My guess is that making the Micro will be cheaper for Nintendo in the long run. Technology has advanced since the SP, smaller chips and screens have gotten cheaper (probably to the point where continuing to produce the old stuff is no longer cost-effective), and the Micro will take less material to produce and package overall.
It's the same reasons anybody re-releases a console.
"Maybe cooperative multiplayer, sort of like with Tingle in the The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker?"
"Cooperative," huh? You mean where one person tries to play the game and the other tries to blow up the first person with bombs bought with his own damned money? Or making the little freak bastard shout "Hey!" grabbing the camera at exactly the wrong time?
That may be part of your problem right there. If there's anything I've learned from my new All-In-Wonder is the power of the old maxim "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," especially when it comes to ATI's software. Even if you can get it to install successfully ("Failed to register..."), things still manage to eventually go south (such as installing a new version of an app besides the older version instead of over it).
As far as drivers are concerned, I've decided to stick with Windows Update. If the people that gave us SP2 won't touch ATI's newer drivers, why would you?
I'm not the original poster, but my opinion is that it's ultimately their problem to deal with (both as a loss of qualified peronnel and as a loss of face for the organization in the eyes of many). However, that still leaves us free to disapprove of BSA's actions.
I've looked at the original post and all the parent called for was personal action on the part of the readers, not any real imposition on BSA beyond calling for people to stop financially supporting them. We're talking about individual action, not legal sanction. Where's the victim?
"It is petty of you to deride an organization that first and foremost encourages community volunteerism and service."
Service to whom, though? The personal interests of the leadership? It's hard for me as an outsider to not see BSA as a political organization, where the soup kitchens serve as PR as well as "community service."
"your involvement would taint their good work."
My inner anarchist questions the "good work" of any organization that requires oathes of obedience from its members. Not even the US military goes that far.
"The new Political Correctness, Explore Your Feminine Side, Gay Is OK,"
That's not the Boy Scouts I know, at least not as practiced in the United States. They've successfully gone to court to protect their "No Icky Girls" rule, either as members or leaders, and have similarly defended their anti-gay stance as well.
Seriously, in a day and age when the US military accepts women and practices plausible deniability with homosexuals, the BSA seems to serve their "moralistic" masters well. If the Hong Kong arm of the Boy Scouts is anything like it is in the US , I don't think this new merit badge program could have happened to a nicer group of people.
"Since these are not offices created by the Constitution or by the Senate,"
OK, this bit right here shows me two things:
You either didn't comprehend part of the constitutional quote I provided in my last post (specifically the "not herein otherwise provided for" part), or you plain didn't read it.
You're using the words "Senate" and "Congress" interchangably, apparently confusing what the Senate can do alone and what both chambers of Congress are required for.
These two things tell me that you're too far gone in your "understanding" of the Constitution of the United States for me to be able to salvage anything here.
I would reccomend sitting down and reading the entire Constitution of the United States some time. It's not that long (the original fit on four pages, IIRC) and shouldn't take you more than a few minutes of your time. Even if you've already read it, even if you think you understand it already, it couldn't hurt anything to read it again. I admit the language is a little dated but I find that it comes smothely after the first few paragraphs. Don't worry about the amendments yet, just focus for the time being on the structure of the government.
Beyond that, I wash my hands of this thread. Feel free to assume victory on your part.
"All offices don't require Senate confirmation. Very few appointments do."
"(H)e shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments."
The only reason any appointment by any member of the executive department is able to be done without the "Advise and Consent of the Senate" is when Congress specifically grants someone in the executive that power. This means that the positions in question were explicitly considered and a law was passed granting the Secretary of State the power to appoint members to this commission without Senate oversight. If what you suggest is true and these commissions truly need a political litmus test, it would appear you are disagreeing with at least 218 members of Congress, 51 Senators and 1 President.
"If these really are inconsequential positions, why are there so many posts here whining about an administration appointing people that *gasp* don't want it run out of town."
I can't speak for others, but to me this is an abuse of executive privilege. If the appointment of these positions is politically contentious in any way, shape or form, then the administration has an obligation to bring any nominees before the Senate for their approval. Instead of doing the correct thing and pushing for a change in the appointment laws of these positions, the White House has taken it upon itself to abuse the privileges granted to the Secretary of State by Congress in a childish manner for its own political gain. Whether or not there was any political clout to be gained by barring these people from attending is besides the point, it is not the place of one person alone to set political policy in a democratic society. That's why we have a Senate.
