apple mail, mail.app, whatever you want to call it - allows you to block image loading in email messages. just incase all the frapple users didn't know.
Good luck if the grocery store and work is more than 5 miles away and it's raining or snowing.
why not find a place to live which is close to where you work?
why not find a neighborhood which has a grocery store in it already?
why not bike in the snow? - it's not hard, i've done it the past two winters, and i'm in the upper peninsula of michigan.
why not live somewhere with public transport?
sure, it's a pain in the ass not owning a car every once and a while - but one saves a lot of money and finds themselves in better health of body and mind.
it's nice to actually be outside when it's raining sometimes - makes you think you're actually part of the world and not some parasite.
why not never shop at wal-mart again? i know they're cheap, but they have nothing to do with a sustainable lifestyle.
The rumors flew all day, but we held off writing about this until we had it from an unimpeachable source. Jimmy Grewal is a key member of the Mac Internet Explorer team and a stand-up guy. He confirms that IE5/Mac is dead.
There is much that could be said. IE5/Mac, with its Tasman rendering engine, was the first browser to deliver meaningful standards compliance to the market, arriving in March, 2000, a few months ahead of Mozilla 1.0 and Netscape 6. On a mailing list today, Netscapeâ(TM)s Eric Meyer said, âoe I donâ(TM)t think people realize just how much of a groundbreaker IE5/Mac really was, and how good it remains even today.â IE5/Mac introduced innovations like DOCTYPE switching and Text Zoom that soon found their way into comparably compliant browsers like Navigator, Konqueror, and Safari. And all but Text Zoom eventually made it into IE6/Win, Microsoftâ(TM)s most compliant Windows browser to date (and the last one they will ever make).
Bafflingly, after attaining dominance on both the Windows and Macintosh platforms, IE stopped evolving. In the past three years, its existing competitors at Netscape, Opera, and the open source Mozilla project greatly improved their browsers, and new competitors flooded the market, but IE/Win and IE/Mac stayed as they were.
This might sound like the complacence of victors after throttling an opposing army. But inside Microsoft, nobody was slacking off. Our friends there, we knew, were working on improvements, particularly in the areas of CSS and DOM support. Yet no significantly new browser version ever came of their activity. IE6/Win still had trouble with parts of CSS1, still did not support true native PNG transparency, and still did not incorporate Text Zoom. IE5/Mac, which had worked well in OS 9, became flaky under OS X, and a minor upgrade did not fix its problems. Even die-hard IE5/Mac fans began switching to Camino, and, when it arrived, Safari.
Those who switched may have done so on the basis of features like tabbed browsing or popup blocking. Some in the development community may have switched because of the improved standards compliance in Gecko browsers like Camino and Netscape. But mostly, we think, the switchers were behaving instinctively.
With Camino or Safari, you felt you were using a living product that was continually improving in response to user feedback. Microsoftâ(TM)s browser engineers were busy working on something, but their activities took place behind a (figurative) corporate firewall.
Over the past weeks, the stories we and others have been covering (including the unavailability of an improved version of IE5/Mac outside the subscription-based MSN pay service, and the news that IE/Win was dead as a standalone product) painted a picture of a product on its way out. And now we know that that is the case.
We know that, after spending billions of dollars to defeat all competitors and to absolutely, positively own the desktop browsing space, Microsoft as a corporation is no longer interested in web browsers. We know that, on the Windows side, it will eventually release something that accesses web content, but that âoesomethingâ will be part of an operating system â" and that operating system wonâ(TM)t be available until 2005, and probably wonâ(TM)t be widely used before 2007. Whether the part that formats web pages will be more or less compliant with W3C recommendations than what we have now, we donâ(TM)t know. Neither do we know whether the unnamed thing that handles web browsing will support CSS3 and other specifications that will emerge during the long years ahead in which Microsoft offers no new browser.
From here, as it has for several weeks now, it looks like a period of technological stasis and dormancy yawns ahead. Undoubtedly the less popular browsers will continue to improve. But few of us will be able to take advantage of their sophisticated standards support if 85% of the market continues to use an unchanged year 2000 browser.
But enough, and enough, and enough. We are glad of the latest versions of Opera, Mozilla, Konqueror, Safari, and Omniweb. But on this grey and rainy day, this news of a kind of death brings no warmth.:::
To:Â the Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows Development Team
The PNG image format was designed to be a replacement for the GIF format, due to both copyright and design problems with GIF. However, the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) still does not have full and proper support for the image format, despite the fact that the whitepaper for MSIE 4, which can be read here, promised full support:
"While other browser manufactures include PNG support as a 3rd party option , Internet Explorer 4.0 provides native support for PNG."
Full native support for PNG still has not been implemented in the Windows version of MSIE, despite the fact that MSIE for Mac and others browsers have full support, and it was promised to the users of MSIE for Windows over four years ago.
We, the undersigned, request that the developers of MSIE for Windows please implement full support for PNG images, for the following reasons:
The PNG format is superior to the GIF format: When the same image is saved in both PNG and GIF formats, in an editor with full and proper support for both formats, the PNG image is typically a smaller file size, is free from royalties, patents, and copyright restrictions that hinder the GIF format, and can use more than 256 colours - up to 48-bit colour.
The PNG format is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation: Microsoft has repeatedly stated their renewed commitment to web standards, so implementing full PNG support would be the next logical step in fulfilling this promise, especially since it was supposed to be implemented over four years ago.
The PNG format supports alpha transparency: Anybody who has designed images for use online knows the woes of trying to make that image appear smooth on any background. Some designers create different images to be used on different background colours, other designers simply leave the edges jagged, and still others just give their images a solid background. It's a bad way to go, but it's the only choice right now. Using PNG images with alpha transparency would eliminate all of these problems, and make the work of web designers a lot easier.
After ignoring requests on this issue for four years, we hope that you, the developers of Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows, will take a step in the right direction, and show that you truly are committed to web standards.
Full Representation / Proportional Representation (PR)
Full representation (traditionally called "proportional representation") describes electoral systems in which like-minded groupings of voters will win legislative seats in better proportion to their share of the popular vote than in winner-take-all elections. Whereas the winner-take-all principle awards 100% of the representation to a 50.1% majority, full representation allows voters in a minority to win their fair share of representation alongside voters in the majority. Full representation requires at least some legislators to be elected in multi-seat districts with more than one representative.
There is a broad range of full representation systems. Some arebased on voting for political parties; others for candidates. Some allow very small groupings of voters to win seats; others require higher thresholds of support to win representation. All promote more accurate, balanced representation of the spectrum of political opinion in a given electorate.
The purpose of this site is to help citizens as well as activists gain a basic understanding of what full representation means and how it can benefit our democracy at different levels of government
When Every Vote Counts: A Look at Proportional Representation
by Professor Douglas Amy, Mount Holyoke College Originally printed in "Blueprint for Social Justice" Volume XLVI, No. 8, April 1993
Americans remain highly disenchanted with US elections- and for good reasons. We are frequently confronted with poor quality candidates who are constantly constrained by the limited choices offered by a two-party system. Recent polls reveal that a majority of Americans now would like to see other parties emerge to challenge the Democrats and Republicans. In addition, American elections still produce legislatures that fail to reflect the diversity of its citizens. In particular, our legislatures continue to underrepresent various political and racial minorities. African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians still do not occupy their fair share of seats in our legislatures. And despite 1992 being billed as the "Year of the Woman" in elections and in spite of the unprecedented number of women being elected to Congress, that institution continues to be 90% male.
Dissatisfaction with American elections has lead many Americans not to vote at all, or to desperately embrace instant candidates like Ross Perot or quick fix reforms like term limits.
But there is a better alternative- a fundamental structural reform that would make American elections more fair, provide voters with more meaningful choices, and produce legislatures that are more truly representative of the public. That reform is to rep lace our present single-member district plurality elections with a system of proportional representation (PR).
Many Americans view our current plurality system as being the most natural one- we assume most democracies elect members of their legislatures one at a time in districts, with the winner being the candidate with the most votes; a plurality. But in fact t his system is considered to be outmoded and unfair by most other western democracies and they have deliberately rejected it in favor of an alternative system- proportional representation elections. Even the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union that have rushed to embrace American capitalism have refused to seriously consider adopting American-style plurality elections. All have adopted some form of PR.
