentence says.
Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America... a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school
I guess this is what happens when you elect a "community organizer"!
Land of the [no longer] free, home of the slaves
Disclaimer: This is slightly offtopic
Nice to see a change in the way they're developing web pages pages (at least at a cursory glance). View source of www.usa.gov vs change.gov. Looks like he's at least getting some decent web developers behind him...I guess that's a good start.
Given they were focused like a laser beam on their economic message, I bet they thought talking about "safe nuclear power" vs "unsafe nuclear power" would be considered "off message".
I dont think he is anti-atoms (or anti-chemical, anti-GMO, etc). He is just prudent and thoughtful. If somebody came up to him with a design for a safe nuclear power plant, it would get built.
Stupid anti-atoms people... Maybe we just need to re-brand nuclear power as "Plutonium Decay Reactors" or something.
I dunno, this seems like double-talk to me:
The first sentence is contradicted by the second. When you insist on extra conditions as prerequisites to trade agreements, such as good labor and environmental standards, you necessarily increase the cost of trade to whomever you're negotiating with. Thus, the likelihood of trade is decreased. Decreasing trade is the opposite of opening up foreign markets.
This is independent of the question of whether insisting on labor and environmental standards is good.
I always mod up spelling trolls.
i have the choice to do community service or never work for free. i'm going to be forced to work for free? screw this country, i'm looking for a new home
Screw this "community service" bullshit. We need paid employees to do these kinds of things. In fact, they should hire private contractors to hire people. Then I can pay for the people to do the work, people to manage those people, a corporate structure to make a prfit off of it, and a whole set of administrative personnel on the governmental side to administer the new contracts.
As it is, I don't pay enough taxes, and am just looking for ways Obama can liberate more money from my bank account. Besides, most children these days already have an empathy for others and a well developed sense of their need to contribute positively to their community. Nearly every teenager I meet marvels at the wisdom of their elders and can't seem to get their parents to stop enticing them to play video games or text to one another all day. Having them do community service would just eat into the quality time they spend with their parents and grandparents, learning fine, small town moral values.
The 100 hours a year in college might seem a bit high - I know it does to me - but on reflection it's like adding a 1 credit class each semester (3 hrs a week for 16 weeks twice a year). Many already do this. The "jump off a bridge" answer doesn't hold much water for me, so I won't cite the several "western" nations which require (up to 2 years?) of service from every citizen. I'm not 100% on board with this, but I generally like the idea. Then again, I'm not in school anymore, so it doesn't affect me as much.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I was thinking "Running Start". I get those confused!
Thanks for the correction.
I got really excited when I saw "Health Care for All" in the sidebar, thinking "perhaps someone is finally in office who understands that standardized social medicine (which many countries in the world currently enjoy) isn't the monster the republicans make it out to be". Unfortunately, it looks like more same.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
95% of African-Americans voted for Obama.
If African-Americans did not vote on the basis of race, their percentage of support for Obama would have been 64.5%, at most. Asian and Hispanic support for Obama hovered around 64.5%. Neither Asians nor Hispanics used skin color in choosing a candidate. If 64.5% of African-Americans supported Obama, then McCain would have received 49.77% of the popular vote, and Obama would have received 49.23% of the popular vote. Obama would have lost.
Anti-white racism in the African-American community is ugly.
At this point, Afro supremacists claim that there is no racism since African-Americans typically vote for the Democratic candidates.
However, even when 2 Democratic candidates present nearly identical policies and positions, the African-Americans flock to the candidate whose skin color is black. For example, more than 90% of African-Americans supported Obama instead of Hillary Clinton even though both candidates are Democrats and both candidates presented nearly identical policies and positions.
Consider the case of North Carolina. In its Democratic primary, 91% of African-Americans voted for Obama due to the color of his skin. Check out the results of the Democratic primary in North Carolina.
By contrast, Hillary Clinton received only 7% of the African-American votes. She was handicapped by her white skin.
You will hear and read plenty of articles, written by African-Americans, defending this racist method of voting.
We should agree with them. I encourage everyone to vote on the basis of skin color. If you are White, Asian, or Hispanic, then you should always vote against the Black candidate.
Quit whining.
It is not "slavery" to be forced to participate, it is not unjust, it is not unconstitutional. You have a responsibility to participate in your country.
Yes, true, you could "choose" to live off the fat of the land and not participate in the past... but that didn't excuse your behavior.
This country only exists in the minds of the people, because they participate. If those who participate decide that everyone needs to get off their butts and do SOMETHING, then you either go with it, or you actually do something about it. Don't agree? Go read Plato, Socrates' reason for committing suicide. Read the federalist papers. Read something pertaining to civil responsibility.
My children participate in scouts and 4H, both of which require community service. As you progress to Eagle scout, those requirements grow. I am an assistant scoutmaster, as well as council member. My wife is into the women's organization in town. Easily, I would guess a large portion of americans could already justify more than 25-50 hours a year without changing anything.
Heck a 1 hour a week meeting would give you 50 hours.
meh
Senator, President Elect and still has time to be a Webmaster/Sys admin....
Is there nothing this guy cant do?
It worked on Moe...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I went to 'change.com' and sure enough - a women in her underwear! (I think it might have been a store site having a bra sale, but it was fun anyway!)
the misery of poverty is a breeding ground for ideologies which are anatagonistic to the idea offfreedom, as well as undirected threats to your freedom, such as petty crime
such that free men working to combat poverty strengthens the cause of freedom for all. common police work is one such way to stop the threats to your freedom that poverty creates. but another way to diminish this threat to your freedom is lift people out of poverty. wouldn't you call this effort as necessary to the protection of your freedom as policework?
you are not a free man if you think the need to fight for freedom is a form of slavery itself. the young fellows drafted into military service in world war ii could have framed their service as a form of compulsory slavery too. except what they were being compulsed into doing was to fight nazism and imperial japan, REAL threats to freedom, REAL forces of enslavement
so the real double-think here is from you: framing the need to fight for freedom and against enslavement as a form of slavery. this is not morally or intellectually honest of you. its just a complaint that you don't want to be bothered with maintaining your own freedom ro the freedom of your children at all. lazy
there are more forces than arms necessary in the fight for liberty. jefferson's quote above is directly applicable to nonviolent means of fighting for freedom as well. so you do not believe community service is an effort necessary to the maintenance of freedom. ok. put your alternative words forth, and let your ideas be defeated in open debate as the inferior ideas they are, and let you serve as the manure jefferson refers to
community service is an excellent idea for the maintenance of freedom. it is just that somep eople, such as you, believe no effort is required at all to maintain freedom, you're just lazy. hisotry teaches us you work to maintain freedom, or you lose it. community service is the domestic side of that effort, from domestic threats to freedom, as certainly as force of arms serves as deterrents to foreign ideological threats to freedom
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i honestly believe that the web is the key to realizing a true participatory democracy on a federal level in a country as big as the U.S. ... at least then politicians and can't plead ignorance.
Why stop there? Why just the U.S.? Why just participate in what the politicians do? Why have any politicians at all?
If you are serious about wanting real participation in governance, and you would like to get in at the beginning, the Metagovernment project needs coders for the Metascore prototype.
Christ. His economic platform is built on a false premise from the very first sentence:
This statement, in the midst of the nastiest deflationary environment since the Great Depression? The price of everything is going to be dropping for quite awhile, due simply to the fact that the money supply is being destroyed. Trying to force wages up in that sort of environment will inevitably result in high unemployment. Keep the price of oil high by similarly misguided policies and we'll get mass starvation (a major difference between the 1930's and today is that food is no longer grown where people live - it takes oil to feed people).
*Sigh*. Then:
This is how percentages work. Percentage-wise, the middle and lower classes got a much bigger tax cut, both individually and as a group. By absolute numbers, the rich (individually) did, but there's not many of them. He's playing on people's weak grasp of basic math. Percentages are what matter in this case (as in most economic ones), not absolute numbers. Both in terms of percentages and absolute numbers, the rich as a group pay WAY WAY WAY more taxes than the middle class and poor. And I say this is a member of the "middle class."
