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Open Gov Tracker Reveals Best US Open Government Ideas
jonverve writes "In May of 2009, the White House launched an Ideascale site to gather ideas from citizens to identify ways to 'strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness by making government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative.' The digital letdown was when many of the top ideas generated by the process were to legalize marijuana, solve tax issues and to reinvestigate Obama's birth origins. Fast forward to February 6 and the same process has been repeated with individual federal agencies as the subject. This time the idea generation has been much more productive, with ideas such as establishing clear benchmarks on humanitarian progress in Sudan to the State Department, funding for open source text books and materials to the Department of Education, making it easier to access previously FOIAed documents to the Department of Justice, and creating a Wiki for NASA to share its data and to engage the public. Hackers from NASA's Nebula cloud computing platform have created a site that aggregates 23 of these idea sites to give a quick peek into the best rated contributions in each category. Programmed in Python and using the MongoDB and Tornado web server, the Open Gov Tracker was highlighted by the open government blog Govfresh this past week as well. Jessy Cowan-Sharp, one of the creators, explained their motivation: 'We thought that a single access point would give a sense of the participation on all the different sites, a window into the discussions happening, build some excitement, and inspire people to participate.' The process closes on March 19th, so go and visit the site to contribute your ideas and vote!"
Why do you think the birth record issue is BS?
MODS ON CRACK ALERT!
Please, don't mod parent troll. Instead, realize that a slahsdot birther is an extremely rare occurrence, and should be nurtured appropriately lest this most endangered of species disappear forever.
Just kidding. Dude's a massive tool.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
And your attitude ensures that the general public will not. Some of us, including myself, are willing to discuss the legalization of marijuana from the standpoint that it may reduce our tax burden. Time spent chasing down every degenerate who smokes or sells pot is time and money wasted. From a cost-benefit analysis, I personally see legalizing marijuana as a potential winner.
However, if you argue principle and ideals, recreational drug use is bad. I don't even think it's an arguable point, although I know many do. Alcoholism is the only example required, here is a non-addictive substance which in reasonable quantities has no significant negative long term effects. It has created a significant problem in society. You can't argue any other drug wouldn't also be bad. People want to relieve themselves from reality, and pot is just another way of doing so. The greatest fear I have with legalizing drugs are that it will increase their use, that I'll be sitting on the couch watching TV and ads for pot will be on making it seem perfectly acceptable, and I will have to explain long and hard about drug use and what is and is not allowed under my roof. That in spite of that I will be competing against a culture that increasingly thinks "doing what feels right" is an intelligent and responsible decision making process, and my kids will be sucked in to that, at least for a while. It's a sad but true fact that you have the most power to totally ruin your life when you are about 15, all it takes is for one bad decision, and some terrible luck. The net impact to society may end up costing more in the long run, and once you let this particular cat out of the bag, you will never be able to put it back in.
If you really want to be taken seriously on this, confront the economics and be willing to make concessions on principle. Drugs will continue to be villified, and drug use will continue to be viewed as a contemptible habit. No commercials/ads, restricted and heavily taxed sale, continued anti-drug propaganda, and the general feeling that by using it you are being punished. Certainly the business model will be regulated to the point where it's just profitable enough to keep the black market supressed...but it would be legal and the police won't chase you down. If you broadcast a message of this nature, you'll have a much higher chance of getting some converts, particularly on the right side of the aisle where "reduced tax burden" sounds like a patriotic obligation.
Do you really believe that legalizing pot will bring any measurable improvements to US? There are thousands other problems which need to be solved before we even get to the point when thinking about legalizing marijuana should appear at the very end of our TODO list. If you start with pot, the only possible result is even further polarization of US population (and congress) which will make it even more difficult to make anything happen.
"Alcoholism is the only example required, here is a non-addictive substance"
I'm going to stop you right there. Alcohol is absolutely an addictive substance, there is a known and well-documented (if not entirely understood) physiological component to alcohol addiction. Alcohol is also fairly easy to consume in lethal quantities through normal usage, and it is quite common for people to do so, particularly people in their teens and 20s. Neither of those are even remotely true for marijuana (psychological addiction has been reported, but there is no credible evidence suggesting a physiologically addictive property, overdose is theoretically possible, but would require consuming such a vast quantity of the substance that it is considered practically impossible).
Alcohol is, by all rational measures, FAR more dangerous than marijuana. They aren't even in the same league.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
How about we follow the constitution?
The whole strict "constructionism" p.o.v. might apply if we all went back to the days of the horse and buggy, oil lamps, whole groups relegated to second class citizenship, etc..