"If these really are inconsequential positions, why are there so many posts here whining about an administration appointing people that *gasp* don't want it run out of town."
All of those require Senate approval. This isn't a party matter for me, but a constitutional one.
"you damn well better count on fighting the U.S. Armed Forces, and no ragtag Idaho militia is going to go toe-to-toe with even one company of regular troops."
Which side of the conflict would the government of the State of Idaho be on? If Boise opposes Washington, which chain of command would the Idaho National Guard decide to follow?
"And the position on the international board would bolste the individuals reputation and assist them in reaching positions where idiology/policy does matter."
How? All those "higher positions" you refer to also require a nomination from the White House.
"it would make sense to put someone there that you could call on for assistance later on as an adviser in areas that might involve policy."
Except we're not really talking about "putting" anybody anywhere. The seats are so inconsequential that the State Department doesn't appoint people so much as allow people who've asked to attend. The State Department would then glance over their resume and rubber-stamp them.
It's not even a permanent (let alone paying) position. After these people are finished warming chairs at the meeting, they go back to their employer.
"how come I have not seen a mention of their names,"
TFA included no names (or the name of the source, for that matter). It would appear it's because of the lack of importance of the slots.
"or comparisons of their technical backgrounds with those who are replacing them"
They're not being replaced, they've simply been denied. Again, this is not a permanent position.
Let me put a question to you: if these slots were so important and so powerful that it's important that the people who are given the slots are put to a political litmus test, why don't they have to be confirmed by the Senate? All offices, by default, require a Senate confirmation unless Congress has specifically waived confirmation hearings of a particular office by law. Why should the Bush Administration start applying political background checks when both houses of Congress and a previous President all agreed that the seat wasn't important enough for such rigorous examinations? Heck, the fact that the power of appointments in this case has been delegated by Congress to the State Department instead of the President himself show just how little worth these slots are in the political scheme of things.
If any of your arguments hold water, why start now instead of with the creation of the position?
"They had a moderate government with some elements of capitalism. But then the USA decided to help Hussien, we sold him all the arms he needed to attack Iran for over a decade. And we let the Shah get expelled, for a very rigid Kohmeni."
And here, ladies and gentleman, is a shining example of the output of the US public school system!
Seriously, if you're going to bash the US, do it right:
Iran had something of a constitutional monarchy after WWII, with elected offices alongside a hereditary monarch. A certain Iranian politician was getting very popular, powerful, and friendly with domestic (and possibly foreign) communists. The US didn't like that and Teddy Roosevelt's grandson had the guy killed, whereby the hereditary shah took complete control, abandoning the democratic process.
Because we installed the shah, Iran was friendly.
Then the Iranian people, not happy with the lack of democracy and all, overthrew the shah and, doing what most other revolutions do, collapsed in on itself. After a few weeks/months the "Islamic republic" we all know and love came to be, complete with everybody's favorite ayatollah. Understandably, they weren't too friendly with the US. It wasn't that we "let the Shah get expelled" so much as we didn't keep propping him up, since some bad experiences in Cuba convinced Congress to rein in the CIA and keep them from doing the whole "overthrow a national government" thing again.
At around this same time, for unrelated reasons, some nut-job overthrows democratic government in Iraq on his own and installs himself as the country's dictator.
Iran didn't go against the US because we decided to support Hussein, we decided to support Hussein because Iran went against the US. You seem to have confused cause and effect there. In the beginning, there wasn't any clear moral high-ground in the Iran-Iraq War, and so we went to the next question on our Flow Chart of Foreign Policy*: "Which side is friendlier with the Soviets?" Things went (further) downhill from there.
"And Iran would be pacifist if we never got involved in their history."
... You're funny.
In general, if said government has human beings involved, it's not pacifist.
* It could have been worse. I suspect the Iranians currently use a Coin-Toss of Foreign Policy.
"Likewise, the Constitution only mentions a Navy and Army, not an Air Force."
"Congress shall have the power to raise and support Armies" doesn't specify what form those armies take. There's also no mention of a coast guard, but the USCG can trace its roots back to 1790.
However, "Congress shall make no law" seems pretty specific as who and what is prohibited. President Bush isn't Congress and firing certain individuals isn't a law. I have a hard time seeing how any act of the President can be considered a violation of the First Amendment (most others are fair game), but I would welcome any references you have to judicial precedence.
"Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone(.)" This is what happened here. The White House was given the power to appoint and fire the people holding these positions at the President's liesure. Unless there's some law against firing someone for their political beliefs (which there isn't), there's no legal recourse for the folks that were fired.
"our Founding Father's dearest wishes for us all."
Screw them, most of them ended up being a bunch of hypocrites, which is why we're stuck with our accursed two-party system to begin with. I'm just going by the letter of the document as ratified.
No, the correct answer is: the US is already a declared nuclear state and the continued manufacture of nuclear weapons is therefore not a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which pretty much says "If non-nuke states don't build their own bombs, nuke states will help them build reactors." What Iran is doing is outside the bounds of the treaty.
Besides, when you already have several thousand fusion warheads, why build more?
"Yeah, but there's always the knee-jerk question about what would happen if a Columbia-esque accident occured with one of these."
Nuclear reactors are a lot more mass-efficient than chemical rockets, to the point where unpowered free-fall descents (like the one Columbia broke up in the middle of) may eventually become a thing of the past.
Also, the reactors are a lot more durable than a space shuttle orbiter.
"So they gave money to Kerry. What if they gave money to David Duke? At what point does it register?"
Equating Kerry to David Duke? Cute. I guess that's one way to sidestep the dreaded National Socialist reference.
At any rate, so what if it was David Duke? Is there any indication that one's political or racial viewpoint is hindering the individual's capacity to determine telecommunications standards?
Not that it matters. It's clearly stated that they were fired because of what they did outside of their position, with their own time, with their own money.
"people in these positions seem to hold themselves out as experts in other areas"
As you were fond of derisively pointing out in your original post, this is a democratic society. As a United States citizen, the individual had all the qualifications required to pass judgment on a government he is, by definition of the word "democracy," a part of.
"We've got a system that was designed to elegantly run with approximately 10^ 7 or 10^8 users, and we're at 10^9 users + now."
Personally, I'd say the system would have worked well if we hadn't kept making changes along the way.
Pretty much the whole point of a federal/devolved system is that you don't need to design a system for 3E8 people to hold hands and all get along with each other. As many issues as is practicable are supposed to be dealt with by smaller governments that don't involve anywhere near that many people all trying to live under the same roof.
However, in the name of avoiding responsibility and shifting blame, we have steadily centrallized far more than has been necessary since our system was first implemented in 1789. The people and the states give more power to Congress, and Congress gives more power to the President, all to make sure they're not the ones standing when the music stops and the press starts asking meaningful questions. And the President... well, you wouldn't run for the office if you didn't want to be where all the power is going, would you?
"And if you really look at American politics, the only people willing to take the mudwar that is a modern campaign are the most driven and focused upon a single goal."
Because it's what the voters want. We don't want someone who we believe would make good decisions on their own, we want somebody that will vote A, B and C on issues X, Y and Z. And, frankly, that's exactly what the candidates want to give us, because there's no better excuse for doing something wrong than "I did exactly what you told me to do."
Consider the example of the elected position of presidential elector. When was the last time somebody made it into the Electoral College on their own merits? People have consistently voted for electors based not on who they are, but on how they'll vote. Many states don't even bother putting their names on the ballot any more (too confusing to some voters, apparently). And even in other elected offices, consider how many people vote not for a person, but for a party.
We want someone to do what they're told and to take the blame when things don't work out as planned. We don't want a leader, we want a follower, or at least a sycophant that's willing to pretend to be one to accomplish his own aims.
"This would not be that much of a problem if we were training people to be effective at designing and managing infrastructure and then electing them to office based upon the criteria of, "How good are you at making our society work well."
That's called "aristocracy," where people are trained at birth to be good little nobles. It has its own associated problems.
"they're *necessary* for a great number of third world countries to be able to grow enough food to feed their people."
No, they need to stop butchering each other. For a long time now hunger has been a distribution problem, not a supply problem, and it's kind of hard to grow food to support yourself when people keep setting fire to your crops (or your family).
Slashdot Mirror
My guess is that making the Micro will be cheaper for Nintendo in the long run. Technology has advanced since the SP, smaller chips and screens have gotten cheaper (probably to the point where continuing to produce the old stuff is no longer cost-effective), and the Micro will take less material to produce and package overall.
It's the same reasons anybody re-releases a console.
The difference is that Nintendo has a library worth reaching back into. :)
The laser lens had better not crack from overheating, I better not have to update any drivers, and by God the square button had better work.
"Maybe cooperative multiplayer, sort of like with Tingle in the The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker?"