The Bush administration's "compassionate conservatism" imitated liberal social spending. Domestic spending (not even talking about the war, which is a whole different issue) ballooned under this government, with no way to pay for it. Bush helped fuck up this economy by running it like a Democrat, except with more tax cuts (and those are no good without a decrease in spending).
Misdiagnose the problem and you can't possibly come up with a working solution. The next four years are going to be rough, and we'll be paying for them for far longer.
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
True believers seek redemption from the sin of death.
. . . does Change.gov have information on my Change Camp, including locations and report no-later-than dates?
What?
Obama's embracing of the internet for communications reminds me of FDR and his fireside chats. I think its a great idea.
The copyright holder of secureourdream.com is PearlGate publishing [http://www.pearlgatepublishing.com/]. It looks like right-wing supporters of Israel/Left Behind. Kind of creepy.
I'm not a US citizen, so it doesn't really concern me, but...
scanning through the web site I mostly see a collection of electoral campaign slogans like "Problem: blablabla (Bush evil), Solution: blablabla (make world a better place)". Politician's talk everywhere---did I miss something?
I find it kind of shocking how a good portion of slashdotters don't care much for Obama. But what is more shocking, is that these same semi-intelligent people think they can predict the future. quit your shit talking, and wait 4 years until we know for certain how things are going to pan out. you're not fucking Nostradamus.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Did the former administration ever have Youtube videos on their presidential blog? Hell, did the former administration even *have* a presidential blog?
Of all we are talking about, really, we have a guy at the top who is linking to Youtube videos. How cool is that?
Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave out children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.
Oy vey
i grew up rural, and i live urban now. i shot shotguns in the swamp behind the house with my granddaddy, a mile from our nearest neighbor, at gamebird and targets. i understand the need for your own form of protection when the police are half an hour away
now, living in an urban environment, i see the other side of guns. guns are not only tools of virtue. they are frequently tools of mayhem. guns are not always in the hands of those who intend good, nor is there some magic wand which can tell who should or should not have a gun. such that in an urban environment, it makes sense to let the police be armed, and everyone else to have suppressed gun ownership, amongst common people. it simply cuts down on needless death
and, as a side issue: no, arming only the police is not a formula for fascism. in fact, it is those who appeal to visceral force, who appeal to the gun, who are more likely fodder for embryonic fascist movements, not the police. really, read your history. random guys in the country is not a protection from fascism, it is the soil in which fascism grows
back to the larger point: gon control is the approach to guns as it exists in europe. europe is mostly urban. meanwhile, the usa has mostly been rural throughout its history, but is shifting to majority urban in recent years. therefore, it is natural that attitudes towards guns will shift from a rural attitude to an urban attitude, and experience a watershed moment in the coming years against gun ownership
and its simply a rural versus urban dynamic. currently, there are people dying in urban centers for the sake of a rural legal approach to gun ownership. in the future, there will be people dying in rural areas for the sake of an urban approach to gun ownership. its the majority deciding the legal approach. and either rural, or urban folk, suffer for the benefit of the other. for those of you want to keep your guns, urban blood is on your hands. for those of you who wish to curtail guns, rural blood will be on your hands. simple as that really
personally it would be ideal if you could own a gun in the country, but not in the city. but this is nearly impossible to enforce
and finally, the second amendment referred to posses in the countryside against native americans and british and french colonial forces. its completely taken out of historical context in reference to modern gun ownership needs, really folks. i don't know why the second amendment is so depended upon as a some sort of supporter of your right to have guns. are you the minutemen? the second amendment does not support the concept you think it does
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I was told that things would automagically work out fine once a black man was elected to office. what happened?
This is more than I make in my 'regular' job.
I don't care what the United States Constipation has to say. Obama will have my vote in four years because he is going to pay for my gas, my rent, my drugs and my cigarettes. Long Live the King.
---
O that he were here to write me
down an ass! But, masters, remember that I am an
ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not
that I am an ass.
Wiki.gov thats what we really need...!
Imagine if the government could be as open as Wikipedia !
Imagine if the Congress put there bills on a Wiki, and the People! could directly edit and correct them!
Imagine... a beowulf cluster of Obamas....!
And the government would run Linux!
And the presidents speech would be available in ogg Vorbis or Theora codecs!
And CmdrTaco would be named the United States CTO
And CowboyNeal would be named head Sheriff of the CyberSpace!
Then we could use the power of Slashdot to bring down all the servers of our enemies!
Just Imagine!! Yes We Can!!
Once again it lacks specifics. Just from his fiscal part:
So who exactly is considered wealthy? Who is middle class?
They should start with social security...oh wait. Again no specifics which means whatever program they don't like they'll consider wasteful. Mentioning oil/gas gets them brownie points with Dems, but not much else.
And this means what exactly? That everyone wins a trophy even if they don't play? There already is a great tax reform plan which just so happens to be called the Fair Tax.
what is community service?
its an effort to combat the bad effects of poverty. that poverty "taxes" you, if you will, with all sorts of curtailments on your freedom, and community service is the fight against that
now you say: All "community service" represents to me is yet another tax on the poor.
so in effect you are saying that efforts to remove the taxes on the poor... is a tax on the poor. huh?
look, if you are poor, you are going to be "taxed" in a number of explicit and implicit ways on your ability to be free. a lot fo your time will be spent attempting to remain free from the bad effect of poverty. so you are already taxed, no matter what, by poverty if you are poor. you don't have the choice not to be taxed, if you are poor, from the bad effects of poverty
in this regard, a purposeful organized effort to remove poverty, commnity service, the effort to fight poverty, is, depending on your point of view:
1. not a tax at all. since your effort is at removing that which taxes you the greatest
2. the best tax on your freedoms you can choose as a poor person, since all the other taxes on your freedoms as a poor person are worse
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And I'd say "having a blog with Youtube videos" an action that matters, wouldn't you? It won't be an "action that matters" for future presidents because thanks to Obama, it will now be par for course.
And you only hum and haw over it because you've been saturated by it this campaign season. And the only reason you were is because Obama was pushing youtube videos since day one. But make no mistake, this wasn't done before.
As for high school, I'm not sure high school kids should be required to do community service, as many of them don't have cars, or already work while they're in school. Their lives are actually quite busy.
I like how it says 'Waiting for change.gov...' in the status bar in Firefox. Most accurate status message I've seen all day.
What do you think politics is besides getting your ideas accepted and implemented by the general public. GW Bush had a marketing strategy that was "If you dont agree with me, then you are my enemy". Obama's marketing is "here is a video of what I think, now you tell me whats wrong with it."
You should always vote for the best person.
People with small minds vote based on race. So do your best to put them in the minority.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
By what authority can a U.S. Senator, even one with the (ceremonial) title of President Elect (ain't over till the House of Representatives says it's over), unilaterally take control of a .gov domain name? Did someone in the current administration, who has an (admittedly realistic) view that this is inevitable, do this at the request of the new administration?
