"...global warming could actually benefit humanity by expanding the amount of arable land..." Bullshit. Change is bad, any change is bad. One theory is that our temperature has remained artifically stable for the last 10K years because of the gulf stream being shut off as we increased temp. One theory in anthropology is that the only reason we developed a society at all was because of this stability. Why fuck with a known quantity. risk=damagexlikelyhood again. Damage is totally unknown so why risk it?
Even if you kill all the dumb people 50% of the remaining people will still be dumb, statistics are a bitch. I am obviously being absurdest but my point is still valid. If the conservatives think we can preemptively strike Iraq (killing hundreds of thousands of people) to prevent them from attacking us (when there was no way in hell that they would) why can't I kill the people who are risking the only known habitable planet in the universe so they can what??? Not modify their lazy, arrogant, slothful, greedy, murderous lifestyle? What exactly is so important that you are fighting for? Inefficiency. A noble purpose if ever there was one.
Birth rates. Condoms and educating women the only two things that drop it. But you are not taking into account that the Muslims, the Christians, the Hindus, and a lot of other people who KNOW they are right, and think they have a G-d given right to have as many kids as possible hell some think it is an imperative. Religion trumps thinking a frightening proportion of the time. Are you willing to RISK it once again. Any population growth at all will lead to doubling. Per Dr. Albert A. Bartlett at University of Colorado, Boulder... "The land area of the continents (excluding Antarctica) is 1.24 1014 m2. If this modest annual growth rate of 1.7% were to continue steadily in the future, how long will it take for the population to reach a density of one person per square meter on the continents? Solving, we find t is slightly less than 600 years."
600 fucking years; a little less than half the time since Mohammed, 1/3 of the time since Jesus and it will be one person per square meter. Wake up jackass.
As to Al Gore and propaganda lets look at this critically. You are telling me that scientists, a group of squabbling intellectuals who's only hope of advancement is one-upmanship have conspired to take away our freedom to burn fossil fuels for what? So they can control us? So they can make us suffer? Because they are all secretly communists? Vs. the idea the the MOST PROFITABLE business in human history has to introduce just enough fear uncertainty and doubt to make sheeple like you question the questioners. Oh yes those billions of dollars the ivory tower egg heads have hidden away with their magic lead to gold machines are being used to push a propaganda machine of biblical proportions drowning out the logical dispassionate arguments of the capitalist captains of the oil industry. Follow the money... fuck you you ignorant ass. How much did Exxon make this year? That's the fucking money. "Show me the money" Oh wait here's the money... "Exxon earned $45.2 billion in 2008, beating the record it set in 2007 for most profitable corporation, at $40.6 billion. That came despite a fourth "quarter in which income fell 33 percent, owing to the steepest drop ever in oil prices, as the economy went into a tailspin." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/business/31oil.html
"hy did the coldest period in the last half billion years have 10 times, that's 1000% the CO2 level we have today if CO2 is such a big driver for temperature increase? There's your bullshit." um... citation?
Lets say that the "worst case possible scenario" for catastrophic global climate change is death of all humans, in that case we can assume that the damage is infinite. If the damage is infinite then even if the likelihood is very very small anything times infinity equals infinity. Resulting in the basic truth that global climate change has basically infinite risk to all humanity. If that is true we have every moral and ethical right to kill people who do not believe in the RISK of climate change. If all it takes is a couple of assholes to kill us all why can't we kill them first? What's the worst case risk there? Lets say 50% of people are dumb and don't believe that they can irreparably harm the planet. We round them up and kill them or sterilize them or cut out their reproductive organs or give them an Ebola milkshake (whatever works.) Worst case; damage, 50% x likelihood, 100% = risk is 50% to the human population. Not so bad. There are 7 billion of us currently, what's 3.5 billion dead if it means we have a chance of surviving until we get hit by a big fucking rock.