Among western nations, only the US Great Britain, Canada and New Zealand (first PR elections in 1996) continue to cling to plurality elections. And a serious public discussion about switching to proportional representation is currently taking place in al l of these countries- except ours. Indeed, in New Zealand that debate culminated last fall in a national referendum on their election system, in which 85% endorsed a change to proportional
exactly. why the crap is the linux start menu so god damn confusing?
i usually use 5 or 6 programs - web browser, ftp, bbedit, photoshop and illustrator. i assume most users use 5 or 6 programs most of the time. i would assume that's why windows did what they did with the start menu in XP.
now i'm sure a user could customize the linux start menu, or whatever it's called - but i think we all know most users don't go beyond default settings.
now i'm no linux user, but on my crapintosh all the applications are kept in a folder called "applications" - ridiculous as it seems. all my system files are kept in a folder called "system". it's really whack and intuitive, but....
Pardon me, but do you see the dinosaur in the living room? It's standing there in the middle of the carpet, and nobody wants to talk about it. We all just tiptoe around it, year after year, pretending it's not there and hoping it will go away.
In spinning the recent elections for partisan implications, commentators generally ignored the glaring fact that, once again, fewer and fewer of us participate. It is typical for any election from overseas to report voter turnout on a near-equal basis with election results, but you had to work mighty hard to find references to turnout in the latest round of voting -- or rather, non-voting.
Let's take Virginia. Turnout in the 1997 governor's race among registered voters was 48% -- as opposed to 67% and 61% in the state's last two gubernatorial elections. And that doesn't even count eligible voters who never registered. Turnout among all eligible adult Virginians was an abysmal 34%.
But Virginians can take heart. Their turnout was better than Broward County, Florida, where a mere 7% of registered voters made their way to the polls. Such shockingly low numbers were found in numerous localities.
Detroit's mayoral primary turnout was 17% of registered voters; in Charlotte's primary, it was 6%. General election turnout was under 40% of registered voters in Miami and New York City and under 30% in Boston and San Francisco. And of course 25% of eligible voters typically remain unregistered.
The United States now has on average the lowest voter turnout in the world among mature democracies. The long-term implications of our plunging voter turnout surely are as serious as fluctuations in the stock market. But because it is creeping up slowly, like a crippling disease, the crisis of our "political depression" generally goes unrecognized.
At what point does a democracy cease to be democratically governed? Bill Clinton was re-elected with the support of fewer than one in four eligible voters. Republicans won control of the House of Representatives with even fewer votes. We maintain the corner posts of representative democracy, but with the active consent of less than half our citizens.
It is time for prominent national and state discussions about this political depression. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his twilight years that "Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times."
Our political leaders and concerned citizens must be as bold as Jefferson and his contemporaries, and consider changes that will allow voters to see a real connection between their votes and policy. Here are some proposals to consider:
* Non-partisan redistricting: One-seat legislative districts give incumbents the opportunity to gerrymander district lines using sophisticated computers and census data. They quite literally choose their constituents before their constituents choose them. This consigns most Americans to "no-choice" legislative races.
* Election holidays, weekend voting and mail-in-balloting: Making the practice of voting more convenient will have a beneficial effect on voter turnout.
* Unicameral state legislatures: Two houses in a state legislature undercut accountability and increase costs; bicameralism is simply redundant in state government, since both houses represent overlapping geographic areas.
* Increased size of legislatures: The U.S. House has remained at 435 representatives since 1910, despite our population nearly tripling. Many state legislatures also are small; California's state senate districts are larger than its congressional districts. Big districts make elections costly and keep representatives distant from constituents.
In the contemporary world, virtually every country holds elections of one kind or another. The right of citizens to vote is now a defining attribute of democracy, and the franchise is a right of every adult citizen and no longer a privilege restricted to a narrowly-defined group. Yet the fact that everyone has a right to vote is not sufficient to make a country democratic.
Global surveys invariably conclude that the majority of regimes in the world today are not democratic; the median regime has been aptly described as "partly free" (Freedom House, 1996). In countries of this nature, the failure to achieve democracy is not the result of denying most citizens the right to vote. It stems from the fact that such elections as are held are not freely competitive, and that regimes do not fully respect the rule of law, which includes the need to limit their own coercion. As long as it has the power to control competition and the counting of votes, a regime has nothing to fear from holding elections which are unfree and unfair.
Democrats are not the only rulers to promote a high voter turnout; a distinguishing feature of modern totalitarian regimes is the compulsory mobilization of subjects to show public commitment to them. Totalitarian rulers share the goal of 100% turnout, even when this is combined with no choice at all of parties or candidates. Thus, when it comes to electoral participation, it is certainly possible to have too much of a good thing. Virtual unanimity in turnout and in voting for a single party produces an election result too good to be true. This essay discusses firstly what constitutes "free and fair" elections and the inter-relationship of turnout and choice in both democratic and totalitarian countries. Secondly, it shows that, although a comparative perspective does make it possible to evaluate turnout as higher or lower by comparison with other countries or a nation's past record, there is no consensus on evaluation, on what a "good" turnout actually is; rational choice theorists can argue that "whatever is, is right", while at the other extreme democratic idealists can argue that anything below 100% turnout is not good enough. And thirdly, this essay concludes by showing what a government can do to make a good turnout better. It examines the question of compulsion to vote, whether it is a worthwhile option, and why a government can never produce "perfect" turnout and still hold an election that is fair and free.
Freedom of Choice Two conditions must be met before citizens are free to choose their governors. The right to vote is a necessary but not a sufficient condition; in addition, elections themselves must be both free and fair. An election is free if a multiplicity of parties are able to compete for votes; without this, the only choice open to an elector is whether to turn out or, if compelled to, whether to vote for the sole party, publicly abstain, or spoil the ballot paper. An election is fair if officials administer the law in ways that protect the rights of each elector and of competing parties, and if the counting of the votes is accurate. As Mackenzie (1958: Part Four) shows in his classic discussion of "electoral morality and its enforcement", the pathology of elections takes many different forms: an unfair election can be corrupt, muddled, stolen or manufactured.
The evaluation, as opposed to the counting, of turnout must not only take into account who can vote but also the radically different significance of voting in unfair and unfree as against free and fair elections. The categories are set out schematically in Figure 31 below. The democratic ideal is an election in which all adults have the right to vote, many parties compete and the election is administered fairly. If the franchise is granted to relatively few adults, but there is free and fair competition for the support of those who can vote, the political system is an oligarchy, and meets at least one condition for dem
Instant runoff voting (IRV) is a well-tested voting methods that corrects the defects in plurality elections and two-round runoff elections, the two most widely used voting systems in the country. In the wake of citizen frustration with "spoiler" candidiacies and non-majority winners, efforts to replace plurality election laws with this more democratic alternative have made significant progress in states such as Alaska, Maine, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington. Instant runoff voting is an even more obvious improvement over traditional "delayed runoff" elections, as it ensures a majority winner in one election rather than two. This results in higher turnout in the decisive election, a sharp drop in election administration costs and lower costs of winning campaigns. In 2002 San Francisco became the first major jurisdiction to replace "delayed runoff" elections with instant runoff elections.
Instant runoff voting allows for better voter choice and wider voter participation by accommodating multiple candidates in single seat races and assuring that a "spoiler"-effect will not result in undemocratic outcomes. Instant runoff voting allows all voters to vote for their favorite candidate without fear of helping elect their least favorite candidate, and it ensures that the winner enjoys true support from a majority of the voters. Plurality voting, used in most American elections, does not meet these basic requirements for a fair election system that promotes wide participation, and traditional runoff elections are costly to the taxpayer and often suffer from low voter turnout.
Instant runoff voting is a winner-take-all system that ensures that a winning candidate will receive a majority of votes rather than a simple plurality. In plurality voting -- as used in most U.S. elections -- candidates can win with less than a majority when there are more than two candidates running for the office. In contrast, IRV elects a majority candidate while still allowing voters to support a candidate who is not a front-runner. IRV is a sensible method in single winner elections.
IRV allows voters to rank candidates as their first choice, second choice, third, fourth and so on. If a candidate does not receive a clear majority of votes on the first count, a series of runoff counts are conducted, using each voter's top choice indicated on the ballot. The candidate who received the fewest first place ballots is eliminated. All ballots are then retabulated, with each ballot counting as one vote for each voter's favorite candidate who is still in contention. Voters who chose the now-eliminated candidate have to support their second choice candidate -- just as if they were voting in a traditional two-round runoff election -- but all other voters get to continue supporting their top candidate. This process continues until a candidate receives a majority.