"Cooperative," huh? You mean where one person tries to play the game and the other tries to blow up the first person with bombs bought with his own damned money? Or making the little freak bastard shout "Hey!" grabbing the camera at exactly the wrong time?
At what point, exactly, did I say they should be required to open membership to more people?
"I've tried all the driver and firmware updates"
That may be part of your problem right there. If there's anything I've learned from my new All-In-Wonder is the power of the old maxim "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," especially when it comes to ATI's software. Even if you can get it to install successfully ("Failed to register..."), things still manage to eventually go south (such as installing a new version of an app besides the older version instead of over it).
As far as drivers are concerned, I've decided to stick with Windows Update. If the people that gave us SP2 won't touch ATI's newer drivers, why would you?
"Who are YOU to impose your beliefs upon them?"
I'm not the original poster, but my opinion is that it's ultimately their problem to deal with (both as a loss of qualified peronnel and as a loss of face for the organization in the eyes of many). However, that still leaves us free to disapprove of BSA's actions.
I've looked at the original post and all the parent called for was personal action on the part of the readers, not any real imposition on BSA beyond calling for people to stop financially supporting them. We're talking about individual action, not legal sanction. Where's the victim?
"It is petty of you to deride an organization that first and foremost encourages community volunteerism and service."
Service to whom, though? The personal interests of the leadership? It's hard for me as an outsider to not see BSA as a political organization, where the soup kitchens serve as PR as well as "community service."
"your involvement would taint their good work."
My inner anarchist questions the "good work" of any organization that requires oathes of obedience from its members. Not even the US military goes that far.
"The new Political Correctness, Explore Your Feminine Side, Gay Is OK,"
That's not the Boy Scouts I know, at least not as practiced in the United States. They've successfully gone to court to protect their "No Icky Girls" rule, either as members or leaders, and have similarly defended their anti-gay stance as well.
Seriously, in a day and age when the US military accepts women and practices plausible deniability with homosexuals, the BSA seems to serve their "moralistic" masters well. If the Hong Kong arm of the Boy Scouts is anything like it is in the US , I don't think this new merit badge program could have happened to a nicer group of people.
"He also said this is the movie the haters have been waiting for since Phantom."
Jar-jar dies! w00t!
" My guess is wireless LCD shutter based glasses if all this is true."
That doesn't fall into the category of "Never been done by a home console before," though. It's been done by Sega on the old Sega Master System.
OK, this bit right here shows me two things:
- You either didn't comprehend part of the constitutional quote I provided in my last post (specifically the "not herein otherwise provided for" part), or you plain didn't read it.
- You're using the words "Senate" and "Congress" interchangably, apparently confusing what the Senate can do alone and what both chambers of Congress are required for.
These two things tell me that you're too far gone in your "understanding" of the Constitution of the United States for me to be able to salvage anything here.I would reccomend sitting down and reading the entire Constitution of the United States some time. It's not that long (the original fit on four pages, IIRC) and shouldn't take you more than a few minutes of your time. Even if you've already read it, even if you think you understand it already, it couldn't hurt anything to read it again. I admit the language is a little dated but I find that it comes smothely after the first few paragraphs. Don't worry about the amendments yet, just focus for the time being on the structure of the government.
Beyond that, I wash my hands of this thread. Feel free to assume victory on your part.
"25 songs is about a free CD every month. That's a good bargain."
AOL sends me a free CD every month as well. That doesn't mean that I'm actually interested in the content on it.
There are few CDs out there that I'd want and many, many CDs I don't want. Possibly even a few I'd pay not to own.
"All offices don't require Senate confirmation. Very few appointments do."
"(H)e shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments."
The only reason any appointment by any member of the executive department is able to be done without the "Advise and Consent of the Senate" is when Congress specifically grants someone in the executive that power. This means that the positions in question were explicitly considered and a law was passed granting the Secretary of State the power to appoint members to this commission without Senate oversight. If what you suggest is true and these commissions truly need a political litmus test, it would appear you are disagreeing with at least 218 members of Congress, 51 Senators and 1 President.
"If these really are inconsequential positions, why are there so many posts here whining about an administration appointing people that *gasp* don't want it run out of town."