Its a variation (taken to a horrific extreme) of Isaac Asimov's freedom of the bathroom quote. "When two people share two bathrooms, each has "freedom of the bathroom." This freedom entails using the resource whenever, for however long, and for whatever purpose one chooses. Unfortunately, when 20 people share those same two bathrooms, freedom of the bathroom disappears. It is a simple metaphor from which he extrapolates the problems of overpopulation-a circumstance he believed would mean the end to democracy, human dignity, convenience and decency.
Nothing we care about can survive exponential population growth. Eventually population growth will stop and when it does (unless it is our choice and even then only if we chose contraception and/or education) its going to mean lots of death, famine, pestilence, war, and the other less well know horsemen of the "Oh my god how did we not see this coming? We did see it coming and I'm a fuck wit? Oh well pass me the purple kool-aid then."
p.s. "(as can be clearly seen by the fact that Al Gore, a politician, is at the head of the discussion)" Bullshit. The discussion is between people with PhDs in climate fields, Al Gore is one talking head who happens to talk about it. You thinking he is the "head of the discussion" shows that you are not part of the discussion at all.
p.p.s Skepticism is great but risk analysis is more practical. You don't need a flawless model for Newtonian physics to slam on the breaks before you hit a pedestrian.
Narf... um... yeah I was asking for backup... because, I could find the reference, so I asked the assembled nerds for help. "Reading, its not for people any more."
A friend of mine who is a mathematician told me he rad an article that showed that the total amount of energy required to create a windmill would never be recovered by the device. So a couple of questions. First, does anyone know of where he speaks? Second, should we have a label on devices that audit how much power was used to create the device, not just how much it takes to use it? Third WTF happened to gyromills?
Why not throw in a an atom too so when your are browsing the web etc. you draw even less. That's the thing about Moore's law. You never need to buy a new computer ever again if you don't play games, edit video, steal video, or render shit. 99% of the crap I do could run on my Nokia e71 (including Quake) if I had an external usb keyboard and video card.
I tried one of the online editors but I could not remember or find any of the commands for the Apple OS. Hwo the fuck do you use BRUN??? I cannot remember and it shames me deeply.
Many valid points but the basic concept of "the government is inefficient" I find disingenuous.
Lets look at Social Security then. It would be totally self funded and highly efficient if it hadn't been folded into the general budget so it is an example of efficient and inefficient government simultaneously.
I have no delusions that the democrats are immune to stupidity they will rapidly insert their heads in their collective asses in short order. But the total aggregate stupidity scale is currently deeply on the republican side. Part of the reason that it is there is that the agrarian states who receive more federal funds then they pay in voted to elect a president and a congress who increased spending and cut taxes based on the "government is inefficient" fallacy. Reagan thought that the federal auditors were inefficient and fired them, for that ~400K in savings the federal government lost billions to waste.
What is worse FEMA's handling of New Orleans or Amtrak? What's worse the pork of the old democratic congress or the 10 trillion dollar debt we now face because of one party Republican rule? What's worse Carter\s failed promise or Cheney's closed door energy policy? What's worse Clinton blowing up an aspirin factory of Bush invading Iraq sans Powell Doctrine? What's worse Carter failing to free the hostages or the Reagan Iran Contra affair? What's worse Clinton firing the travel staff or Bush firing the attorneys? I KNOW THAT THEY ARE ALL THE SAME... it just that the Republicans have a far worse impact when they fuck up than the democrats in the last 30 years.
Do I agree with the war on drugs? No. Do I think that the prison industrial complex is a danger to the free state? Yes. But that is a separate idea from efficiency. Is the utility of the FBI's activity to our society greater than the funds required to run the bureau would be a measure of efficiency. Does the money we spend of child health care save society or cost society in the long term is a basic question, then we ask what is the most efficient program to achieve those goals. Sure Ron Paul would say that this is the job of state government not the feds but the people have decided that federal government should provide a lot more than the general defense these days and that is reality. Would I like a different reality? Yes. But the Dominist idea of running the federal government into a ditch to force the states to rise again is more real and terrifying to me than a 5% tax increase to make sure that mental patients are not thrown out on the street to save taxes so people can buy a bigger TV made in China on usurious consumer credit loaned by a Saudi controlled bank.