IRV Talking Points
* Ensures majority rule, in contrast to plurality voting.
* Saves money compared to costly two-round runoff elections, which often have low voter turnout.
* Increases voter turnout by giving voters better choices. Experience around the world shows that voter turnout goes up when voters have a wider range of choices.
* Promotes positive, issue-based campaigns because candidates will seek 2nd and 3rd choice votes.
* Creates a clearer mandate for a winning candidate's agenda, giving better direction for policy-making.
* Solves the problem of groupings of voters splitting their votes among similar candidates, which allows a candidate with only minority support to win.
* Minimizes "wasted" votes, votes that don't help elect a winner. To the fullest extent possible, your vote will contribute to electing a candidate that you like.
Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) A Fairer Way to Conduct Single-Winner Elections
by the Center for Voting and Democracy
Most U.S. elections are held under plurality voting rules in which the candidate with the most votes wins. If three or more candidates run in the race, then the winner can have less than a majority of the vote. But the question always arises: was that winning candidate really preferred by most voters?
Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) is a sensible reform for elections where one person wins. Examples include elections for governors, mayors, legislatures using single-seat districts, and US president (for allocation of Electoral College electors). Instant Runoff Voting is better than plurality elections because: it ensures the election of the candidate preferred by most voters it eliminates the problem of spoiler candidates knocking off major candidates it frees communities of voters from splitting their vote among their own candidates it promotes coalition-building and more positive campaigning
IRV is also better than "two-round" runoff or primary elections, which often result in a change in voter turnout between the two rounds. IRV finishes the job with one election, which means that election officials and taxpayers don't have to foot the bill for a second election candidates don't have to raise money for two races, providing some campaign finance reform the decisive election occurs when voter turnout is highest
How IRV Works: Each voter has one vote, and ranks candidates in order of choice (1, 2, 3, etc.). The counting of ballots simulates a series of run-off elections. All first choices are counted, and if no candidate wins a majority of first choices, then the last place candidate (candidate with the least first-choices) is eliminated. Ballots of voters who ranked the eliminated candidate first then are redistributed to their next-choice candidates, as indicated on each voter's ballot. Last place candidates are successively eliminated and ballots are redistributed to next choices until one candidate remains or a candidate gains over 50% of votes.
Voters have the option to rank as many or as few candidates as they wish--their favorite candidate first, their next favorite second and so on. Voters have every incentive to vote for their favorite candidate rather than the "lesser of two evils" because their ballot can still count toward a winner if their first choice loses. There also is every reason for a voter to rank as many candidates as they want, since a voter's lower choice will never help defeat one of their higher choices.
IRV is used to elect the parliament in Australia and the presidents of the Republic of Ireland and the American Political Science Association. A related method is used in Cambridge (MA) for city council.
Example: In both 1992 and 1996, Bill Clinton was elected president with less than 50% of the popular vote. IRV could been used to elect a majority-winner. Here's how it could have worked. The 1992 Presidential Election--a Simulation Candidate First Choice % Ballots redistributed to 2nd choices Final Tally George Bush 38% +10% = 48% Bill Clinton 43% +9% = 52% Ross Perot 19% - 19% X
Assume that, of the 19 percent of voters who ranked Ross Perot first, slightly more than half (e.g. 10% of all voters) ranked George Bush second on their ballots, and slightly less than half (e.g. 9% of all voters) ranked Bill Clinton second. When Ross Perot is eliminated, those votes are redistributed. Bill Clinton ends up with 52 percent of the overall vote, a clear majority, and is declared the winner.
There are two basic families of voting systems. Winner-take-all systems elect the candidates who receive the most votes, thereby allowing 50.1% of voters to win 100% of representation. Proportional representation systems allow like-minded groupings of voters to elect representatives in proportion to their share of the vote.
Winner-take-all voting systems (among which are plurality and two-round runoff systems) hold as their central tenet that representation should be awarded to the candidates who receive the most votes. That principle may seem fair enough: everyone gets to vote, and the top vote-getters win. And certainly a candidate who wins likely will share many of the same ideas and values as the largest voting block in his or her constituency.
One clear downside to winner-take-all voting, however, is that losing candidates win nothing, even if they win substantial numbers of votes. In a two-candidate race, it is possible for 49.9% of voters to receive no representation. In a three-candidate race, that number can climb to 66.6% - much more than half the electorate can actually oppose the candidate who has earned the right to "represent" it. Examples of such "plurality" victories are common. Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton earned less than 45% of the vote in their initial presidential victories, and several American governors have been elected with less than 40% in the 1990?s. In some nations such as Russia and Papua New Guinea, the number of candidacies have multiplied such that district elections regularly are won with less than 20% of votes.
The leap of faith made by advocates of winner-take-all systems is that supporters of losing candidates will be duly represented by either the candidate who win, even if that candidate is their ideological opposite, or by candidates elected elsewhere. They also must believe that voters? opinions can be neatly boiled into two basic options, as typically happens in competitive winner-take-all elections in the United States.
By contrast, proportional representation voting systems allow like-minded groupings of voters to elect representatives to a government in direct proportion to their relative support within a multi-seat constituency. Proportional systems are designed to allocate 10% of the seats to a parties or a slate of candidates that wins 10% of the vote, 25% of the seats to those taking 25% of the vote and a majority of the seats to those winning a majority of the vote. Contrast that last example with the winner-take-all system, in which a majority of the vote can win 100% of the representation, and one begins to understand the fundamental difference between the two systems.
Advocates of proportional voting systems propose that the legislature should be more like a mirror of the population, with majority and minority viewpoints represented. Note that proportional representation advocates still very much believe in majority rule: because proportional systems accurately translate the popular vote into representation, candidates or parties with the greatest support should obtain the largest share of seats in a legislature.
In fact, studies have shown that governments elected by proportional representation are more likely to produce policies that is in line with the "will the majority." There are three major reasons for this tendency. First, when more voters have representation at the policy-making table, a majority in the legislature is more likely to be grounded in a majority of the electorate than when many voters are cut out of representation. Second, when political groupings can form and run candidates from across the spectrum, voters can more precisely define their representation. Third, that increased representation of viewpoints across the spectrum can lead to fuller discussion of important issues, thereby allowing majority interests to be better articulated and defined.
This factsheet is part of the CVD Factbook Series, a compilation of short factsheets covering voting systems and voting system reforms.
Full representation (also called "proportional representation," or just "PR") is the principle that any group of like-minded voters should win legislative seats in proportion to its share of the popular vote. Whereas the winner-take-all principle awards 100% of the representation to a 50.1% majority, full representation allows voters in a minority to win their fair share of representation alongside those in the majority.
There is a broad range of full representation systems. Some are based on voting for political parties; others for candidates. Some allow very small groupings of voters to win seats; others require higher thresholds of support to win representation. All promote more accurate, balanced representation of the spectrum of political opinion in a given electorate.
the inactive tabs - too low contrast. black text on gray ground? looks "cool" - not extremely readable though.
X - stop
+ - add bookmark
o.k. - i look quickly, and i press the wrong one. how about a X inside of a circle for a stop button? it would be different than the delete button, but as well sufficiently different visually from the + "add bookmark" button. one should be able to tell the difference between two icons in an instant - i can't do this with those damn X's and +'s.
why not live up to the challenge of living at peace with out environment - living efficiently as possibly - using less resources instead of more. it's easy to build an innefficient device - why not be a bit more clever and create the efficient and make it more powerful as well.
we need to encourage our capitalist system to encourage efficiency - then we will be able to be greedy and clean at the same time..
look at sulfur trading - it works - so would kyoto.
Short On Change Is America Building Nations Or Tearing Them Down? Natasha Hunter is associate editor at TomPaine.com.
One way to measure the Bush administration's commitment to building democracy in postwar Iraq might be to look at the funds we've allocated to cleaning up after our last big regime-change project.
Bush included Afghanistan in his State of the Union address, and reasserted the United States' commitment to the war-blasted nation. "In Afghanistan we helped to liberate an oppressed people," he said. "And we will continue helping them secure their country, rebuild their society and educate all their children: boys and girls."
So how much money did Bush request in the budget for all this securing and rebuilding and equal-opportunity educating? None. And it's not because Congress ignored the White House's request -- the administration simply failed to include funds for reconstruction or humanitarian aid.
Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, expressed "surprise" to the BBC that the president had overlooked Afghanistan in its budget proposals package. Kolbe says that when he questioned the administration on the oversight, it couldn't offer a satisfactory explanation.