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
For one, most people have no clue how to use computers. If you were to drive government through the internet then it's safe to say it would be an elite-driven government and would leave out most lower-income families.
no, what you really have is the desire that you don't have to help the poor at all
why should you care, right?
well, poverty is the breeding ground for ideologies which are antagonistic to freedom. they also breed unorganized threats to your freedom, such as petty crime like theft and robbery
the poor who live near you, tax you, no matter what. in direct and financial ways, or in indirect, existential ways. you can choose the nature of how they tax you (government programs with explicit policies that you have control over as a citizen of a democracy), or choose to have the poor tax you with random criminal acts and ideological movements hostile to the notion of freedom
you are taxed by the poor in your world no matter what. you do not get to choose not to be taxed, because taxes on your freedom will play out in one way or another by the poor. you simply have a choice about the nature in which the poor tax you. government programs that benefit the poor and lift them out of poverty is the best form of taxation, the CHEAPEST form of taxation (financial or otherwise) before you
choose wisely
most of us understand the value of altruism, how it actually helps us out in the end, instinctively. others, like you, have to be dragged kicking and screaming to common sense
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Looks like Mossad already owns Obama (he picked Rahm Emanuel, the son of a terrorist). Obama will probably let Mossad slide on their 9/11 involvement and Obama will continue their wars. So who won? Israel did, as always.
eminent domain laws and free speech codes are valid issues, but they will never fall under the rubrick of community service, since they have nothing to do with poverty
you need to understand that helping the homeless, or anyone else who is poor, is something that benefits society, in general. it does not benefit only democrats, it does not benefit only republicans
if you need a better explanation of why that is true, go to a homeless outreach center run by one of your deeply republican and deeply socially conservative religious organizations, and ask them
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://www.mile222.com/images/obamaBlog.jpg
The most substantive change that Obama could make would be the successful promotion and adoption of electoral lotteries to replace our current travesty of democracy (and even republicanism). He won't do that, however, because it would cut him and his political friends out of the political landscape in the future. Even if he dared to try, our political Good Old Boys network would shoot him down, just as they did Dennis Kucinich when he tried to propose finally doing the ethical thing and impeaching our current treasonous executives.
Compulsory service to the state vs. the 13th amendment has already been considered by the Supreme Court and found to be constitutional.
BUTLER v. PERRY, 240 U.S. 328 (1916)
This particular case regarded a law in Florida requiring individuals to labor on the construction of roads in their area, or pay a $3/day fee.
"[The 13th amendment] introduced no novel doctrine with respect of services always treated as exceptional, and certainly was not intended to interdict enforcement of those duties which individuals owe to the state, such as services in the army, militia, on the jury, etc. The great purpose in view was liberty under the protection of effective government, not the destruction of the latter by depriving it of essential powers."
If you read the full decision, you can see that the courts looked at the legislative context from which the 13th amendment was drawn and determined that the authors of the amendment were explicitly outlawing slavery in the form that it was practiced throughout much of the country prior to the Civil War.
Basically, duties that could be reasonably considered Civic Duty are not considered "servitude" for the purposes of the 13th amendment.
SirWired
Anyone watch the news and see all the stories of the happy people who say that they are are finally on equal ground? The people saying that now they can be anything they want to be. Why they sudden change of mind? People were not thinking that way before? Those people who were thinking that because they are of a certain race (or not a different one) they are limited to do this small list of jobs are only defeating themselves. Why couldn't they think like that before the election? It is sad, truly sad. Those people were keeping themselves down and not realizing it. All the kids saying that now that can be anything even president, they always had that choice. They, like everyone else, has to work for it. Not everyone is born into huge piles of money and has everything they want handed to them.
Anybody can submit comments under any name/address. How will these (unverified) comments be interpreted? What bothers me about me about this is 500 million Chinese could help set the tone for our future.
Mandatory conscription into forced work for the State is also a breeding ground for ideologies that are antagonistic to freedom.
The idea that individuals can legitimately be forced to spend their time in service of the State against their will has historically been promoted by national-patriotic conservatives, usually for military conscription but occasionally for other reasons, and been anathema to liberals.
As Thomas Jefferson aptly noted: "In Virginia a draft was ever the most unpopular and impracticable thing that could ever be attempted. Our people, even under the monarchical government, had learned to consider it as the last of all oppressions."
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If, in a democracy as diverse as the USA, 95% of a group all have the same opinion, there is something very wrong in the system. If all those people felt united around the idea that the Republicans should not be returned to the White house you shouldn't be accusing them of racism but asking yourself "what has happened in my country that so many people feel things need to change?"
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
the need to fight against slavery and tyranny is not a form of tyranny and slavery in and of itself
if you think it is, then you are not looking to remain free or protect freedom for your children. you're simply lazy
you fight poverty, because it is a root cause of threats to your freedom. whether in odious ideologies that are antagonistic to freedom that find soldeirs in impoverished discarded people. or whether in undirected threats to your freedom: poor people robbing and stealing
you fight poverty if you care about your freedom, as certainly as you fight obious foreign ideological and military threats to your freedom
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
After the past eight years, it's like a breath of fresh air.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
If you actually go to the site [yeah, I know, this is /.], scroll down to the bottom of the page and look, you'll see a link for GSA Transition Directory. Click it.
On the next page is a link to Organizational Chart. Clicking it will download a PDF of the transitional team org chart, and guess what?
At the very top of the first page of said chart, the first entry is, THE CONSTITUTION.
I for one take that as a Good Sign®.
In short, there's hope.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
African Americans deserved an erudite and experienced leader and they got one in Barak Obama. He got a proportionally higher amount of the AA vote than did John Kerry or Bill Clinton. African Americans have been voting democratic for years well over 70% in most areas, this is nothing new. What saddens me is that the high black voter turn out brought to light some of African American's prejudices against homosexuals where the high black turnout passed 3 anti-civil rights measures regarding gay marriage. It is time now to start examining the anti-Semitic, anti-Asian, anti-Hispanic and anti-homosexual prejudices of African Americans. Rev. Jesse Jackson has always been a bigot about most of these issues, many black church leaders the same and what the black community needs now is someone who can help them with introspection because they are going to have a lot more attention paid to them with Obama as president.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
if you intend to frame the need to fight against slavery and tyranny, as a form of tyranny and slavery in and of itself, then you are not looking to remain free or protect freedom for your children. you're simply lazy: someone who is not willing to sacrifice for the sake of maintaining freedom can say the effort to maintain freedom is a form of slavery
be careful, when you work to oppose orwellian doublespeak, that your thinking not commit the same crimes you seek to disperse. the tenets of complex and multilayered concepts can be framed as seemingly contradictory statements on the surface, whether you are believing in orwellian ideas, or if you are refuting them. don't fight propaganda with more propaganda, fight propaganda with truth
and one such truth is that yes, maintaining your freedom requires effort on your part. and no, that's not a form of slavery
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
okay... basically by creating this site "Change.gov", he's saying government is faulty system and he and his minions are the only ones that can fix it...this is egotistical bullshit, sure he's going to bring change but to have a site read "change.gov" he's basically implying that he is the "Messiah" for our governing body, which we all know is again bullshit.
but i did vote for him so..... ya. I just wish he'd stop acting like he's going to bring this country out of debt... by the end of his four years he will be lucky if he can recover it 75%.
Some whiners just can't resist an attempt to bash Bush even if it's totally non sequitur. You're like a parrot who can't think of anything else to say.
Bush causes cancer. Bush made my dog die. Bush causes car accidents. Bush made it rain on my wedding day. Bush made that tornado that smashed my house. Bush caused African rebels to kill villagers. Bush caused 9-11. Bush ruined the economy -and congress had nothing to do with it(.. riiiight); Bush "lied" about Iraq, even though it was the same intelligence that indicated Saddam had WMD, that Clinton, Gore, and Kerry, all agreed with - until *after* the invasion; and so on, right down the line.
Bush is to blame for **everything** that's wrong in the world, it's just so simple a concept it requires no thought at all - a nice black and white fantasy world you can live in, where cause and effect are blurred by tainted partisanship.
This man you hate so vehemently has (had) a job to protect the country and it's people, and he's been trying to do that, but all you people do is hate and blame him for all the misfortune that's befallen the US. It's character assassination to the ludicrous extreme.
Basically, this story comes down to, do we want this kind of forced socialist policy in our country? More than just republicans or Bush supporters may have a problem with it. It's not the worst thing Obama could do of course, but it's not going to be acceptable to a lot of people - and Bush has nothing to f'n do with it.
I thought head start was a program for low income preschoolers which gave them free preschool education.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_start
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
It may not be a big deal to most people, but someone might be peeved at this:
Online Comments and Personal Information:
We treat your name, city, state, and any comments you provide as public information. We may, for example, provide compilations of your comments to national leaders and other individuals participating in our efforts, without disclosing email addresses. We may also make comments along with your city and state available to the press and public online.