The US before the safety net was a rough place. Do you want a rough country or not? Once you make that decision solving the goal for the least amount of money is the goal. You want the law of the jungle laizefair capitalism? Say hello to the next Enron or Merill Lynch.
As to being too young to remember the evils of a Democratic congress are you talking about Dixie-crats or the modern democratic party? Bary Goldwater 1964... when the two parties switched names.
p.s. the last time we were at war we paid 75% income taxes.
When you say blundering government you are using a conservative republican talking point, in my experience the worst government blundering was done by the republican conservatives. E.g. Iraq, New Orleans, overturning the firewalls in the banking industry, and basically the last eight years. The people who preached against large blundering government created the largest most ham fisted clusterfuck since the civil war and you have the gall to trot out more of the same tired empty baseless bullshit. Government is in fact highly efficient. Case in point the U.S. Army is considered to have the most efficient logistics and supply chain on the planet. Or look at NPV of you tax cuts, one study showed that for the $300 tax cut that Bush handed out we lost on average $2600 in services over our lifetime. You either don't understand or refuse to pay attention to the tiny amount of variation is spending that is feasible within our budget. You really want efficient government make the congress follow generally accepted accounting principles.
Government is not forcing charity on us. Our elected leaders have built structures to prevent catastrophic failures from overwhelming the system. The fact that those systems have not been needed recently does not mean that they will never be needed. We are currently flirting with depression era issues that will be dramatically compounded if the rest of the world stops using dollars for oil trading and goes to Euros.
Just because you haven't had a car wreck in 50 years of driving doesn't mean you sell the airbags out of your car to by a big flat screen TV.
Your observation has nothing to do with the post you responded to. His point was that in attempted fraud in vote by mail the perpetrators were caught. That's not disinfranchisment, that is basic law enforcement.
At first I couldn't decide it that was a Ignoratio elenchi fallacy or a Package-deal fallacy until I realized that it is just that you are a racist of the first order; that was seriously one of the most fucked up things I have ever read on slashdot and said in such a sleazy passive aggressive tone as well. There's a special place for you somewhere...
Evidence bitch; give it to me or STFU. Wikipedia quotes "New fears over postal vote fraud" (Guardian, 13. April 2005) as saying "No Vote By Mail Project has also documented the rise of the multi-week vote counts, vote-buying, granny-farming, and many other problems and concerns that have arisen due to the increased use of absentee ballots and propagation of Vote-by Mail systems."
In fact the google news search: ~evidence ~fraud oregon "vote by mail" -"no evidence" for all dates gives no cited instances.
I did find this one "'We don't have evidence of fraud in the system, but it's a real concern,' said Bill Lunch, who teaches political science at Oregon State University" from "Oregon opts for mail over high-tech voting" 10/13/2004 3:51 PM By: Brad Cain AP
Oh wait the list goes on and on. But why use the internet to find data that may conflict with your world view when you can instead spout unfounded assertions based on your own navel gazing.
You're not a troll but you might be a mouth breathing troglodyte.
Case in point: Any point that begins with some drivel like "Every year you hear..." is a clear sign that you are lying, or you are making this shit up. Give me some hard numbers or don't, but don't give me a argument based on a third hand case study that was only used by the media becasue it was sensational in the first place. All this "point" indicated to me is that you are just too stupid to know that your brain is selectively retaining information to support your own bias.
Same goes for your "post office trash" story; bullshit and even if its true it won't effect shit in the general election.