Later in the State of the Union, Bush discussed Iraq, and compared the situation to Afghanistan: "And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military and we will prevail. And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people food, and medicines and supplies and freedom."
But only if someone else foots the bill, right?
Much talk has been circulating about a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, and polling shows the American people standing solidly behind such a program. And as the only reigning superpower, the United States would have to lend its support -- and its cash -- if any such plan were to blossom. But blunders like the administration's budget omission provide a dreary if unsurprising insight into what's not motivating the White House.
And what is? Is the attack on Iraq an imperialist economic grab, an exchange of blood for oil, as the far left claims? Is it a show of overwhelming force, intended to cow our "enemies" in an increasingly fluid and unstable world? Evidence for these claims, convincing now, grows more compelling every day.
Right-wing ideologues look forward to regime change in Iraq as a stepping stone from which the Arab world can be Westernized. Liberals who believe in civil society hope that -- if war is inevitable -- Iraq and Afghanistan will create a harmonious blend of Islam and democracy. But with no money behind its words, America is nothing more than a bully that brags of building nations as it tears them down and walks away.
Published on Thursday, March 13, 2003 by Yahoo News Don't Support Our Troops Win or Lose, War on Iraq is Wrong by Ted Rall
NEW YORK--Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, opposes war with Iraq. Despite this stance, he suggests that Americans should set aside their political differences once the Mother of All Bombs starts blowing up munitions dumps and babies in Baghdad.
"When the war begins, if the war begins," says Kerry, "I support the troops and I support the United States of America winning as rapidly as possible. When the troops are in the field and fighting--if they're in the field and fighting--remembering what it's like to be those troops--I think they need a unified America that is prepared to win."
Fellow presidential candidate Howard Dean, who calls Bush's foreign policy "ghastly" and "appalling," is the Democrats' most vocal opponent of a preemptive strike against Iraq. But once war breaks out, he says, "Of course I'll support the troops."
This is an understandable impulse. As patriots, we want our country to win the wars that we fight. As Americans, we want our soldiers--young men and women who risk too much for too little pay--to come home in one piece. But supporting our troops while they're fighting an immoral and illegal war is misguided and wrong.
An Unjust Cause
Iraq has never attacked, nor threatened to attack, the United States. As his 1990 invasion of Kuwait proved, Saddam is a menace to his neighbors--Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel--but he's their problem, not ours. Saddam's longest-range missiles only travel 400 miles.
Numerous countries are ruled by unstable megalomaniacs possessing scary weaponry. North Korea has an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the western United States and, unlike Iraq, the nuke to put inside it. Pakistan, another nuclear power run by a dangerous anti-American dictator, just unveiled its new HATF-4 ballistic missile. If disarmament were Bush's goal, shouldn't those countries--both of which have threatened to use nukes--be higher-priority targets than non-nuclear Iraq?
Iraq isn't part of the war on terrorism. The only link between Iraq and Al Qaeda is the fact that they hate each other's guts. And no matter how often Bush says "9/11" and "Iraq" in the same breath, Saddam had nothing to do with the terror attacks.
That leaves freeing Iraqis from Saddam's repressive rule as the sole rationale for war. Is the U.S. in the liberation business? Will Bush spread democracy to Myamnar, Congo, Turkmenistan, Cambodia, Nigeria, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan or Laos, just to name a few places where people can't vote, speak freely or eat much? You be the judge. I wouldn't bet on it.
Of course, it would be great if Iraqis were to overthrow Saddam (assuming that his successor would be an improvement). But regime change is up to the locals, not us. George W. Bush is leading us to commit an ignominious crime, an internationally-unsanctioned invasion of a nation that has done us no harm and presents no imminent threat.
Germans in the 1930s
We find ourselves facing the paradox of the "good German" of the '30s. We're ruled by an evil, non-elected warlord who ignores both domestic opposition and international condemnation. We don't want the soldiers fighting his unjustified wars of expansion to win--but we don't want them to lose either.
Our dilemma is rendered slightly less painful by the all-volunteer nature of our armed forces: at least we aren't being asked to cheer on reluctant draftees. Presumably everybody in uniform knew what they might be in for when they signed up.
"I'm horrified by this war," a friend tells me, "but once it starts we have to win and win quickly." For her, as for Kerry and Dean, our servicemen are people performing a job. They go where the politicians send them.
The thing is, we don't really have to win. Losing the Vietnam War sucked, but not fighting it in the first place would have been smarter
Editor's Note: Although Dennis Kucinich was aggressively attacked by Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen for suggesting that the preemptive strike on Iraq was based on oil, the Post refused to print the presidential candidate and Ohio Democrat's response. This was especially frustrating, since the Post editorial stance and balance of editorial page columns have been decidedly pro-war. You can tell the Post how you feel about this ommission at ombudsman@washpost.com.
Is President Bush's war in Iraq about oil? Of course it is. Sometimes, the obvious answer is the right one: Oil is a major factor in the President's march to war, just as oil is a major factor in every aspect of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf.
Ask yourself:
What commodity accounts for 83 percent of total exports from the Persian Gulf? What is the U.S. protecting with our permanent deployment of about 25,000 military personnel, 6 fighter squadrons, 6 bomber squadrons, 13 air control and reconnaissance squadrons, one aircraft carrier battle group, and one amphibious ready group based at 11 military installations in the countries of the Persian Gulf? (Note, the disproportionate troop deployments in the Middle East aren't there to protect the people, who constitute only 2 percent of the world population.)
What was Iraq's number one export when the U.S. made an alliance with Saddam Hussein, sold him biological and chemical weapons agents, and then did not object when he gassed his own people?
For what major Iraqi resource has Saddam Hussein denied contracts with the largest U.S. and U.K. multinational companies? (Note, those companies are the #2 (ExxonMobil), #4 (BP-Amoco), #8 (Shell) and #14 (ChevronTexaco) largest companies in the world, and the Bush Administration has been known to listen when large energy corporations speak.)
For what Iraqi resource did French and Russian multinational companies receive lucrative contracts from Saddam Hussein? What valuable commodity does one reprehensible, megalomaniacal tyrant (Saddam Hussein) control that another reprehensible, megalomaniacal tyrant (Kim Chong-il) does not?
How do the White House and State Department plan to pay for a post-Saddam occupation and reconstruction?
The answer to all of these questions is oil, of course. Oil obviously drives U.S. policy in the Middle East. So who can doubt that this war in Iraq concerns oil?
Meanwhile, the justifications the Administration has made for this war can be rather easily dismissed. Contrary to Administration assertions, a war against Iraq will not be in self-defense: Iraq does not pose an imminent threat to the United States. It doesn't have the ability, nor has it ever had the ability, to shoot a missile or send a bomber to harm America. Iraq does not possess nuclear weapons. Furthermore, there is no credible evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
No credible link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda has been made. Iraq did not have anything to do with the anthrax-containing letters that killed several Americans.
Contrary to the Administration's portrayal of an Iraqi threat, Iraq is hardly uniquely threatening. Sixteen other countries in the world have or might have nuclear weapons, 25 countries have or might have chemical weapons, 19 other countries have or might have biological weapons, and 16 other countries have or might have missile systems. Yet the Bush Administration is not on the verge of invading them.
Contrary to their denials that this war has anything to do with oil, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle wanted to go to war in Iraq long before they became Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Defense Policy Board. In a 1998 letter they sent to then-President Clinton, they stated "it hardly needs to be added that i
Slashdot Mirror
apple mail, mail.app, whatever you want to call it - allows you to block image loading in email messages. just incase all the frapple users didn't know.
Good luck if the grocery store and work is more than 5 miles away and it's raining or snowing.
why not find a place to live which is close to where you work?
why not find a neighborhood which has a grocery store in it already?
why not bike in the snow? - it's not hard, i've done it the past two winters, and i'm in the upper peninsula of michigan.
why not live somewhere with public transport?
sure, it's a pain in the ass not owning a car every once and a while - but one saves a lot of money and finds themselves in better health of body and mind.
it's nice to actually be outside when it's raining sometimes - makes you think you're actually part of the world and not some parasite.
why not never shop at wal-mart again? i know they're cheap, but they have nothing to do with a sustainable lifestyle.
i'll end my rant.
13 June 2003 :::
:::
5 pm est
R.I.P.