So, in order to tell them what you think via this site, make sure you want it in the Public Domain, as this implies you agree to that condition to comment.
Huh. I wonder if they can do that?
Anyone know?
Compulsory licensing of all patents. All manufacturers of potentially infringing products may not be compelled to pay any more than $fixed_percentage of the sale price of said products. Plaintiffs have 90 days to file a claim against said products. Plaintiffs must divide $fixed_percentage evenly in proportion to the number of patents violated (e.g., company X claims 3 violations, company y claims 2, company X gets 60% of the selltlement).
In the event that there is no revenue (ie, Open Source software not integrated into a pruduct) the patents are thus mooted.
This might be too sweeping for some people. I would actually be happy if we simply instituted compulsory licensing for all patents related to energy. It would take the burden of litigation off entrepreneurs working in the energy space, and lay to rest the tinfoil hat conspiracies regarding Big Oil suppressing the "car that runs on water" and other such nonsense.
In any event, if any aspect of IP law cries out for reform, it's patents. They DIS-incentivize most innovators, the exact opposite of their intent.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Barack Obama and Joe Biden will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills. This relief would be a down payment on the Obama-Biden long-term plan to provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 per year in permanent tax relief.
Because it's so wrong to make "excessive...profits". Speaking of which, who defines "excessive"? Will companies now have to look at ways to reduce their incoming, so that they don't make "too much" money? /that's/ gonna help the economy in the long run. Oh, hey, by the way, who funds the permanent tax relief, since this is only a 'down payment'?
Name three examples where that happened.
Check out tsa.gov/blog for an idea of how one could work.
The problem there is that people make repeated requests for information which is ignored, along with most posts critical of TSA policies. When they are responded to, they usually recieve statements like "we think its important." with no reasoning or explaination as to why they feel that way.
I would expect the same for a presidential blog.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
All white folk are to report to the cotton fields @ 05:00 hours. Thank you for your participation.
http://change.gov/americaserves/plan
The Obama National Service Plan
NEEDS CONTENT.
The dude hired an agent within a few days of being mentioned during the campaign. That agent must be giving him some good advice. I mean, who among us could resist the temptation to parlay our 15 minutes into a nice little biz? It's called "cashing in". It's the American dream. I have absolutely no interest in even looking at his web site, but with NATIONAL EXPOSURE plenty of people will. You can't buy that kind of publicity! Talk show circuit, web site, maybe even a show of his own if he can articulate himself. If he plays his cards right, he will never have to unclog another drain.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Quite true. He didn't specify what kind of change. Caveat emptor.
there isn't a sex subdomain on this site.
Then legalize marijuana use. Make it government run and tax the hell out of it.
Now that is some serious change....
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
because its fun for me playing with plutonium. so what gives you the right to try to regulate the ownership of plutonium?
(rolls eyes)
you enjoy playing with guns. good for you. i don't enjoy thousands of unnecessary gun deaths in this country. and for that reason, i have no problem taking away your toys. deal with it, child
furthermore, i don't really have a problem with a thoughtful argument in favor of gun rights. but guess what? you're not it. and if your rationalization is the best argument for gun ownership out there, then say goodbye to your guns, because your attitude sucks
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So, in order to tell them what you think via this site, make sure you want it in the Public Domain, as this implies you agree to that condition to comment.
Huh. I wonder if they can do that?
If this site continues as part of the Government after Inauguration the Freedom of Information Act probably requires it.
i think a lot of resistance to gun onwership would go away if it was more restricted and regulated. like you said, it should be difficult to buy a gun, not as easy as buying a set of tires
but groups like the nra seem more intent on allowing free and clear access to submachine guns. for this reason, the nra seals its own doom, by playing to the fringe and extreme, rather than the rational and prudent
guns perhaps should continue to be owned, but regulated, restricted, licensed. its just common sense. and if you oppose this simple common sense concept, you're helping to lose the argument for gun ownership rights, by being an extremist idiot
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So, there isn't a blog, so you don't know if this is going to the bit bucket. You don't know if everyone else thinks you're a complete idiot, or if everyone thinks you are the savant that will save the country. My personal feeling is that this will be a "online poll taker". They will grab the ideas that is submitted by a large group, and claim it for their own. Then everyone will say how smart they are, and the circle jerk will continue.
Any great idea will only be submitted by a very few, and will be ignored.
My idea for the country, and I did submit it, is that the US Federal Government should NOT invest in any form of alternative energy (AE). Instead, it should invest in a national power grid to rival the national highway system.
The problem is that if they invest in one form of AE or another, then they embroil themselves in the business of picking winners and losers, and they come up hard against trying to justify the constitutionality of whatever they pick. They neatly sidestep both issues if they build the infrastructure that allows anyone who can develop a way to generate energy the ability to bring that energy to market. Setting loose thousands of investors with visions of striking it rich in the energy markets will do more to spurn innovation than anything a government would be able to do.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
What's wrong with some community service? It's exactly what it means: service for your community. Try taking some pride in the place you live and get outside and do something beneficial for the community and not just yourself.
I'm sure it's probably all due to my parents and friends I grew up with, but I really don't mind doing community service. I was a cubscout/boyscout and we had to do community service all the time. For my Eagle Scout project I organized a sizable landscaping project around an old-age home; we turned a bunch of overgrown bushes into something that looked really nice. It made both the old people that lived there, as well as the people that worked there, happy because it didn't feel like they were living in the slums anymore. My college years were the same way; my fraternity always logged over 365 days (yes, "days", not "hours") of community service every school year, not because "it looks good on your resume" but because it's beneficial to those around you. I never put "community service" on my job resumes or even mentioned it in job interviews.
50 hours of community service over the course of a year is hardly "forced labor". Dedicating a mere 60 minutes per week is a way of getting the youth involved with their community and help them develop a sense of pride in where they're from. It's something they can look back on and say "yes, I helped with that". Getting them involved at a young age also helps kill stereotypes like the one you're portraying (that "community service is forced labor and only something that people do get ahead in life").
Too many people in this country (and yes, I'm sure elsewhere too) have this whole mindset that the world owes them and they don't need to do anything other than bitch and complain and maybe throw some money around and someone else will take care of their problems. Quit being so cynical and lazy. Get off your ass and go do something that will help the country you live in, even if it doesn't directly benefit you.
and just in case anyone's wondering: No, I'm not a registered Democrat; yeah I voted for Obama but, like most people, I just voted for what I thought was the best of the options available. And no, I'm not some religious fanatic (or even go to church anymore for that matter) that feels the need to oppress my moral views upon others. I'm just trying to encourage people to go out and help fix some of the problems with this country and not just sit back and bitch about what's wrong with it.
"Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we can get broadband to every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation's wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives."
Is this of interest to anyone around here?
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
... so I could comment to that site. Could some Americans go to this site and PLEASE suggest 10% of the present military/black budget be reallocated to education and health care? That would be HUGE for America's problems and would barely be noticed as far as regular day-to-day military affairs went. Heck, re-assign 25%, it's not like the Empire-building is doing America any good... 75% budget should still be plenty to fund an orderly withdrawl from Iraq and to fund home-border defense.
Then again, that suggestion would probably be dangerous for Mr. Obama's health. The military-industrial complex doesn't like it when people try to reign them in.
Windfall Profits Tax for Oil Companies-
Yes the power of marxist socialism, in one fell swooop the "spread the wealth" brilliance has many facets but the most obvious, set the bar to "not exceed" a specified level of productivity. Does this result in prosperity or a temporary euphoria as checks end up in mailoxes? Too bad they wont be enough to offset the cost of Everything since its all tied to oil in some way.
Prediction- Gallon of Gas 8.25 a gallon this time next year as domestic oil companies scale back production further eroding the meager 40% we derive domestically and ultimately result in sending not just 700 billion to US hating oil nations, but 1.4 trillion by 2010.