In Ohio in the last election people in urban areas had to wait 6 hours in a cold November rain to vote. Six fucking hours. You know why? Because the partisan republican secretary of state wanted to make it as difficult to vote as possible for urban educated white and poor blacks. You think discrimination is good because it has never happened to you in any meaningful way ( having a bouncer let a hot chick into a bar instead of you doesn't count.) Read up on 2000, discrimination in Florida was state troopers blocking black people from voting, that is way more blatant and ugly then thing that has happened in Oregon in at least 50 years and shit like that doesn't go down because of the format of the ballot.
As for "Dad" voting, my Dad is a frighteningly smart, well educated, and directly knows or has worked with or gone to school with most of the people in local politics and the last 4 presidential elections. So when I ask my Dad what he thinks about the governor, or the VP, or the president and he can tell me that he took the bar with him or watched him make a ass out of himself in front of the whole school I value that opinion a whole lot more than yours, the media's, or the governor PR. In addition he reads 3 national, 2 international, and 3 local papers a day. So when I ask him about the real effects of a policy I am pretty sure he is well informed. Now I know that's not everyone's experience but it is mine and I like it.
I find you offensive because your basic premise is that people don't deserve democracy and because of that we should assume that they should pull themselves up by their boot straps and be a cracker ass wasp like you only less intelligent and more uncaring.
1. Vote in your own home. 2. Have the internet, family, the phone, and the local papers when you vote. 3. Easy to check your results. 4. Easy to audit (it has done a good job of catching errors in the past.) 5. Doesn't take time out of your busy schedule.
Slashdot Mirror
"...global warming could actually benefit humanity by expanding the amount of arable land..." Bullshit. Change is bad, any change is bad. One theory is that our temperature has remained artifically stable for the last 10K years because of the gulf stream being shut off as we increased temp. One theory in anthropology is that the only reason we developed a society at all was because of this stability. Why fuck with a known quantity. risk=damagexlikelyhood again. Damage is totally unknown so why risk it?
Even if you kill all the dumb people 50% of the remaining people will still be dumb, statistics are a bitch. I am obviously being absurdest but my point is still valid. If the conservatives think we can preemptively strike Iraq (killing hundreds of thousands of people) to prevent them from attacking us (when there was no way in hell that they would) why can't I kill the people who are risking the only known habitable planet in the universe so they can what??? Not modify their lazy, arrogant, slothful, greedy, murderous lifestyle? What exactly is so important that you are fighting for? Inefficiency. A noble purpose if ever there was one.
Birth rates. Condoms and educating women the only two things that drop it. But you are not taking into account that the Muslims, the Christians, the Hindus, and a lot of other people who KNOW they are right, and think they have a G-d given right to have as many kids as possible hell some think it is an imperative. Religion trumps thinking a frightening proportion of the time. Are you willing to RISK it once again. Any population growth at all will lead to doubling. Per Dr. Albert A. Bartlett at University of Colorado, Boulder...
"The land area of the continents (excluding Antarctica) is 1.24 1014 m2. If this modest annual growth rate of 1.7% were to continue steadily in the future, how long will it take for the population to reach a density of one person per square meter on the continents? Solving, we find t is slightly less than 600 years."
600 fucking years; a little less than half the time since Mohammed, 1/3 of the time since Jesus and it will be one person per square meter. Wake up jackass.
As to Al Gore and propaganda lets look at this critically. You are telling me that scientists, a group of squabbling intellectuals who's only hope of advancement is one-upmanship have conspired to take away our freedom to burn fossil fuels for what? So they can control us? So they can make us suffer? Because they are all secretly communists? Vs. the idea the the MOST PROFITABLE business in human history has to introduce just enough fear uncertainty and doubt to make sheeple like you question the questioners. Oh yes those billions of dollars the ivory tower egg heads have hidden away with their magic lead to gold machines are being used to push a propaganda machine of biblical proportions drowning out the logical dispassionate arguments of the capitalist captains of the oil industry. Follow the money... fuck you you ignorant ass. How much did Exxon make this year? That's the fucking money. "Show me the money" Oh wait here's the money...