The rumors flew all day, but we held off writing about this until we had it from an unimpeachable source. Jimmy Grewal is a key member of the Mac Internet Explorer team and a stand-up guy. He confirms that IE5/Mac is dead.
There is much that could be said. IE5/Mac, with its Tasman rendering engine, was the first browser to deliver meaningful standards compliance to the market, arriving in March, 2000, a few months ahead of Mozilla 1.0 and Netscape 6. On a mailing list today, Netscapeâ(TM)s Eric Meyer said, âoe I donâ(TM)t think people realize just how much of a groundbreaker IE5/Mac really was, and how good it remains even today.â IE5/Mac introduced innovations like DOCTYPE switching and Text Zoom that soon found their way into comparably compliant browsers like Navigator, Konqueror, and Safari. And all but Text Zoom eventually made it into IE6/Win, Microsoftâ(TM)s most compliant Windows browser to date (and the last one they will ever make).
Bafflingly, after attaining dominance on both the Windows and Macintosh platforms, IE stopped evolving. In the past three years, its existing competitors at Netscape, Opera, and the open source Mozilla project greatly improved their browsers, and new competitors flooded the market, but IE/Win and IE/Mac stayed as they were.
This might sound like the complacence of victors after throttling an opposing army. But inside Microsoft, nobody was slacking off. Our friends there, we knew, were working on improvements, particularly in the areas of CSS and DOM support. Yet no significantly new browser version ever came of their activity. IE6/Win still had trouble with parts of CSS1, still did not support true native PNG transparency, and still did not incorporate Text Zoom. IE5/Mac, which had worked well in OS 9, became flaky under OS X, and a minor upgrade did not fix its problems. Even die-hard IE5/Mac fans began switching to Camino, and, when it arrived, Safari.
Those who switched may have done so on the basis of features like tabbed browsing or popup blocking. Some in the development community may have switched because of the improved standards compliance in Gecko browsers like Camino and Netscape. But mostly, we think, the switchers were behaving instinctively.
With Camino or Safari, you felt you were using a living product that was continually improving in response to user feedback. Microsoftâ(TM)s browser engineers were busy working on something, but their activities took place behind a (figurative) corporate firewall.
Over the past weeks, the stories we and others have been covering (including the unavailability of an improved version of IE5/Mac outside the subscription-based MSN pay service, and the news that IE/Win was dead as a standalone product) painted a picture of a product on its way out. And now we know that that is the case.
We know that, after spending billions of dollars to defeat all competitors and to absolutely, positively own the desktop browsing space, Microsoft as a corporation is no longer interested in web browsers. We know that, on the Windows side, it will eventually release something that accesses web content, but that âoesomethingâ will be part of an operating system â" and that operating system wonâ(TM)t be available until 2005, and probably wonâ(TM)t be widely used before 2007. Whether the part that formats web pages will be more or less compliant with W3C recommendations than what we have now, we donâ(TM)t know. Neither do we know whether the unnamed thing that handles web browsing will support CSS3 and other specifications that will emerge during the long years ahead in which Microsoft offers no new browser.
From here, as it has for several weeks now, it looks like a period of technological stasis and dormancy yawns ahead. Undoubtedly the less popular browsers will continue to improve. But few of us will be able to take advantage of their sophisticated standards support if 85% of the market continues to use an unchanged year 2000 browser.
But enough, and enough, and enough. We are glad of the latest versions of Opera, Mozilla, Konqueror, Safari, and Omniweb. But on this grey and rainy day, this news of a kind of death brings no warmth.
i.e. 5 for mac os 9 has wonderful support for standards - it's very fast - not bloated ----
doesn't have tabs.
but os 9's gui isn't as slow as os x - less need for tabs in that regard.
To:Â the Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows Development Team
The PNG image format was designed to be a replacement for the GIF format, due to both copyright and design problems with GIF. However, the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) still does not have full and proper support for the image format, despite the fact that the whitepaper for MSIE 4, which can be read here, promised full support:
"While other browser manufactures include PNG support as a 3rd party option , Internet Explorer 4.0 provides native support for PNG."
Full native support for PNG still has not been implemented in the Windows version of MSIE, despite the fact that MSIE for Mac and others browsers have full support, and it was promised to the users of MSIE for Windows over four years ago.
We, the undersigned, request that the developers of MSIE for Windows please implement full support for PNG images, for the following reasons:
The PNG format is superior to the GIF format: When the same image is saved in both PNG and GIF formats, in an editor with full and proper support for both formats, the PNG image is typically a smaller file size, is free from royalties, patents, and copyright restrictions that hinder the GIF format, and can use more than 256 colours - up to 48-bit colour.
The PNG format is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation: Microsoft has repeatedly stated their renewed commitment to web standards, so implementing full PNG support would be the next logical step in fulfilling this promise, especially since it was supposed to be implemented over four years ago.
The PNG format supports alpha transparency: Anybody who has designed images for use online knows the woes of trying to make that image appear smooth on any background. Some designers create different images to be used on different background colours, other designers simply leave the edges jagged, and still others just give their images a solid background. It's a bad way to go, but it's the only choice right now. Using PNG images with alpha transparency would eliminate all of these problems, and make the work of web designers a lot easier.
After ignoring requests on this issue for four years, we hope that you, the developers of Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows, will take a step in the right direction, and show that you truly are committed to web standards.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
http://www.fairvote.org
-----
Full Representation / Proportional Representation (PR)
Full representation (traditionally called "proportional representation") describes electoral systems in which like-minded groupings of voters will win legislative seats in better proportion to their share of the popular vote than in winner-take-all elections. Whereas the winner-take-all principle awards 100% of the representation to a 50.1% majority, full representation allows voters in a minority to win their fair share of representation alongside voters in the majority. Full representation requires at least some legislators to be elected in multi-seat districts with more than one representative.
There is a broad range of full representation systems. Some arebased on voting for political parties; others for candidates. Some allow very small groupings of voters to win seats; others require higher thresholds of support to win representation. All promote more accurate, balanced representation of the spectrum of political opinion in a given electorate.
The purpose of this site is to help citizens as well as activists gain a basic understanding of what full representation means and how it can benefit our democracy at different levels of government
When Every Vote Counts:
A Look at Proportional Representation
by Professor Douglas Amy, Mount Holyoke College
Originally printed in "Blueprint for Social Justice"
Volume XLVI, No. 8, April 1993
Americans remain highly disenchanted with US elections- and for good reasons. We are frequently confronted with poor quality candidates who are constantly constrained by the limited choices offered by a two-party system. Recent polls reveal that a majority of Americans now would like to see other parties emerge to challenge the Democrats and Republicans. In addition, American elections still produce legislatures that fail to reflect the diversity of its citizens. In particular, our legislatures continue to underrepresent various political and racial minorities. African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians still do not occupy their fair share of seats in our legislatures. And despite 1992 being billed as the "Year of the Woman" in elections and in spite of the unprecedented number of women being elected to Congress, that institution continues to be 90% male.
Dissatisfaction with American elections has lead many Americans not to vote at all, or to desperately embrace instant candidates like Ross Perot or quick fix reforms like term limits.
But there is a better alternative- a fundamental structural reform that would make American elections more fair, provide voters with more meaningful choices, and produce legislatures that are more truly representative of the public. That reform is to rep lace our present single-member district plurality elections with a system of proportional representation (PR).
Many Americans view our current plurality system as being the most natural one- we assume most democracies elect members of their legislatures one at a time in districts, with the winner being the candidate with the most votes; a plurality. But in fact t his system is considered to be outmoded and unfair by most other western democracies and they have deliberately rejected it in favor of an alternative system- proportional representation elections. Even the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union that have rushed to embrace American capitalism have refused to seriously consider adopting American-style plurality elections. All have adopted some form of PR.
Among western nations, only the US Great Britain, Canada and New Zealand (first PR elections in 1996) continue to cling to plurality elections. And a serious public discussion about switching to proportional representation is currently taking place in al l of these countries- except ours. Indeed, in New Zealand that debate culminated last fall in a national referendum on their election system, in which 85% endorsed a change to proportional
You'd expect Microsoft to be giving head to the spammers.
i only code in xhtml and css - dreamweaver doesn't display this for shit. and it runs slower.
so does transmit.
exactly. why the crap is the linux start menu so god damn confusing?
i usually use 5 or 6 programs - web browser, ftp, bbedit, photoshop and illustrator. i assume most users use 5 or 6 programs most of the time. i would assume that's why windows did what they did with the start menu in XP.
now i'm sure a user could customize the linux start menu, or whatever it's called - but i think we all know most users don't go beyond default settings.
now i'm no linux user, but on my crapintosh all the applications are kept in a folder called "applications" - ridiculous as it seems. all my system files are kept in a folder called "system". it's really whack and intuitive, but....
http://www.fairvote.org ---
The Dinosaur in the Living Room
By Rob Richie and Steven Hill
November 11, 1997
Pardon me, but do you see the dinosaur in the living room? It's standing there in the middle of the carpet, and nobody wants to talk about it. We all just tiptoe around it, year after year, pretending it's not there and hoping it will go away.