Obama is apparently not out to only bankrupt coal, he has his sights on the blood of the economic engine oil and those who do the work, everyday americans
I can't believe all of the slams coming from right 3 days after the election. We have a President-elect with proven executive ability based on his management of the campaign (the first real test), one who seems to intellectually curious, and one who plans ahead (we can see the evidence of his prep already).
McCain lost. Deal with it.
Which would seem to exclude liberals, I know. Especially since once in power their politicians do just about everything to remove any liberties people have.
Now "liberals" are even defending the most oppresive governments and religion in the world. And still those people claim the title of the smartest.
Then again, half of the under-thirty americans can't point out the USA on the map, yet over 90% believes to be "smart". They can't all restrict their browsing to facebook, now can they ?
If this is supposed to be the preferences panel for the US Government, the RIAA and MPAA seem to have gotten in and locked the settings on the technology tab before I could get there. :(
A high school student in Ontario cannot get their diploma unless they do 40 hours of community service.
It is actually a good idea.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Just tell me where I can enter and vote for petitions...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Just asking...
Can I volunteer to support a campaign against mandatory community service? Volunteer to support a white supremacist / black-power organization? What the hell is "community service" anyway?
They've:
There's hope yet :)
-- Sig down
That's all, someone had to say it.
Anything is better then Emperor Bush.
You know, I'm not American and I didn't know said speech, but wow, is that a great one. As a father of three, I whole-heartedly agree that missing parenting is one of the greatest problems in the Western societies these days, and Cosby's observations on the consequences are spot-on. I see it in the lower social classes here in Germany, and it's sad that you can exactly tell the social status of the parents if you hear the classmates of my children speak.
I wrote several paragraphs and deleted them again, as they all basically were about how today's society needs "classic" values, and frankly that makes me feel old, but as I see my kids grow up among children who don't get any parenting (or attention) at all, I feel that it's really time to make a difference.
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
Change that would really change things would include, the government minting it's own US Notes and then spend them on building new and rebuilding old infrastructure. Income Tax has to be phased-out along with the Fed whom it feeds. Then âoedrasticallyâ cut the spending on the military-industrial complex. Ban export of high-tech component manufacture, and then raise taxes on import of high-tech, industrial machinery, etc. Close borders to illegal aliens. Raise taxes on the wealthy and especially on the corporations until they repay all the money they misappropriated from the Social Security Fund. Implement a single payer health insurance system. Switch to geothermal power and electric cars. Etc. Donâ(TM)t forget to end all wars.
Funniest post I've seen in a while; thanks.
Conservatism! Where not wanting to set civilians on fire is tantamount to defending the regimes they live under! Where moral outrage at tortures so vile that we executed people for performing them fifty years ago is enough to make one a shrill, out-of-touch dirty fucking hippie in our newer, more enlightened age!
If by half, you mean six percent. And, hell, even the fake number floating around was twenty percent, less than half of the one you pulled out of your Cheeto-stained ass. Damn.
Remember, folks, conservatism means never having to check your facts.
Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your POV we've long moved past the point where we get a few million people together, put guns in their hands, and tell them "Here! Point these at the bad guys and shoot!"
Today's military is made up almost entirely of specialists. Training specialists cost money - lots of money. The government doesn't want to waste thousands of dollars and hours on training a soldier that's going to bail at the first opportunity. That's why the current military offers so many incentives, which are just a fraction of all the other costs.
If the military could openly draft civilians for five or more years at a stretch, it probably would. Some would say it already does.
Check out this excellent book on 21st century warfare to learn more.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
But what if Obama was the best candidate in this election and the reason for his success was because of race?
Same answer. They're morons.
Doesn't matter if they did the right thing, they did it for the wrong reasons. Voting one way or another based on perceptions about race is wrong. Wrong, no matter what, period.
For example, if someone doesn't stick their hand in a fire because they think the flame is full of elves that will scorch their fingers, they've come to the right conclusion - you shouldn't put your hand in a fire - but they are still an idiot.
Vote for the best person and you cannot go wrong.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I wonder.
As slashdotters complain about people voicing their opinions on websites
Where have you been? Our dear and glorious leader Eric Raymond has redefined hacker politics, and we're now all moderate-to-neoconservative. Some of us reject left-right politics altogether, like Eric. And Dr. Breen.
If you thought there was whining aplenty about how there are no conservatives here before the election, you haven't seen anything yet. Soon enough, the vast majority of comments will be complaints modded +5 about how no one's left who's brave enough to stand up against the liberal menace, and if so, they're invariably modded down.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
But if the forum were successful, I could imagine tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of comments per post as well. You'd need one hell of a filtering system for that. You'd need one hell of a way for *visitors* to filter content too. Like I said, such a system would be a massive, massive undertaking.
is pretty much "gee, about 50 other people asked the same damn question and we already replied once, so RTFM!". Take that, and now scale it several orders of magnitude.
Imagine the inbox of "president@whitehouse.gov". Think of how many people send email asking basically the same thing. Now make it so you can do that on a webpage.
you are saying ignorance about computers means you are low-income? Bush was hardly low-income, and ignorant as hell. And just what did the tubes guy make a year? You sir, are the elitist prick.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think we sell the Civil Rights movement a little short when we forget that racism was as acceptable fifty years ago as sexism was in medieval times. No, the movement didn't end racism, but it did at least make it unfashionable; racists at least had to pretend to be interested in "law and order" or "national security" or "enforcement of immigration laws" whatever the dogwhistle is this season.
Eric Raymond describes two kinds of racism, essentially the kind where you think you're racist and the kind where you don't. Being Eric Raymond, he goes on to claim that the latter isn't racism at all, and so racism is over, but hey, it's Eric Raymond. The distinction, I think, is a useful one--what was once as common and universal as the very air is now essentially vanished from our mainstream discourse.
Racism isn't over, not by a long shot, but damn, is it ever not as bad as it used to be.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
It's not so much racism among black voters, as the racism of the Republican party. Hell, the Republicans would, if not for the racism thing, be a good pick for at least a portion of that voting bloc, as they frequently lean socially-conservative on plenty of issues. (Take Prop 8 in California, for instance.) But in attempting to appeal to their own racists--the white kind--who make up the party's base, they alienate everyone else.
Consider this: the election was heavily influenced by Latino voters, who were previously a very Republican constituency, especially in Florida. But due to the influence of Tom Tancredo, of Lou Dobbs, of Michelle Malkin, of the Minutemen and all their ilk, Latinos are now considerably more Democratic.
So, no, black people didn't vote for Obama because he was black. They voted for Obama because the other part is the party of white racists. I'm not saying that all or even most Republicans are racists, but there's one party that's made its bones by courting them, and there's one party that hasn't; it's not hard to tell which is which.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I'm the pahty-poopa, die Goovahnah of Calyfohnyah.
get this and get this once and for all. America has ONE party. The capatalist one. There IS NO CHOICE. At most you can select the flavor of capatalism but to ANYONE who has seen true socialism/captalism/liberlalism etc etc, america clearly has only ONE system. Captalism.
It is how americans work, it is the american dream. Changing that would require all americans to change the very basis of how they see their own lives. Unlikely to happen.
It is for instance important to note that the dutch VVD, a right wing party, would be considered in america to be socialist. But where does that leave the true dutch socialist party the SP?
One example often used to describe the differences between socialism and capatalism is Sweden vs America. The swedes got a system were you CAN sponge of the state to an amazing degree and the swedes on the whole see this as a GOOD thing. They are willing to pay high taxes in exchange for the service that some parts of the population can skip having a job. If you tried to explain their system to an american it would be like trying to explain the color red to a blind person.
BUT at the same time, a swede never really can understand why a system where medical insurance can cost hundreds of dollars per month might be a good idea. Why people on low income but essential jobs should have to choose between food and medicine. A swede just could not understand the mentality that this is supposed to be a good thing.