"Exxon earned $45.2 billion in 2008, beating the record it set in 2007 for most profitable corporation, at $40.6 billion. That came despite a fourth "quarter in which income fell 33 percent, owing to the steepest drop ever in oil prices, as the economy went into a tailspin." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/business/31oil.html
"hy did the coldest period in the last half billion years have 10 times, that's 1000% the CO2 level we have today if CO2 is such a big driver for temperature increase? There's your bullshit." um... citation?
How about this one http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-bathtub-effect/
So what if it is "relatively cold" right now. This temperature range works for us. Don't RISK fucking it up bec
risk = damage x likelihood
Lets say that the "worst case possible scenario" for catastrophic global climate change is death of all humans, in that case we can assume that the damage is infinite. If the damage is infinite then even if the likelihood is very very small anything times infinity equals infinity. Resulting in the basic truth that global climate change has basically infinite risk to all humanity. If that is true we have every moral and ethical right to kill people who do not believe in the RISK of climate change. If all it takes is a couple of assholes to kill us all why can't we kill them first? What's the worst case risk there? Lets say 50% of people are dumb and don't believe that they can irreparably harm the planet. We round them up and kill them or sterilize them or cut out their reproductive organs or give them an Ebola milkshake (whatever works.) Worst case; damage, 50% x likelihood, 100% = risk is 50% to the human population. Not so bad. There are 7 billion of us currently, what's 3.5 billion dead if it means we have a chance of surviving until we get hit by a big fucking rock.
Its a variation (taken to a horrific extreme) of Isaac Asimov's freedom of the bathroom quote. "When two people share two bathrooms, each has "freedom of the bathroom." This freedom entails using the resource whenever, for however long, and for whatever purpose one chooses. Unfortunately, when 20 people share those same two bathrooms, freedom of the bathroom disappears. It is a simple metaphor from which he extrapolates the problems of overpopulation-a circumstance he believed would mean the end to democracy, human dignity, convenience and decency.
Nothing we care about can survive exponential population growth. Eventually population growth will stop and when it does (unless it is our choice and even then only if we chose contraception and/or education) its going to mean lots of death, famine, pestilence, war, and the other less well know horsemen of the "Oh my god how did we not see this coming? We did see it coming and I'm a fuck wit? Oh well pass me the purple kool-aid then."
p.s. "(as can be clearly seen by the fact that Al Gore, a politician, is at the head of the discussion)" Bullshit. The discussion is between people with PhDs in climate fields, Al Gore is one talking head who happens to talk about it. You thinking he is the "head of the discussion" shows that you are not part of the discussion at all.
p.p.s Skepticism is great but risk analysis is more practical. You don't need a flawless model for Newtonian physics to slam on the breaks before you hit a pedestrian.
Narf... um... yeah I was asking for backup... because, I could find the reference, so I asked the assembled nerds for help. "Reading, its not for people any more."
A friend of mine who is a mathematician told me he rad an article that showed that the total amount of energy required to create a windmill would never be recovered by the device. So a couple of questions. First, does anyone know of where he speaks? Second, should we have a label on devices that audit how much power was used to create the device, not just how much it takes to use it? Third WTF happened to gyromills?
How was that a Troll? The RNC is clearly paying shills to mod slashdot into the fucking ground.
Chicken wire tied to a ground! Faraday cage bitches.
Why not throw in a an atom too so when your are browsing the web etc. you draw even less. That's the thing about Moore's law. You never need to buy a new computer ever again if you don't play games, edit video, steal video, or render shit. 99% of the crap I do could run on my Nokia e71 (including Quake) if I had an external usb keyboard and video card.
Look into the Space Fountain instead... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain
Next time try DMT.
Castle Wolfenstien! Impossible Mission! Karataka!
Anyway...