I can't speak for others, but to me this is an abuse of executive privilege. If the appointment of these positions is politically contentious in any way, shape or form, then the administration has an obligation to bring any nominees before the Senate for their approval. Instead of doing the correct thing and pushing for a change in the appointment laws of these positions, the White House has taken it upon itself to abuse the privileges granted to the Secretary of State by Congress in a childish manner for its own political gain. Whether or not there was any political clout to be gained by barring these people from attending is besides the point, it is not the place of one person alone to set political policy in a democratic society. That's why we have a Senate.
"If these really are inconsequential positions, why are there so many posts here whining about an administration appointing people that *gasp* don't want it run out of town."
All of those require Senate approval. This isn't a party matter for me, but a constitutional one.
"you damn well better count on fighting the U.S. Armed Forces, and no ragtag Idaho militia is going to go toe-to-toe with even one company of regular troops."
Which side of the conflict would the government of the State of Idaho be on? If Boise opposes Washington, which chain of command would the Idaho National Guard decide to follow?
"And the position on the international board would bolste the individuals reputation and assist them in reaching positions where idiology/policy does matter."
How? All those "higher positions" you refer to also require a nomination from the White House.
"it would make sense to put someone there that you could call on for assistance later on as an adviser in areas that might involve policy."
Except we're not really talking about "putting" anybody anywhere. The seats are so inconsequential that the State Department doesn't appoint people so much as allow people who've asked to attend. The State Department would then glance over their resume and rubber-stamp them.
It's not even a permanent (let alone paying) position. After these people are finished warming chairs at the meeting, they go back to their employer.
"how come I have not seen a mention of their names,"
TFA included no names (or the name of the source, for that matter). It would appear it's because of the lack of importance of the slots.
"or comparisons of their technical backgrounds with those who are replacing them"
They're not being replaced, they've simply been denied. Again, this is not a permanent position.
Let me put a question to you: if these slots were so important and so powerful that it's important that the people who are given the slots are put to a political litmus test, why don't they have to be confirmed by the Senate? All offices, by default, require a Senate confirmation unless Congress has specifically waived confirmation hearings of a particular office by law. Why should the Bush Administration start applying political background checks when both houses of Congress and a previous President all agreed that the seat wasn't important enough for such rigorous examinations? Heck, the fact that the power of appointments in this case has been delegated by Congress to the State Department instead of the President himself show just how little worth these slots are in the political scheme of things.
If any of your arguments hold water, why start now instead of with the creation of the position?
And here, ladies and gentleman, is a shining example of the output of the US public school system!
Seriously, if you're going to bash the US, do it right:
Iran had something of a constitutional monarchy after WWII, with elected offices alongside a hereditary monarch. A certain Iranian politician was getting very popular, powerful, and friendly with domestic (and possibly foreign) communists. The US didn't like that and Teddy Roosevelt's grandson had the guy killed, whereby the hereditary shah took complete control, abandoning the democratic process.
Because we installed the shah, Iran was friendly.
Then the Iranian people, not happy with the lack of democracy and all, overthrew the shah and, doing what most other revolutions do, collapsed in on itself. After a few weeks/months the "Islamic republic" we all know and love came to be, complete with everybody's favorite ayatollah. Understandably, they weren't too friendly with the US. It wasn't that we "let the Shah get expelled" so much as we didn't keep propping him up, since some bad experiences in Cuba convinced Congress to rein in the CIA and keep them from doing the whole "overthrow a national government" thing again.
At around this same time, for unrelated reasons, some nut-job overthrows democratic government in Iraq on his own and installs himself as the country's dictator.
Iran didn't go against the US because we decided to support Hussein, we decided to support Hussein because Iran went against the US. You seem to have confused cause and effect there. In the beginning, there wasn't any clear moral high-ground in the Iran-Iraq War, and so we went to the next question on our Flow Chart of Foreign Policy*: "Which side is friendlier with the Soviets?" Things went (further) downhill from there.
"And Iran would be pacifist if we never got involved in their history."
... You're funny.
In general, if said government has human beings involved, it's not pacifist.
* It could have been worse. I suspect the Iranians currently use a Coin-Toss of Foreign Policy.
"Likewise, the Constitution only mentions a Navy and Army, not an Air Force."
"Congress shall have the power to raise and support Armies" doesn't specify what form those armies take. There's also no mention of a coast guard, but the USCG can trace its roots back to 1790.
However, "Congress shall make no law" seems pretty specific as who and what is prohibited. President Bush isn't Congress and firing certain individuals isn't a law. I have a hard time seeing how any act of the President can be considered a violation of the First Amendment (most others are fair game), but I would welcome any references you have to judicial precedence.
"Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone(.)" This is what happened here. The White House was given the power to appoint and fire the people holding these positions at the President's liesure. Unless there's some law against firing someone for their political beliefs (which there isn't), there's no legal recourse for the folks that were fired.
"our Founding Father's dearest wishes for us all."
Screw them, most of them ended up being a bunch of hypocrites, which is why we're stuck with our accursed two-party system to begin with. I'm just going by the letter of the document as ratified.
You presume too much.
No, the correct answer is: the US is already a declared nuclear state and the continued manufacture of nuclear weapons is therefore not a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which pretty much says "If non-nuke states don't build their own bombs, nuke states will help them build reactors." What Iran is doing is outside the bounds of the treaty.
Besides, when you already have several thousand fusion warheads, why build more?
"Yeah, but there's always the knee-jerk question about what would happen if a Columbia-esque accident occured with one of these."
Nuclear reactors are a lot more mass-efficient than chemical rockets, to the point where unpowered free-fall descents (like the one Columbia broke up in the middle of) may eventually become a thing of the past.
Also, the reactors are a lot more durable than a space shuttle orbiter.
"So they gave money to Kerry. What if they gave money to David Duke? At what point does it register?"
Equating Kerry to David Duke? Cute. I guess that's one way to sidestep the dreaded National Socialist reference.
At any rate, so what if it was David Duke? Is there any indication that one's political or racial viewpoint is hindering the individual's capacity to determine telecommunications standards?
Not that it matters. It's clearly stated that they were fired because of what they did outside of their position, with their own time, with their own money.
"people in these positions seem to hold themselves out as experts in other areas"
As you were fond of derisively pointing out in your original post, this is a democratic society. As a United States citizen, the individual had all the qualifications required to pass judgment on a government he is, by definition of the word "democracy," a part of.
"The first amendment applies to all branches of government"
I may not be a lawyer, but the very first word of the amendment is "Congress."
"It appears that NASA is not backing down from their nuclear space initiative."
It'll still be lifted off the ground by chemical rockets. What happened to NERVA?
"It is a direct violation of the First Amendment,"
Ehhh... watch your words. The First Amendment applies to Congress and makes no mention of the President.
Not saying I'm agreeing with the policy, just that the amendment as written doesn't really apply.
"We've got a system that was designed to elegantly run with approximately 10^ 7 or 10^8 users, and we're at 10^9 users + now."
Personally, I'd say the system would have worked well if we hadn't kept making changes along the way.
Pretty much the whole point of a federal/devolved system is that you don't need to design a system for 3E8 people to hold hands and all get along with each other. As many issues as is practicable are supposed to be dealt with by smaller governments that don't involve anywhere near that many people all trying to live under the same roof.
However, in the name of avoiding responsibility and shifting blame, we have steadily centrallized far more than has been necessary since our system was first implemented in 1789. The people and the states give more power to Congress, and Congress gives more power to the President, all to make sure they're not the ones standing when the music stops and the press starts asking meaningful questions. And the President... well, you wouldn't run for the office if you didn't want to be where all the power is going, would you?
"And if you really look at American politics, the only people willing to take the mudwar that is a modern campaign are the most driven and focused upon a single goal."
Because it's what the voters want. We don't want someone who we believe would make good decisions on their own, we want somebody that will vote A, B and C on issues X, Y and Z. And, frankly, that's exactly what the candidates want to give us, because there's no better excuse for doing something wrong than "I did exactly what you told me to do."
Consider the example of the elected position of presidential elector. When was the last time somebody made it into the Electoral College on their own merits? People have consistently voted for electors based not on who they are, but on how they'll vote. Many states don't even bother putting their names on the ballot any more (too confusing to some voters, apparently). And even in other elected offices, consider how many people vote not for a person, but for a party.
We want someone to do what they're told and to take the blame when things don't work out as planned. We don't want a leader, we want a follower, or at least a sycophant that's willing to pretend to be one to accomplish his own aims.
"This would not be that much of a problem if we were training people to be effective at designing and managing infrastructure and then electing them to office based upon the criteria of, "How good are you at making our society work well."
That's called "aristocracy," where people are trained at birth to be good little nobles. It has its own associated problems.
"they're *necessary* for a great number of third world countries to be able to grow enough food to feed their people."
No, they need to stop butchering each other. For a long time now hunger has been a distribution problem, not a supply problem, and it's kind of hard to grow food to support yourself when people keep setting fire to your crops (or your family).