America and the EU are fundementally different. It comes down to something as simple as the work week. An american working 80 hours think he has done a good honest day work. An european who had to work 60 doing 20 hours overtime considers that something was really screwed up and perhaps he is just to incompetent to do the job in time or more people need to be hired.
Read the change.gov site, most of it sends chills down the spine of europeans. Scary right wing nutter stuff. This guy ain't a socialist, he ain't even a lefty right winger. You would have to go extremely right wing in europe to find his views reflected.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
An analogy with the authoritarian nightmares of Communist nations! You must be the first person to think of that! Quick, go patent your blazing wit before someone steals your analogy!
I know what Head Start is, but may you should look it up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_Start.
He is talking about working "community service" to work with pre-schoolers in poor communities.
BTW... s/community/military/g as a requirement to graduate college and it would be called a draft.
Maybe this would be a good time to recommend a GOOD copyright czar, since there's no way to avoid having one?
Someone from the EFF would be great, or NYCL, or...
> Exactly which part of the constitution are we deliberately misinterpreting to give the federal government the authority to do this?
(Emphasis added. Income tax was provided for in the 16th Amendment.)
I added those extra bits to rebut the other talking points you haven't yet raised. Just because you don't like that part of the Constitution doesn't mean you can ignore it or define it out of existence. Don't you hate it when liberals do that to the 2nd amendment, in order to turn it into a right that belongs to militias instead of individuals? You're doing the same thing.
Even so, Obama is trying to keep you folks happy. Go figure?
Democracy is a horrible system of government. In any but the smallest venues, it is no different from mob rule. That's why ours is a Republic.
We hire people to screw things up for us.
Here's the real bargain: we don't really need to pay these representatives. Trans-national corporations and banking interests pay them for us.
Is this new website some form of entertainment? It doesn't fit in our most excellent system.
A black man, statistically speaking, is TEN FUCKING TIMES more likely to commit a violent crime than a white man. Do we need to get into the statistics on IQ, education, and employment while we're at it?
We make assumptions about people based on suggestive rather than conclusive factors all the time. It's not an invalid form of reasoning, but a highly productive one. We could not function normally without making these kinds of decisions based on suggestive evidence. We have to make educated guesses to get through life.
Most people who meet a black man in a business suit alone on a street at night won't be afraid of being attacked. Wearing a business suit is more suggestive of social competence and non-violence than being black is suggestive of criminal desperation and violence.
Does wearing a business suit prove that you won't be violent? No. But it's a very useful hint.
Does being black prove that you will be violent? Certainly not. But there is no escaping the truth that it is a useful hint.
It's not just whites who think like this either. It's not a matter of irrational fear of differences, it's a matter of rational fear of indicators of danger. Ask urban blacks whether they're more afraid when they meet a white man or a black man alone at night. You can call it racism, but that doesn't make it wrong.
His submission form allows for uploads of photos and videos...
I feel sorry for the guy who gets to sort through the thousands of /b/tard goatse images and 2x1girlcup movies.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Step one: throw money around like it's not yours. (See also: George Bush)
Step Two: raise taxes, thinking that raising the rate means more money in the till, and no one will change their habits (like going out of business).
Step Three: With unemployment rising, inflation too, wonder why no one's paying the higher taxes, and why everyone has left the country to get it done elsewhere.
Step Four: (Which actually starts now) Find people to ruff-up. Joe the Plumber was an innocent guy asking a question- no reason not to set his metaphoric house on fire. And let's let that be an example of what anyone else can expect if they cross House Obama.
With all the "Change" talk, it's just the same old thing, with a meaner tone. Jack up the taxes, chase businesses out of the country or out of business, and don't let anything stop you from spending. He's about to appoint a woman to the economic-advisor post: she bankrupted her state. Remember these are the poeple who don't understand why Detroit Michigan is broke and miserable.
It's really not that hard. "Taxing the rich" doesn't help YOU. This 'getting even' kind of class warfare is just childish, short-sighted Democrat thinking a'la Jimmy Carter. Ever interview for a job with a single mother? Ever TAKE a job from a crack addict? Doubt it: they have no money, and as such cannot offer you a job. Only ::GASP:: "THE RICH"(TM) can do that, and we hate them.
The only thing new is that the Black Panthers might just be used to collect taxes, and we already know how painful it is to ask questions of this administration: this is how it's going to be. You voted for it.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Excuse me, but where in the constitution does it mention that office?
The Dude couldn't even wait until January.
This should really open your eyes, people.
But that was a link to a video of an Obama supporter, so make all the ad hominem attacks you want.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Per the article summary: The copyright for the content is held by 'Obama-Biden Transition Project, a 501c(4) organization'.
You can imagine my heart almost stopped when I thought I had confirmed my suspicions about the conspiracy when I read that part about "Osama Bin-Laden" but then after cleaning my glasses and reading again I realized it just Obama-Biden. Whew!! That was a close one...
Thanks,
Leabre
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants"
you MUST fight for your freedom. you are not automatically free, and nothing ever has to be done for you to remain free. freedom is a state of being which must be worked hard to maintain, not a state of being which just is
there are forces in this world which are seeking to subjugate you. always. through all human history, now, and for all time in the future. there is always, always some asshole being born somewhere who will seek through force of will to dominate you. always. and forever more
the fight for you to remain free is mandatory, it is not voluntary. for your own freedom. fight for your freedom and the freedom you enjoy in your society, and remain free on your own accord. or be a slave. simple as that
and so it is a strange sort of idiocy or propaganda on your part to confuse the mandatory fight for freedom from slavery, with slavery itself. no. completely different things. you're just lazy, and wish to exert no effort to maintain your freedom. in which case, you will be a slave
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Marx already published "The Communist Manifesto" about 150 years ago.
Obama didn't run for the Senate unopposed. His original republican opponent, Jack Ryan, had to withdraw after a sex scandal came out concerning his ex-wife Jeri Ryan (Seven of 9 from Star Trek Voyager) and how she left him because he wanted to take her to a sex club to have sex with other man. The divorce papers were unsealed and it ruined him.
The Republicans didn't have time to get a credible opponent before the election took place and at the last minute got Alan Keyes to run against Obama. Alan Keyes is well crazy. He's a super religious right wing attempted politician who takes pride in the fact that he kicked his daughter out of the apt he was paying for because she came out as a lesbian.
With opponents like that how could Obama LOSE?
What I find disturbing is how certain you are about your misstatements about Obama.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
> And yes, it is society deciding what behaviors are acceptable, through the government. However, this does not mean that it is not homophobic or bigoted... its simply bigotry that a majority of society has decided is acceptable. Its ridiculous to imply that just because the majority of society decides something is acceptable or unacceptable means that its automatically proper and correct.
With the shoe on the other foot, does that mean we can't forbid other taboo behavior? You claim that incest is forbidden because they would have deformed children. So is it okay if they're infertile or if they promise to abort any pregnancies?
You also bring up the issue of "abuse." You know what was once called "self abuse", right? What if the relationship wasn't actually abusive? Why may we forbid one sort of sexual deviancy but not another?
Because there are too many gay people to ignore?
What I am extremely curious about is the "job application" section of the website. What kind of jobs are we talking about, do you think?
Would you Like to Know More?
I've been thinking about this a little lately, and it occurs to me that perhaps "marriage" should be treated as a religious, rather than civil concept.
So the government could issue a "License of Union" but it would take a church to make it a "marriage."
I don't think it's unreasonable for a gay couple to want the same set of protections as a married heterosexual couple - inheritance, health benefits, tax benefits and implications, decisions about each other's health care, etc. But that doesn't necessarily have to be called "marriage." I understand that may be what the gay rights activists want, but you can't always get what you want.
Personally I just think people need to get over it. All the gay people I've known are just plain people, they just prefer that their partner have the same set of equipment in their pants as they do.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
Mmmm... this site breaks all the above rules that are mostly hangovers from various Clinton era executive orders and laws (Cookies, PRA and PIA).