I tried one of the online editors but I could not remember or find any of the commands for the Apple OS. Hwo the fuck do you use BRUN??? I cannot remember and it shames me deeply.
...for a FP?
Methods for Recovery of Atmospheric Humidity by Robert A. Nelson Copyright 2003
http://www.rexresearch.com/airwells/airwells.htm
This is a really interesting website.
These things had a 90 day life span! Next time I think we should send them in pairs so they can help each other out in a pinch.
I love Bob. I love him for his anger, I love him for his evil monsters, but most of all for his Ur-Quan cartoons.
Many valid points but the basic concept of "the government is inefficient" I find disingenuous.
Lets look at Social Security then. It would be totally self funded and highly efficient if it hadn't been folded into the general budget so it is an example of efficient and inefficient government simultaneously.
I have no delusions that the democrats are immune to stupidity they will rapidly insert their heads in their collective asses in short order. But the total aggregate stupidity scale is currently deeply on the republican side. Part of the reason that it is there is that the agrarian states who receive more federal funds then they pay in voted to elect a president and a congress who increased spending and cut taxes based on the "government is inefficient" fallacy. Reagan thought that the federal auditors were inefficient and fired them, for that ~400K in savings the federal government lost billions to waste.
What is worse FEMA's handling of New Orleans or Amtrak? What's worse the pork of the old democratic congress or the 10 trillion dollar debt we now face because of one party Republican rule? What's worse Carter\s failed promise or Cheney's closed door energy policy? What's worse Clinton blowing up an aspirin factory of Bush invading Iraq sans Powell Doctrine? What's worse Carter failing to free the hostages or the Reagan Iran Contra affair? What's worse Clinton firing the travel staff or Bush firing the attorneys? I KNOW THAT THEY ARE ALL THE SAME... it just that the Republicans have a far worse impact when they fuck up than the democrats in the last 30 years.
Do I agree with the war on drugs? No. Do I think that the prison industrial complex is a danger to the free state? Yes. But that is a separate idea from efficiency. Is the utility of the FBI's activity to our society greater than the funds required to run the bureau would be a measure of efficiency. Does the money we spend of child health care save society or cost society in the long term is a basic question, then we ask what is the most efficient program to achieve those goals. Sure Ron Paul would say that this is the job of state government not the feds but the people have decided that federal government should provide a lot more than the general defense these days and that is reality. Would I like a different reality? Yes. But the Dominist idea of running the federal government into a ditch to force the states to rise again is more real and terrifying to me than a 5% tax increase to make sure that mental patients are not thrown out on the street to save taxes so people can buy a bigger TV made in China on usurious consumer credit loaned by a Saudi controlled bank.
The US before the safety net was a rough place. Do you want a rough country or not? Once you make that decision solving the goal for the least amount of money is the goal. You want the law of the jungle laizefair capitalism? Say hello to the next Enron or Merill Lynch.
As to being too young to remember the evils of a Democratic congress are you talking about Dixie-crats or the modern democratic party? Bary Goldwater 1964... when the two parties switched names.
p.s. the last time we were at war we paid 75% income taxes.
Only a human will shit where they sleep. Enjoy resting in your own filth buddy.
When you say blundering government you are using a conservative republican talking point, in my experience the worst government blundering was done by the republican conservatives. E.g. Iraq, New Orleans, overturning the firewalls in the banking industry, and basically the last eight years. The people who preached against large blundering government created the largest most ham fisted clusterfuck since the civil war and you have the gall to trot out more of the same tired empty baseless bullshit. Government is in fact highly efficient. Case in point the U.S. Army is considered to have the most efficient logistics and supply chain on the planet. Or look at NPV of you tax cuts, one study showed that for the $300 tax cut that Bush handed out we lost on average $2600 in services over our lifetime. You either don't understand or refuse to pay attention to the tiny amount of variation is spending that is feasible within our budget. You really want efficient government make the congress follow generally accepted accounting principles.