In spinning the recent elections for partisan implications, commentators generally ignored the glaring fact that, once again, fewer and fewer of us participate. It is typical for any election from overseas to report voter turnout on a near-equal basis with election results, but you had to work mighty hard to find references to turnout in the latest round of voting -- or rather, non-voting.
Let's take Virginia. Turnout in the 1997 governor's race among registered voters was 48% -- as opposed to 67% and 61% in the state's last two gubernatorial elections. And that doesn't even count eligible voters who never registered. Turnout among all eligible adult Virginians was an abysmal 34%.
But Virginians can take heart. Their turnout was better than Broward County, Florida, where a mere 7% of registered voters made their way to the polls. Such shockingly low numbers were found in numerous localities.
Detroit's mayoral primary turnout was 17% of registered voters; in Charlotte's primary, it was 6%. General election turnout was under 40% of registered voters in Miami and New York City and under 30% in Boston and San Francisco. And of course 25% of eligible voters typically remain unregistered.
The United States now has on average the lowest voter turnout in the world among mature democracies. The long-term implications of our plunging voter turnout surely are as serious as fluctuations in the stock market. But because it is creeping up slowly, like a crippling disease, the crisis of our "political depression" generally goes unrecognized.
At what point does a democracy cease to be democratically governed? Bill Clinton was re-elected with the support of fewer than one in four eligible voters. Republicans won control of the House of Representatives with even fewer votes. We maintain the corner posts of representative democracy, but with the active consent of less than half our citizens.
It is time for prominent national and state discussions about this political depression. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his twilight years that "Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times."
Our political leaders and concerned citizens must be as bold as Jefferson and his contemporaries, and consider changes that will allow voters to see a real connection between their votes and policy. Here are some proposals to consider:
* Non-partisan redistricting: One-seat legislative districts give incumbents the opportunity to gerrymander district lines using sophisticated computers and census data. They quite literally choose their constituents before their constituents choose them. This consigns most Americans to "no-choice" legislative races.
* Election holidays, weekend voting and mail-in-balloting: Making the practice of voting more convenient will have a beneficial effect on voter turnout.
* Unicameral state legislatures: Two houses in a state legislature undercut accountability and increase costs; bicameralism is simply redundant in state government, since both houses represent overlapping geographic areas.
* Increased size of legislatures: The U.S. House has remained at 435 representatives since 1910, despite our population nearly tripling. Many state legislatures also are small; California's state senate districts are larger than its congressional districts. Big districts make elections costly and keep representatives distant from constituents.
* Instant runoff voting: As more important rac
Evaluating Election Turnout
Professor Richard Rose
In the contemporary world, virtually every country holds elections of one kind or another. The right of citizens to vote is now a defining attribute of democracy, and the franchise is a right of every adult citizen and no longer a privilege restricted to a narrowly-defined group. Yet the fact that everyone has a right to vote is not sufficient to make a country democratic.
Global surveys invariably conclude that the majority of regimes in the world today are not democratic; the median regime has been aptly described as "partly free" (Freedom House, 1996). In countries of this nature, the failure to achieve democracy is not the result of denying most citizens the right to vote. It stems from the fact that such elections as are held are not freely competitive, and that regimes do not fully respect the rule of law, which includes the need to limit their own coercion. As long as it has the power to control competition and the counting of votes, a regime has nothing to fear from holding elections which are unfree and unfair.
Democrats are not the only rulers to promote a high voter turnout; a distinguishing feature of modern totalitarian regimes is the compulsory mobilization of subjects to show public commitment to them. Totalitarian rulers share the goal of 100% turnout, even when this is combined with no choice at all of parties or candidates. Thus, when it comes to electoral participation, it is certainly possible to have too much of a good thing. Virtual unanimity in turnout and in voting for a single party produces an election result too good to be true. This essay discusses firstly what constitutes "free and fair" elections and the inter-relationship of turnout and choice in both democratic and totalitarian countries. Secondly, it shows that, although a comparative perspective does make it possible to evaluate turnout as higher or lower by comparison with other countries or a nation's past record, there is no consensus on evaluation, on what a "good" turnout actually is; rational choice theorists can argue that "whatever is, is right", while at the other extreme democratic idealists can argue that anything below 100% turnout is not good enough. And thirdly, this essay concludes by showing what a government can do to make a good turnout better. It examines the question of compulsion to vote, whether it is a worthwhile option, and why a government can never produce "perfect" turnout and still hold an election that is fair and free.
Freedom of Choice Two conditions must be met before citizens are free to choose their governors. The right to vote is a necessary but not a sufficient condition; in addition, elections themselves must be both free and fair. An election is free if a multiplicity of parties are able to compete for votes; without this, the only choice open to an elector is whether to turn out or, if compelled to, whether to vote for the sole party, publicly abstain, or spoil the ballot paper. An election is fair if officials administer the law in ways that protect the rights of each elector and of competing parties, and if the counting of the votes is accurate. As Mackenzie (1958: Part Four) shows in his classic discussion of "electoral morality and its enforcement", the pathology of elections takes many different forms: an unfair election can be corrupt, muddled, stolen or manufactured.
The evaluation, as opposed to the counting, of turnout must not only take into account who can vote but also the radically different significance of voting in unfair and unfree as against free and fair elections. The categories are set out schematically in Figure 31 below. The democratic ideal is an election in which all adults have the right to vote, many parties compete and the election is administered fairly. If the franchise is granted to relatively few adults, but there is free and fair competition for the support of those who can vote, the political system is an oligarchy, and meets at least one condition for dem
http://www.fairvote.org ---
The Case for IRV
Instant runoff voting (IRV) is a well-tested voting methods that corrects the defects in plurality elections and two-round runoff elections, the two most widely used voting systems in the country. In the wake of citizen frustration with "spoiler" candidiacies and non-majority winners, efforts to replace plurality election laws with this more democratic alternative have made significant progress in states such as Alaska, Maine, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington. Instant runoff voting is an even more obvious improvement over traditional "delayed runoff" elections, as it ensures a majority winner in one election rather than two. This results in higher turnout in the decisive election, a sharp drop in election administration costs and lower costs of winning campaigns. In 2002 San Francisco became the first major jurisdiction to replace "delayed runoff" elections with instant runoff elections.
Instant runoff voting allows for better voter choice and wider voter participation by accommodating multiple candidates in single seat races and assuring that a "spoiler"-effect will not result in undemocratic outcomes. Instant runoff voting allows all voters to vote for their favorite candidate without fear of helping elect their least favorite candidate, and it ensures that the winner enjoys true support from a majority of the voters. Plurality voting, used in most American elections, does not meet these basic requirements for a fair election system that promotes wide participation, and traditional runoff elections are costly to the taxpayer and often suffer from low voter turnout.
Instant runoff voting is a winner-take-all system that ensures that a winning candidate will receive a majority of votes rather than a simple plurality. In plurality voting -- as used in most U.S. elections -- candidates can win with less than a majority when there are more than two candidates running for the office. In contrast, IRV elects a majority candidate while still allowing voters to support a candidate who is not a front-runner. IRV is a sensible method in single winner elections.
IRV allows voters to rank candidates as their first choice, second choice, third, fourth and so on. If a candidate does not receive a clear majority of votes on the first count, a series of runoff counts are conducted, using each voter's top choice indicated on the ballot. The candidate who received the fewest first place ballots is eliminated. All ballots are then retabulated, with each ballot counting as one vote for each voter's favorite candidate who is still in contention. Voters who chose the now-eliminated candidate have to support their second choice candidate -- just as if they were voting in a traditional two-round runoff election -- but all other voters get to continue supporting their top candidate. This process continues until a candidate receives a majority.
IRV Talking Points
* Ensures majority rule, in contrast to plurality voting.
* Saves money compared to costly two-round runoff elections, which often have low voter turnout.