Many US government executive branch webmasters have been wanting to break these rules/laws for years. Several press reports seem to suggest this sort of web 2.0 type interactivity will be transferred to whitehouse.gov.
So I wonder who will win, the career OMB lawyers or a new administration. Oh, boy, will this be fun to watch.
you don't need a gun to make a living
in fact, the figures you cite support gun control: it shows tons of unnecessary deaths for an entirely optional tool in life, almost as bad as something as widespread and vital as driving
so thanks
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
ScuttleMonkey,You insensitive clod. /. counts many nationalities among it's readers!
The court had absolutely no problem understanding plain English. Your problem is to take the broadest definition possible of "servitude", instead of the meaning which the authors of the amendment clearly meant to use.
If you were to read it broadly and stupidly, the 1st amendment prohibits the government from stopping the false shout of "Fire" in a crowded theater, if you want to use the classic example of permissible restrictions on "speech".
Likewise, the that broad reading of the 1st amendment prohibits laws against slander or libel, yet if you were being obstinate, those could be considered "speech" also.
It is inconceivable that shortly after the successful conclusion of a war whose victory relied on the draft the authors of the amendment would have sought to essentially ban the draft in the future. You could call compulsory military service "servitude" if you chose, but that would not be what the authors had in mind.
Likewise, without the compulsion for citizens to serve on a jury, the Constitution's promise to all of a Jury Of Your Peers is meaningless. Is forcing you to appear at the courthouse to serve on a jury under threat of jail and/or fine "slavery"?
The court was stating that some level of service for the needs of the Republic are the basic duties expected of any citizen and are considered neither slavery nor servitude. To equate basic civic duty with slavery is to cheapen the war which was fought to abolish it.
SirWired
So it struck me as strange that such a big site would be up so soon after the win. I wanted to look up when the domain was registered, but I ran into this warning (see https://www.dotgov.gov/agree.aspx for details):
"Warning! Use of this site is restricted! This computer system is for the use of the United States Government. Unauthorized access, or access which exceeds authorized access is punishable under 18 USC 1030."
What the heck? I can't look up who registered change.gov and when without committing a crime? I guess the first thing Obama should do is change *that* retarded policy... :-/
you don't need a gun to live
do you understand that?
if bikes claimed a million lives, they would still be used. you need to get from point a to point b to make a living. transport is a vital need. bikes are too dangerous? pedicabs then. cars then. buses then. trains then. all claim deaths. all fulfill an absolutely necesary need in life: transportation
what do you need a gun for? what do you need a gun for in contemporary civil american society? nothing. absolutely nothing. it serves no vital need. you don't need a gun to live your life. take your gun, throw it out your window. how is your life impeded? you will still have a job, you will still feed your family, you will still pay the rent
understand the simple fucking point?
now please, tell us you are an eskimo. because what the inuit do to survive is instructive for 99.99% of american civil society, right?
now please, tell us all about your skeet hobby. necessary? necessry enough to justify untold deaths?
oh, making guns illegal won't stop deaths? then lets make heroin legal. after all, people still get it, right? tamping down on the drug trade saves no lives, right?
why do we fight the drug war? you fight the drug war not because you think you can win it, or make drug deaths zero, you fight the drug trade so you have 10 deaths a year rather than one hundred. that justifies the expense. same with guns
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
making guns illegal won't stop deaths or criminals from geting them. absolutely
then lets make heroin legal. after all, people still get it, right? tamping down on the drug trade saves no lives, right?
why do we fight the drug war? you fight the drug war not because you think you can win it, or make drug deaths zero, you fight the drug trade so you have 10 deaths a year rather than one hundred. that justifies the expense
same logic applies to guns
not for a second do i think banning guns will prevent all bad guys from getting guns or all senseless firearm deaths. but absolutely do i believe it will put a huge dent it. people seek the path of least resistance. if a gun is hard to get, many won't get one. those absolutely committed to getting one will get guns, and heroin, or anything else. those people are a tiny minority, you can't do anything about them, nor did i ever think i could. nor do theymatter when determining legality or illegality. they're not statistically signifant enough
"but the important takeaway is that violence is much more a cultural thing than a product of laws"
human nature is human nature is human nature. every culture has violence. every culture always will. absolutely utterly uninstructive on the issue of gun control
"And I don't believe that you can lower the violent crime rate by passing gun control laws."
absolutely not. never thought you would. all you do is reduce the firepower assocated with the rage. if i lose it, and i go to town with a kitchen knife, i'm probably going to kill a few people, but if i lose it, and i go to town with a gun, i'm most certainly going to kill al hell of a lot more. point and click shooting from across the street is a hell of a lot different than run up and slash.
"The truly poor people who live in horrible places are in much worse danger than I am."
yeah. from guns. duh. you don't read the news? drive by shootings? random bullets hitting babies in cribs? oh, a gun is going to protect that baby? please!
the rest of arguments are equal dead ends
oh, and btw, i've read a few a few stories to curdle my blood too. seems to be a dozen every day. going to fark, i find one immediately, right now, no research required, repeated hour after hour in this country:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27600105/
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't think the views of a conservative libertarian will find a place on the socialist website like this but I gave a piece of my mind no matter what. God help US of A for the next 4 years...
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
I'm basing my notes on this report. While it's true that Latino voters have leaned Democratic in the past (53-44 for Kerry nationally), they leaned much further in this election (67-31 for Obama nationally); Florida, especially, where Latinos were +12 for Bush in 2004, and were +15 for Obama this year.
Good point about Cubans in Florida, though; the change there is at least in part attributed to Cubans making up a smaller portion of the aggregate Latino population.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
My point is that, when the USA is in the middle of a national crisis, then, you need to have everyone on the same page to get out of the crisis as quickly as possible. When the house is burning down, we have to get the fire out and the people into some sort of a home afterwards. Then we can figure out what to do when the immediate threat is passed.
Like, it was right for Bush to demand that everyone be on the same to get out of the 9/11 crisis and stock bubble pop in one shot and it was wrong for Dems to demagogue the crisis management response. In particular, cutting capital gains taxes and taxes in general, were a classic stimulative move when faced with a national crisis. But, at the same time, it was wrong for Bush to prolong the perception of a national crisis and a wartime leadership mandate to do things completely unrelated to it. Ergot, he should not have pushed for social security privatization until after the last soldier came back from Iraq.
Now, Republicans could look at President Obama and Speaker Pelosi and gag, and I've been tempted, but this Obama's ship now, and whether or not we feel we were dissed when we hand the ship, the right thing for the country is to support President Obama's efforts to get out of this mess. IF he is going to do his bottom approach, via some sort of distribution of wealth,then, that's his economic call to make, and we need to support that. We need to promote as much as possible that Obama's plan can work to save the country's fiscal situation, even if we disagree with it, and then argue later on as to what is best for the national long term.
We can always lower taxes later, fix the tax code later. If Obama nationalizes something, we can privatize it. If Obama wants some sort of massive public works projects to pump the economy and get people to work, then we might make some input as to what projects might be best for the country long term but ultimately, there will be public works projects undertaken.
Those are crisis management things and we need to remember that in a crisis, ideology is the first thing that goes out the window in opposition and the right to lead as one's ideology sees is what a leading party is entitled to. If it doesn't work, well, he'll take a drubbing at the polls, but I for one hope to god it does, because I need a job just as much as Democrats do.
So yeah, just as much as Republicans called Democrats traitors for not supporting aggressive action following 9/11, Democrats can make the same claim back on Republicans who don't work to constructively make the crisis management features of Obama's plans work. If the house is burning down, then, if you aren't putting out the fire, like the fire marshall says, then you are only helping the fire.
This is my sig.
"Prejudiced" doesn't mean "makes me uncomfortable".
I'll see your doubt and raise you the Southern Strategy, xenophobic rhetoric about who exactly counts as a "real" American and association with the racist aspects of the anti-immigration movement--even if you can't see it, Latino voters certainly could.