Government is not forcing charity on us. Our elected leaders have built structures to prevent catastrophic failures from overwhelming the system. The fact that those systems have not been needed recently does not mean that they will never be needed. We are currently flirting with depression era issues that will be dramatically compounded if the rest of the world stops using dollars for oil trading and goes to Euros.
Just because you haven't had a car wreck in 50 years of driving doesn't mean you sell the airbags out of your car to by a big flat screen TV.
Your observation has nothing to do with the post you responded to. His point was that in attempted fraud in vote by mail the perpetrators were caught. That's not disinfranchisment, that is basic law enforcement.
At first I couldn't decide it that was a Ignoratio elenchi fallacy or a Package-deal fallacy until I realized that it is just that you are a racist of the first order; that was seriously one of the most fucked up things I have ever read on slashdot and said in such a sleazy passive aggressive tone as well. There's a special place for you somewhere...
Evidence bitch; give it to me or STFU. Wikipedia quotes "New fears over postal vote fraud" (Guardian, 13. April 2005) as saying "No Vote By Mail Project has also documented the rise of the multi-week vote counts, vote-buying, granny-farming, and many other problems and concerns that have arisen due to the increased use of absentee ballots and propagation of Vote-by Mail systems."
In fact the google news search: ~evidence ~fraud oregon "vote by mail" -"no evidence" for all dates gives no cited instances.
I did find this one "'We don't have evidence of fraud in the system, but it's a real concern,' said Bill Lunch, who teaches political science at Oregon State University" from "Oregon opts for mail over high-tech voting" 10/13/2004 3:51 PM By: Brad Cain AP
Oh wait the list goes on and on. But why use the internet to find data that may conflict with your world view when you can instead spout unfounded assertions based on your own navel gazing.
You're not a troll but you might be a mouth breathing troglodyte.
Case in point: Any point that begins with some drivel like "Every year you hear..." is a clear sign that you are lying, or you are making this shit up. Give me some hard numbers or don't, but don't give me a argument based on a third hand case study that was only used by the media becasue it was sensational in the first place. All this "point" indicated to me is that you are just too stupid to know that your brain is selectively retaining information to support your own bias.
Same goes for your "post office trash" story; bullshit and even if its true it won't effect shit in the general election.
In Ohio in the last election people in urban areas had to wait 6 hours in a cold November rain to vote. Six fucking hours. You know why? Because the partisan republican secretary of state wanted to make it as difficult to vote as possible for urban educated white and poor blacks. You think discrimination is good because it has never happened to you in any meaningful way ( having a bouncer let a hot chick into a bar instead of you doesn't count.) Read up on 2000, discrimination in Florida was state troopers blocking black people from voting, that is way more blatant and ugly then thing that has happened in Oregon in at least 50 years and shit like that doesn't go down because of the format of the ballot.
As for "Dad" voting, my Dad is a frighteningly smart, well educated, and directly knows or has worked with or gone to school with most of the people in local politics and the last 4 presidential elections. So when I ask my Dad what he thinks about the governor, or the VP, or the president and he can tell me that he took the bar with him or watched him make a ass out of himself in front of the whole school I value that opinion a whole lot more than yours, the media's, or the governor PR. In addition he reads 3 national, 2 international, and 3 local papers a day. So when I ask him about the real effects of a policy I am pretty sure he is well informed. Now I know that's not everyone's experience but it is mine and I like it.
I find you offensive because your basic premise is that people don't deserve democracy and because of that we should assume that they should pull themselves up by their boot straps and be a cracker ass wasp like you only less intelligent and more uncaring.
Touche!
...to say fuck no to abstinence only education.
Take a systems that works and copy it.
Oregon's vote by mail.
1. Vote in your own home.
2. Have the internet, family, the phone, and the local papers when you vote.
3. Easy to check your results.
4. Easy to audit (it has done a good job of catching errors in the past.)
5. Doesn't take time out of your busy schedule.