* Increases voter turnout by giving voters better choices. Experience around the world shows that voter turnout goes up when voters have a wider range of choices.
* Promotes positive, issue-based campaigns because candidates will seek 2nd and 3rd choice votes.
* Creates a clearer mandate for a winning candidate's agenda, giving better direction for policy-making.
* Solves the problem of groupings of voters splitting their votes among similar candidates, which allows a candidate with only minority support to win.
* Minimizes "wasted" votes, votes that don't help elect a winner. To the fullest extent possible, your vote will contribute to electing a candidate that you like.
http://www.fairvote.org --
Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)
A Fairer Way to Conduct Single-Winner Elections
by the Center for Voting and Democracy
Most U.S. elections are held under plurality voting rules in which the candidate with the most votes wins. If three or more candidates run in the race, then the winner can have less than a majority of the vote. But the question always arises: was that winning candidate really preferred by most voters?
Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) is a sensible reform for elections where one person wins. Examples include elections for governors, mayors, legislatures using single-seat districts, and US president (for allocation of Electoral College electors). Instant Runoff Voting is better than plurality elections because:
it ensures the election of the candidate preferred by most voters
it eliminates the problem of spoiler candidates knocking off major candidates
it frees communities of voters from splitting their vote among their own candidates
it promotes coalition-building and more positive campaigning
IRV is also better than "two-round" runoff or primary elections, which often result in a change in voter turnout between the two rounds. IRV finishes the job with one election, which means that
election officials and taxpayers don't have to foot the bill for a second election
candidates don't have to raise money for two races, providing some campaign finance reform
the decisive election occurs when voter turnout is highest
How IRV Works: Each voter has one vote, and ranks candidates in order of choice (1, 2, 3, etc.). The counting of ballots simulates a series of run-off elections. All first choices are counted, and if no candidate wins a majority of first choices, then the last place candidate (candidate with the least first-choices) is eliminated. Ballots of voters who ranked the eliminated candidate first then are redistributed to their next-choice candidates, as indicated on each voter's ballot. Last place candidates are successively eliminated and ballots are redistributed to next choices until one candidate remains or a candidate gains over 50% of votes.
Voters have the option to rank as many or as few candidates as they wish--their favorite candidate first, their next favorite second and so on. Voters have every incentive to vote for their favorite candidate rather than the "lesser of two evils" because their ballot can still count toward a winner if their first choice loses. There also is every reason for a voter to rank as many candidates as they want, since a voter's lower choice will never help defeat one of their higher choices.
IRV is used to elect the parliament in Australia and the presidents of the Republic of Ireland and the American Political Science Association. A related method is used in Cambridge (MA) for city council.
Example: In both 1992 and 1996, Bill Clinton was elected president with less than 50% of the popular vote. IRV could been used to elect a majority-winner. Here's how it could have worked.
The 1992 Presidential Election--a Simulation
Candidate First Choice % Ballots redistributed
to 2nd choices Final Tally
George Bush 38% +10% = 48%
Bill Clinton 43% +9% = 52%
Ross Perot 19% - 19% X
Assume that, of the 19 percent of voters who ranked Ross Perot first, slightly more than half (e.g. 10% of all voters) ranked George Bush second on their ballots, and slightly less than half (e.g. 9% of all voters) ranked Bill Clinton second. When Ross Perot is eliminated, those votes are redistributed. Bill Clinton ends up with 52 percent of the overall vote, a clear majority, and is declared the winner.
http://www.fairvote.org ---
Winner Take All vs. Proportional Representation
There are two basic families of voting systems. Winner-take-all systems elect the candidates who receive the most votes, thereby allowing 50.1% of voters to win 100% of representation. Proportional representation systems allow like-minded groupings of voters to elect representatives in proportion to their share of the vote.
Winner-take-all voting systems (among which are plurality and two-round runoff systems) hold as their central tenet that representation should be awarded to the candidates who receive the most votes. That principle may seem fair enough: everyone gets to vote, and the top vote-getters win. And certainly a candidate who wins likely will share many of the same ideas and values as the largest voting block in his or her constituency.
One clear downside to winner-take-all voting, however, is that losing candidates win nothing, even if they win substantial numbers of votes. In a two-candidate race, it is possible for 49.9% of voters to receive no representation. In a three-candidate race, that number can climb to 66.6% - much more than half the electorate can actually oppose the candidate who has earned the right to "represent" it. Examples of such "plurality" victories are common. Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton earned less than 45% of the vote in their initial presidential victories, and several American governors have been elected with less than 40% in the 1990?s. In some nations such as Russia and Papua New Guinea, the number of candidacies have multiplied such that district elections regularly are won with less than 20% of votes.
The leap of faith made by advocates of winner-take-all systems is that supporters of losing candidates will be duly represented by either the candidate who win, even if that candidate is their ideological opposite, or by candidates elected elsewhere. They also must believe that voters? opinions can be neatly boiled into two basic options, as typically happens in competitive winner-take-all elections in the United States.
By contrast, proportional representation voting systems allow like-minded groupings of voters to elect representatives to a government in direct proportion to their relative support within a multi-seat constituency. Proportional systems are designed to allocate 10% of the seats to a parties or a slate of candidates that wins 10% of the vote, 25% of the seats to those taking 25% of the vote and a majority of the seats to those winning a majority of the vote. Contrast that last example with the winner-take-all system, in which a majority of the vote can win 100% of the representation, and one begins to understand the fundamental difference between the two systems.
Advocates of proportional voting systems propose that the legislature should be more like a mirror of the population, with majority and minority viewpoints represented. Note that proportional representation advocates still very much believe in majority rule: because proportional systems accurately translate the popular vote into representation, candidates or parties with the greatest support should obtain the largest share of seats in a legislature.
In fact, studies have shown that governments elected by proportional representation are more likely to produce policies that is in line with the "will the majority." There are three major reasons for this tendency. First, when more voters have representation at the policy-making table, a majority in the legislature is more likely to be grounded in a majority of the electorate than when many voters are cut out of representation. Second, when political groupings can form and run candidates from across the spectrum, voters can more precisely define their representation. Third, that increased representation of viewpoints across the spectrum can lead to fuller discussion of important issues, thereby allowing majority interests to be better articulated and defined.
This factsheet is part of the CVD Factbook Series, a compilation of short factsheets covering voting systems and voting system reforms.
What is Full Representation (PR)?
Full representation (also called "proportional representation," or just "PR") is the principle that any group of like-minded voters should win legislative seats in proportion to its share of the popular vote. Whereas the winner-take-all principle awards 100% of the representation to a 50.1% majority, full representation allows voters in a minority to win their fair share of representation alongside those in the majority.
There is a broad range of full representation systems. Some are based on voting for political parties; others for candidates. Some allow very small groupings of voters to win seats; others require higher thresholds of support to win representation. All promote more accurate, balanced representation of the spectrum of political opinion in a given electorate.
no, it's "my internet isn't working" - as if they're al gore.
the inactive tabs - too low contrast. black text on gray ground? looks "cool" - not extremely readable though.
X - stop
+ - add bookmark
o.k. - i look quickly, and i press the wrong one. how about a X inside of a circle for a stop button? it would be different than the delete button, but as well sufficiently different visually from the + "add bookmark" button. one should be able to tell the difference between two icons in an instant - i can't do this with those damn X's and +'s.
just "my" thoughts.
yes sirs,
why not live up to the challenge of living at peace with out environment - living efficiently as possibly - using less resources instead of more. it's easy to build an innefficient device - why not be a bit more clever and create the efficient and make it more powerful as well.
we need to encourage our capitalist system to encourage efficiency - then we will be able to be greedy and clean at the same time..
look at sulfur trading - it works - so would kyoto.
thank you. wonderful comment, honest.
Short On Change
Is America Building Nations Or Tearing Them Down?
Natasha Hunter is associate editor at TomPaine.com.
One way to measure the Bush administration's commitment to building democracy in postwar Iraq might be to look at the funds we've allocated to cleaning up after our last big regime-change project.
Bush included Afghanistan in his State of the Union address, and reasserted the United States' commitment to the war-blasted nation. "In Afghanistan we helped to liberate an oppressed people," he said. "And we will continue helping them secure their country, rebuild their society and educate all their children: boys and girls."
So how much money did Bush request in the budget for all this securing and rebuilding and equal-opportunity educating? None. And it's not because Congress ignored the White House's request -- the administration simply failed to include funds for reconstruction or humanitarian aid.
Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, expressed "surprise" to the BBC that the president had overlooked Afghanistan in its budget proposals package. Kolbe says that when he questioned the administration on the oversight, it couldn't offer a satisfactory explanation.
Later in the State of the Union, Bush discussed Iraq, and compared the situation to Afghanistan: "And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military and we will prevail. And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people food, and medicines and supplies and freedom."
But only if someone else foots the bill, right?
Much talk has been circulating about a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, and polling shows the American people standing solidly behind such a program. And as the only reigning superpower, the United States would have to lend its support -- and its cash -- if any such plan were to blossom. But blunders like the administration's budget omission provide a dreary if unsurprising insight into what's not motivating the White House.
And what is? Is the attack on Iraq an imperialist economic grab, an exchange of blood for oil, as the far left claims? Is it a show of overwhelming force, intended to cow our "enemies" in an increasingly fluid and unstable world? Evidence for these claims, convincing now, grows more compelling every day.
Right-wing ideologues look forward to regime change in Iraq as a stepping stone from which the Arab world can be Westernized. Liberals who believe in civil society hope that -- if war is inevitable -- Iraq and Afghanistan will create a harmonious blend of Islam and democracy. But with no money behind its words, America is nothing more than a bully that brags of building nations as it tears them down and walks away.
no no no no no no no no no.
honestly. there needs to be a discussion about this. there has to be a discussion.
this is important. this does matter. this is a wonderful forum.
remember on 9/11 when slashdot was the only place you could visit to get news?
god damn it. if i have to rely on my fucking friends and co-workers for conversation on this i'll be pissed.
how many places can you talk to the entire fucking wired world? how many places have this large of an audience?
this is a perfect use of slashdot - and if you don't want to read about it, then skip the damn article.
but, please don't encourage slashdot admins to keep the most important news of the moment off of slashdot.
there are thousands of intelligent people participating here - and i want to hear what they have to say.
cnn can fuck off...
click it, it's funny and insightful at the same time. and it does involve voltron.
Published on Thursday, March 13, 2003 by Yahoo News
Don't Support Our Troops
Win or Lose, War on Iraq is Wrong
by Ted Rall
NEW YORK--Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, opposes war with Iraq. Despite this stance, he suggests that Americans should set aside their political differences once the Mother of All Bombs starts blowing up munitions dumps and babies in Baghdad.
"When the war begins, if the war begins," says Kerry, "I support the troops and I support the United States of America winning as rapidly as possible. When the troops are in the field and fighting--if they're in the field and fighting--remembering what it's like to be those troops--I think they need a unified America that is prepared to win."
Fellow presidential candidate Howard Dean, who calls Bush's foreign policy "ghastly" and "appalling," is the Democrats' most vocal opponent of a preemptive strike against Iraq. But once war breaks out, he says, "Of course I'll support the troops."
This is an understandable impulse. As patriots, we want our country to win the wars that we fight. As Americans, we want our soldiers--young men and women who risk too much for too little pay--to come home in one piece. But supporting our troops while they're fighting an immoral and illegal war is misguided and wrong.
An Unjust Cause
Iraq has never attacked, nor threatened to attack, the United States. As his 1990 invasion of Kuwait proved, Saddam is a menace to his neighbors--Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel--but he's their problem, not ours. Saddam's longest-range missiles only travel 400 miles.
Numerous countries are ruled by unstable megalomaniacs possessing scary weaponry. North Korea has an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the western United States and, unlike Iraq, the nuke to put inside it. Pakistan, another nuclear power run by a dangerous anti-American dictator, just unveiled its new HATF-4 ballistic missile. If disarmament were Bush's goal, shouldn't those countries--both of which have threatened to use nukes--be higher-priority targets than non-nuclear Iraq?
Iraq isn't part of the war on terrorism. The only link between Iraq and Al Qaeda is the fact that they hate each other's guts. And no matter how often Bush says "9/11" and "Iraq" in the same breath, Saddam had nothing to do with the terror attacks.
That leaves freeing Iraqis from Saddam's repressive rule as the sole rationale for war. Is the U.S. in the liberation business? Will Bush spread democracy to Myamnar, Congo, Turkmenistan, Cambodia, Nigeria, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan or Laos, just to name a few places where people can't vote, speak freely or eat much? You be the judge. I wouldn't bet on it.
Of course, it would be great if Iraqis were to overthrow Saddam (assuming that his successor would be an improvement). But regime change is up to the locals, not us. George W. Bush is leading us to commit an ignominious crime, an internationally-unsanctioned invasion of a nation that has done us no harm and presents no imminent threat.
Germans in the 1930s
We find ourselves facing the paradox of the "good German" of the '30s. We're ruled by an evil, non-elected warlord who ignores both domestic opposition and international condemnation. We don't want the soldiers fighting his unjustified wars of expansion to win--but we don't want them to lose either.
Our dilemma is rendered slightly less painful by the all-volunteer nature of our armed forces: at least we aren't being asked to cheer on reluctant draftees. Presumably everybody in uniform knew what they might be in for when they signed up.
"I'm horrified by this war," a friend tells me, "but once it starts we have to win and win quickly." For her, as for Kerry and Dean, our servicemen are people performing a job. They go where the politicians send them.
The thing is, we don't really have to win. Losing the Vietnam War sucked, but not fighting it in the first place would have been smarter
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15359
----
Obviously Oil
By Rep. Dennis Kucinich, AlterNet March 11, 2003
Editor's Note: Although Dennis Kucinich was aggressively attacked by Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen for suggesting that the preemptive strike on Iraq was based on oil, the Post refused to print the presidential candidate and Ohio Democrat's response. This was especially frustrating, since the Post editorial stance and balance of editorial page columns have been decidedly pro-war. You can tell the Post how you feel about this ommission at ombudsman@washpost.com.
Is President Bush's war in Iraq about oil? Of course it is. Sometimes, the obvious answer is the right one: Oil is a major factor in the President's march to war, just as oil is a major factor in every aspect of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf.
Ask yourself:
What commodity accounts for 83 percent of total exports from the Persian Gulf? What is the U.S. protecting with our permanent deployment of about 25,000 military personnel, 6 fighter squadrons, 6 bomber squadrons, 13 air control and reconnaissance squadrons, one aircraft carrier battle group, and one amphibious ready group based at 11 military installations in the countries of the Persian Gulf? (Note, the disproportionate troop deployments in the Middle East aren't there to protect the people, who constitute only 2 percent of the world population.)
What was Iraq's number one export when the U.S. made an alliance with Saddam Hussein, sold him biological and chemical weapons agents, and then did not object when he gassed his own people?
For what major Iraqi resource has Saddam Hussein denied contracts with the largest U.S. and U.K. multinational companies? (Note, those companies are the #2 (ExxonMobil), #4 (BP-Amoco), #8 (Shell) and #14 (ChevronTexaco) largest companies in the world, and the Bush Administration has been known to listen when large energy corporations speak.)
For what Iraqi resource did French and Russian multinational companies receive lucrative contracts from Saddam Hussein? What valuable commodity does one reprehensible, megalomaniacal tyrant (Saddam Hussein) control that another reprehensible, megalomaniacal tyrant (Kim Chong-il) does not?
How do the White House and State Department plan to pay for a post-Saddam occupation and reconstruction?
The answer to all of these questions is oil, of course. Oil obviously drives U.S. policy in the Middle East. So who can doubt that this war in Iraq concerns oil?
Meanwhile, the justifications the Administration has made for this war can be rather easily dismissed. Contrary to Administration assertions, a war against Iraq will not be in self-defense: Iraq does not pose an imminent threat to the United States. It doesn't have the ability, nor has it ever had the ability, to shoot a missile or send a bomber to harm America. Iraq does not possess nuclear weapons. Furthermore, there is no credible evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
No credible link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda has been made. Iraq did not have anything to do with the anthrax-containing letters that killed several Americans.
Contrary to the Administration's portrayal of an Iraqi threat, Iraq is hardly uniquely threatening. Sixteen other countries in the world have or might have nuclear weapons, 25 countries have or might have chemical weapons, 19 other countries have or might have biological weapons, and 16 other countries have or might have missile systems. Yet the Bush Administration is not on the verge of invading them.
Contrary to their denials that this war has anything to do with oil, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle wanted to go to war in Iraq long before they became Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Defense Policy Board. In a 1998 letter they sent to then-President Clinton, they stated "it hardly needs to be added that i