I point out that the conservative movement relies on a racist base, and you point out that the party currently identified with conservatism was, more than a century ago, the socially-liberal party.
The spooky part is that you think this actually proves anything.
Ah, but the party has been snuggling up to them since Roe v. Wade; strongly religious voters made a major jump from voting on social-justice issues (can you believe that Catholics used to be a reliably Democratic constituency?) to voting on abortion and only on abortion. You may well believe that the fundies need to get the fuck out of your party, or, at the very least, stop being pandered to quite so damned much, but the folks in charge of strategy apparently haven't felt like that.
That would indeed have been a good point, except I never said that. The Republican party is the party of racists--which, again, isn't to say that Republicans tend to be racists, rather that racists rend to be Republicans--because it actively tries to court the racist vote as much as it can without alienating mainstream voters.
Racists weren't going to vote Democrat in any case, which is, I think, why the much-feared Bradley Effect didn't materialize. I'm certainly not saying that the only reason not to vote for Obama was racism. I am saying that non-white voters have been driven out of the Republican party because of its consistent courting of the racist vote, and that's why black people lean so heavily Democratic.
Oh, please. The buck has to stop somewhere. If McCain wasn't in control of his campaign, he certainly didn't deserve to be in control of the country.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Read the actual page the GP was quoting (here). That was a real quote, not made-up text: "Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year."
Ummm... Are you sure you want me to read the actual page? Coz...
{Quoth} America Serves
"When you choose to serve -- whether it's your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood -- you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That's why it's called the American dream."
The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation's challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.
{Endquoth}
http://change.gov/americaserves/ (Emphasis mine)
Either you and the GP lied, or it's an evolving site, run by volunteers, responding to feedback/criticism; or it's randomly displaying different text just to fuck with people. Do let me know which.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
These two posts in this thread will give you a better idea on what I think the law regarding marriage should be and why. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1021887&cid=25682023 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1021887&cid=25687545 If you read those, you'll realize that I oppose some things that gay rights lobbyists want, but not out of homophobia or even a similar reason. Yet it is very likely to result in my being branded "homophobic" to even begin talking about it.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Either you and the GP lied, or it's an evolving site, run by volunteers, responding to feedback/criticism
The text changed. I pasted in the text which existed at the time, as did the OP. But thanks for being an asshole.
Wingnuts would bitch no matter what Obama does. First he's not ready to lead. Then he should sit down with Bush to pick cabinet officials. Now Obama puts out clear goals and plans and the wingnuts are bitching.
you realize that if helping the poor were voluntary rather than mandatory, help would be turned into a small fraction of what it is. does that not expose a rather huge flaw in your opinion?
and then the associated ills that would rise because of that would tax you: disease, crime, etc., far more than the bite out of your take home pay
in this life, on some issues, the choice is not a black and white choice between being free and not being free, but between shades of grey, different levels of impediments to your freedom
when it comes to your assistance to the poor, a mandated government program is actually cheaper, is actually less of an impediment on you, than some sort of volunteer situation that hardly anyone contributes to
"I do not, however, have any compassion for those who are in a permanent, self-made cycle of dependency on others to pay for their poor decisions, their thoughtless actions, or their general laziness."
i'm not saying you should. i'm just asking you to recognize that this stereotype, while real, is not the sum total of what your assistance to the poor is going to fulfill. its not even the majority. its a just a convenient cardboard cut out caricature you trounce out to make you feel better about your selfish attitude
because yes, there are good for nothings who live off the assistance of others. and then there are fools like you, their mirror opposite, who would walk by a man crying help and bleeding in the street, while you mumble out 'freeloaders'
because yes, you bring up the idea of volunteering in your words, but the overarching theme of what you wrote rules out the possibility that some people actually need help in this world for valid reasons. i would bet a year of my salary that you would never volunteer anything in your life, because you have basically rationalized that all assistance to the poor goes to freeloaders. so what are volunteers in your eyes? deluded fools who are duped by fast talking freeloading conmen?
all i see in your words are crocodile tears, not a morally or intellectually coherent opinion. start with the large chink in your armor that supposes volunteer aid to the poor is somehow as adequate as mandated aid, figure otu why you are wrong about that, and then claw your way back to a coherent common sense approach to society and freedom. you don't have it right now
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
if drugs were legal, they would be even easier to get, thus proving my point
durrrrrrr
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The site is extensive and contains Obama's agenda for economy and education among many others.
Extensive? Maybe for a pre-school reading level.
I found it the equivalent of a pamphlet in depth. They don't go into any explanation about how these things will get done. Just more feel good platitudes. Anybody notice a pattern here?
Has the Combine taken over my government?
Did you not notice my mention of the Southern Strategy? The whole point is that Nixon in 1968 and Reagan in 1980 could appeal to racist whites without appearing racist to anyone else. When Goldwater tried appealing to racists in 1964, the results were catastrophic outside the deep South; thus, later conservative attempts to court racists were coded and deniable, but nevertheless effective.
Issues which have "nothing to do with race" usually don't attract racists like free bags of Cheetos attract bloggers. David Neiwert has done plenty of legwork on this question. I'm sure you're a perfectly nice not-at-all-racist king of person, but the anti-immigration movement is rife with prejudice. When you have talking heads on Fox explaining how these folks aren't really looking for work, but are an army trying to complete "the Reconquista" and turn part of the U.S. into "AztlÃn", it becomes a little harder to deny.
Even if you can't see that, the Latino electorate here certainly could, and that was borne out in the vote.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Yes. I said that. Open racism is no longer acceptable. Which is why strategies to appeal to racism without explicitly doing so have become the norm.
No. Absolutely wrong. Nixon's Southern Strategy was a calculated move. Reagan followed in this path, as have Republican candidates since then. It is not an accident. (How do you accidentally appeal to racists, anyway?)
Which is why they've built their base around racists--because they were trying so hard to distance themselves?
Overt racism is dead. This does not mean that racism in general is gone. This is what I keep trying to explain, and you keep sailing on by.
Do you think that you, who didn't notice that the GOP was the party of white racism, should really be judging people based on what you'd like to think their intentions are? How wishful can your thinking get?
Yeah, that's pretty much the exact party line put forth by VDARE and their ilk--they'll take our jobs, they're violent gang members, they're going to have anchor babies, and they're probably lepers as well.
In any case, anyone who had a real practical interest in reducing migration would have much better luck reducing the demand for under-the-table labor than reducing the supply. But that wouldn't let people demonize Latinos.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The whole point of coded appeals to racists is that they're deniable. Their effect, however, is not. For instance, the "Obama's not a real American, if you know what I mean" line of attack coincided with a surge in threats reported by the Secret Service.
Oh, please. "From both sides"? This is the false balance that makes David Broder such a baleful influence on American politics. I'm pointing out a very real pattern which has been part of Republican politics for decades, and you're comparing that to trivially-disproved rapture-compliant fantasies.
It might give one pause that Obama was apparently a radical Christian and a Muslim and a (presumably secular) communist. But if the point is to make him out to be some kind of scary Other (and black people are this country's standard scary Other), it makes more sense.
Feel free to read the entire "God Damn America" sermon; if you think patriotism requires that people bow and scrape before a nation that has grievously wronged them, even as they try to reform their little piece of it, then that's your business.
If it only happened occasionally, the it's-a-coincidence argument might hold water. But it's been a consistent pattern lasting decades, long enough to enable profound shifts in the nation's political map.
Whoa, there. Perhaps I should explain in more detail. Sending coded appeals to racists doesn't make the people doing so racists. It just makes them craven political opportunists bereft of principle.
Zero facts? The explicit Southern Strategy, the demographic shift in Republican voters, the specific loss of the Latino vote in recent years--these aren't facts?
Look, again, before you get your shorts in a knot. I'm not saying that being Republican makes you a racist. I am saying that the Republican Party has become the party of white racists.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca