I'm the slightest bit curious why NC (or any other state trying to tax the 'net) thinks they deserve a share of this money? It is my understanding that the primary justification for a sales tax is because it costs a city/state quite a bit of money every year to maintain a good enviroment for business to function (road work, police coverage other basic services) By this logic taxing transactions at brick and mortar shops makes sense. However it falls apart when applied to internet transactions. The user already pays for the services that make ecommerce possible: 1) phone line to the local utility 2) account with ISP. Now I know the utility is paying a tax on it's profits to the state and so is the ISP, therefor the state is still getting it's money. And if any e-business's are being run out of NC you can be sure that they too are paying income tax. In addition anybody employed by this e-business in NC is paying a sales tax on all the purchases the make locally. With that logic in mind NC should permantly ban the idea of a 'net sales tax, give lots of incentives for high tech and ecommerce companies to set up shop there and make the whole state a haven for e-business. Then they would make up the tax revenue lost to ecommerce, and would annoy the people alot less every tax season. Trying to tax internet purchases is a step in the wrong direction anyway and is probably supported very strongly the brick and mortar business's in NC, who would rather have the government hamstring their competition rather than rework their strategy to stay competitive. It's not the actual tax amount that is going to cause people worry, it's the fact that now everytime they surf over to Amazon.com or wherever they are not only going to be thinking about price and quality of service, the concept of saving all their 'net receits for a year and figuring up the totals and the taxes due carries a high "pain in the ass" factor that will discourage people from shopping online because in some cases it will become less convienent than driving to the mall. Thus this new tax will seriously undermine one of ecommerce's biggest competitive advantages. On the other hand I suspect most people to ignore the idea, take a wild (low) guess at tax time and ship NC an extra 20 bucks rather than deal with the hassal of actually keeping track of everything they buy online, I know I would.
Once again glad I live in Alaska, where even the government doesn't trust the government;->
This is one of the best arguments for living in Alaska, here I pay no state income tax, no state sales tax or any other state tax at all. In fact because of something called the Permanent Fund, which is basically an assload of money taken from the oil companies during the big oil boom that has been very well invested and managed for something like 20+ years now, the state issues a dividend to every citizen, every year. The amount of the dividend varies based on how much profit the fund earned (we never touch the priniciple) the last few years it's been above $1500 because of the stock market boom. Oh yea I also don't have to pay Washington state sales tax either if I show my AK drivers license. Oh yea and I have a cablemodem.;-> Anyone interested in moving to Anchorage now feel free to email me.:-)
How will nasa train...
on
Sex in Space
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the astronauts for this?;-> I mean really, think about, NASA doesn't let anything happen in space that hasn't been simulated hundreds of times on Earth in their training facilities. Are they going to rig up some sort of harness and pulley system to simulate 0-G here on Earth? And if they do will I be able to buy one?;->
Last night I was lucky enough to hear Jello Biafra speak here in Anchorage, fresh from the Seattle protests. As expected he spoke on a wide range of topics written over the years (as a result he did contradict himself in a few places but that's not important now) including alot of new stuff about the WTO and the Seattle protests, which he activly participated in.
Alot of his sentiments were echoed by Jon Katz just now, in fact It's not an issue of left or right," e-mailed Mark, a college student arrested during the first day of the protests. "It's an issue of top to bottom." is a direct quote from Jello's performance last night, a sentiment he expressed several times.
Jello made several good points about how corporate media effectively censors the news by ignoring important stories in favor tabloid like headlines (Monica and the presidental staff for example) and non-news like parades and tree lightings. Meanwhile really important changes have been taking place quietly behind the scenes, without the American people knowing (according to him other industrial nations arn't quite as bad off as the US when it comes to current events) he had some examples of the WTO and GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariff's, this created the WTO) treaty provisions gutting American enviromental laws, are at least threatening them seriously. For example, the laws concerning the dolphin safe tuna stickers we have all come to know and love, have been in effect taken off the books. After the USA signed the GATT treaty non-US industrial fishing concerns sued (well not exactly, under current WTO policy only soverign nations can bring up greivences against other nations to the WTO, but more on that later) the US government claiming that the US dolphin safe laws restricted free trade and were illegal under WTO/GATT provisions. Federal and state clean air acts have also been challenged (as a/.er from Calif mentioned the other day) Clinton/Gore have been rolling over pretty quickly saying that they can't easily repeal the laws but will stop enforcing them. Didn't this duo used to be somewhat green? At any rate the US is also just as guilty of using WTO/GATT powers to overturn enviromental/health regulations in the name of Free Trade, already having sued the EU and Canada on diverse issues such as genetically altered food and labeling, to gasoline additives. It's all fucked up.
Previously I mentioned that only another soverign nation could challenge the laws of other nations in a WTO tribunal. Which BTW takes place behind closed doors, and the nation who's law(s) are being challenged is not allowed to attend and defend it's position. Not long ago an addition to GATT was in the works called MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment) that gave multinational corporations soverign status in the eyes of the WTO. This of course meant that any company that felt that it's free trade rights were being stifled by pesky enviromental or human rights regulations could challenge those laws at a WTO tribunal and have them tossed out if it was found that they unduely restricted free trade. Fortunely news of this got out in Europe (France I believe but am not sure) and alot of people raised alot of hell and the WTO backed down. Actually part of the WTO's Seattle agenda was to add provisions from the MAI to GATT itself so a whole new treaty wouldn't have to be ratified by members and potentially come under public scrunity again.
The above was the meat of what Jello had to say about the WTO and the corporate world, that he could back up with facts. I havn't had a chance to check the facts he presented either so if I turned out to be wrong on the details please don't flame me;-> A good chunk of what he had to say about corporations was basically an emotional rant, kinda like Katz. Biafra went on to talk about how grassroots/underground forms communication were becoming the best source for information that mainstream news tends to ignore. Sorry to say that he didn't mention Slashdot (though I was tempted to shout "Read Slashdot!" a few times during the show;-> ) In fact he only mentioned the Internet in passing and placed alot more importance on printed zines and pirate radio/tv of all things. This I found pretty silly, I think Katz had it right when he said that the 'Net was the driving force behind the Seattle protests and will be the primary means of communication and organization for all future grassroots social movements.
Ok now that I've summarized someone else it's time for me (in true/. fashion) to give my own opinion. Where I disagree with Katz and Biafra on the issue of corporatism is that neither aknowledged the massive benefits those of us in the First World, specifically the US, enjoy because of corporations. For starters I personally don't have a bleak economic future because of corporations and technology advances and I doubt the most/. readers do either. As long as I'm willing to do a little hard work and make the best use of my natural Geek abilities I'll most likely have a profitable and rewarding career(s) for the rest of my life. Hell I have freinds my age (early 20's), who bypassed college, that are already making more money than my parents, because they work for large companies! That is the one point that Katz/Biafra really missed, corporations aren't a cohesive borg-like unit. They are made up of individuals like me and you. Here's a good example of huge company not screwing me over. I have a mobile phone through ATT Wireless, recently like a dumbass, I broke the beltclip off while unloading my winter tires from storage. On a whim I called ATT Customer Care to see how expensive it would be to get the phone cover fixed, Instead of charging me for repairs or depriving me of the phone for a week while they fixed it, I was sent a brand new phone (same model;-( no upgrade for me) within two days of calling and a prepaid airbill to send the broken one back. It's a small thing I know but it goes to show that even ATT is in fact composed of real people and can avoid screwing consumers. Hell I was only on hold for about 15 seconds after calling. With the exception of Micro$haft customer support I've always had pretty decent service when dealing with large/very large companies from DEC to HP to IBM. In fact I've been treated worse and screwed over more by local businesses, particularly local monopolies than I ever have by the big boys. So from a purely consumer point of view I have no problems with companies getting really damn big, just so long as they still have competition, monoplies in any market are a Bad Thing(tm). What does bother me is corporate involvment in goverenment, at any level and to any degree. We can't exactly blame the corporations though, they in all reality have NO social obligations and are legally and morally required to act in a manner that will increase profit and give the largest return to their shareholders, period. It's the role of government to deal with social/legal issues. It's our government that should protect the enviroment and human rights. And of course it's the responcability of each and every citizen in a democracy to elect a honest and ethical government that represents the people they govern. In this sense we have failed, by electing and re-electing leaders that whore themselves out to the highest bidder and pander to the lowest common denominator during elections. We do have to rise up and take a stand. Protests like the ones we saw in Seatle are a good first step, they make us take notice of issues and think about them. Commentary by people like Katz, Biafra and even Limbaugh are good things to listen to/read even if you don't agree agree with a word they say you at least have to THINK about why don't agree. Slashdot is even better because not only do you have to think about about it, if you post, you also have to take the time to (hopefully) rationally consider your opinions and put your thoughts in a reasonable order. And best of all you have the opportunity to read hundreds of opinions on the issue. Places like this are where it all starts. Remember, the price of freedom is eternal vigilence.
The compariason between the PRC and modern Germany is pretty absurd. First of all WWII ended over 50 years ago, after the end of the war Germany was partitioned off into four sections (the US, the UK and France each had a chunk of what became West Germany, the USSR had East Germany) most of the Nazi power structure was hung at Nuremburg or sentenced to life in prison a whole new government was established and thanks in part to the Marshall plan West Germany was rebuilt very quickly and humanely after the war. Currently Germany has very strict anti-facism laws and every German I've spoken with is deeply ashamed by the atrocities commited by the Nazi's. It seems to me that same PRC that invaded Tibet, sent troops to Korea, sent tanks against unarmed students in Tiamimen (sp?) square and has commited just about every human rights violation possible is still in power. It seems that there really is no grounds for comparison between the two, until the Communist power structure has been ousted and a democratic government established, with no connections to the old power base, can you rightfully compare modern Germany to the PRC. However if you were trying to compare modern China to Nazi Germany I think you've got an excellent point.
Part of the reason why people don't get more invovled is because we've let the system get so complex, that no one understands it. Legislation is so hard to read people really do need a lawyer to explain what the law says. We need to take the concept of law down to the level of the average educated person, to where the average/. reader could read an understand the law the way it is written. I for one have problems understanding what most legislation says when i try to read it as written with out an explanation. Part of the reason why laws are so complex is because the various lobbies representing the legal profession like it that way, having the law elevated to the point where the common citizen doesn't understand it, and can't defend him/herself is their lifeblood, so they give heavily whenever someone tries to reform the way the law is written.
Maybe we should, at the local and state level at least, replace our current form of democracy with something similar to the Athenian model, in which the lower house is made up of randomly selected people who would serve for one year. A senate that is elected by the lower house (who will be well informed, much better so than the general public) and a mayor/governor type that is elected by the general public, out of a pool of candidates picked by the lower and upper houses. I know this isn't exactly how it was done in ancient Athens, but it was a good model and I think that we could do well by using a few peices of their system in our own. Whatever else you can about Athenian Greeks, they were involved in politics and understood the laws which they lived by. They had to, there was no "legal profession" at them time, if you had to go to court you defended yourself, and if you had a beef with a neighbor you procecuted.
The problem isn't with the big corporations, or the PACs, or even the corrupt politicians, the problem is with the whole system of campaigning. Right now no candidate can get elected without a major television/radio/newspaper ad blitz. And like any good advertiser they know that to get the most "bang for the buck" they need to hit a large as audience as is possible, which means catering to the lowest common denomater. So we get thousands of hours of very highly hyped, spinn-doctored crap every time there is an election. What, if any, solid beliefs the candidates have about real issues is lost in a storm of BS that even voters who are seriously looking for real info can't find any, much less the average voter. So we get a mix of negative ads (that merely turn voters off from the whole process) and sensational ads speaking passionately about controversial NON-issues (for god's sake we must protect the CHILDERN from, from...err from everything!!)
How does all of this relate to money you ask? Well as we all know television air time is expesnive, and the more people you reach the more it costs. Politicians, even ones already in office, are always running for office and will do pretty much anything to stay there. Since they arn't paid enough to fund their own campaigns they have to get donations, and most of the really big donations come with certian strings attached. Oh the strings may not be very visible but it is bribery pure and simple. The only way we can really stop the problem is to change the nature of campaigning itself. I don't know the solution, and it won't be simple, or maybe what we need is a simple solution. I do have a few ideas though (what self respecting/. reader wouldn't have a few opinions on every subject;-> )
1. Eleminate all ads of every kind. All registered voters will be mailed a packet in which the candidates describe the views and have short bio. Add in several televised, mediated, public debates.
2. The government pays an equal (and small amount) of money so each candidate can have exactly the same resources for their campaign. This is all the money that a candidate can use period. And to discourage people who would defraud the system, it comes in the form of vouchers for the air time used.;->
3. Eleminate representive democracy as we know it and replace it with a system in which everyone votes on major issues, on a daily or weekly basis via the internet, or a more secure subset of the internet. We would still want to elect a president and a small senate for handeling day to day affairs and so we could have strong leadership during a crisis. There would be alot of details to work out, esp veto power ect...
Regardless of what is done, something very fundamental about the system has to change. If not the whole system of American democracy is going to cave in on itself.
utility computers on my home network...
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hmm this gives me a few ideas. I like the idea of a kitchen computer (make use of all those damn recipe sites my mom keeps sending me) and a bathroom computer (mostly just so i can say that I have one)
lessee if i move the microwave over near the sink I can put the kitchen puter in that snug little corner the microwave used to be. all i would need on it would be netscape, licq and maybe an irc client, same for the bathroom box. this way i can obsessivly stay in touch through the whole food consumption proccess! Only problem i see with the bathroom computer is humidity from the dangerously hot showers i take, hmm i suppose i could shut it down and rig up some kinda plastic cover. Ohh the bathroom computer would be a big hit at parties i'm sure... specially when i get the MP3 jukebox with the web interface hooked up to the stereo....all requests from the bathroom could be grouped together as the shit list!
*sigh* this is what happens when i post to/. at 2:30 am;->
In my mind, though the dictionary definition didn't state it, evolution is forward change, and devolution is "backwards" change.
Not exactly, evolution doesn't move forward or backwards, creatures just change over time to adapt to new situations. For example, most of us have a much smaller appendix(sp?) than we did even a few hundred years ago because it is no longer needed to process food. We are also loosing wisdom teeth while at the same time getting taller (better nutrition) a few thousand years ago a substandard appendix(sp?) or no wisdom teeth would be a step backwards, but today it's not even an issue.
About a year or so ago UAA (U of Alaska, Anchorage) made a similer deal with M$ (and pepsi;-) but I havn't really seen the effects. The CS dept still uses Digital Unix, same with the MIS dept at the School of Busisness. At the library,where i work as a part time network tech, we have a pair of old netware servers and two linux servers (including a shiny new rack mount unit from Dell, of course the racks havn't arrived yet and the new server is sitting in a chair in a coworkers office...) We use netware for file and print sharing (and will continue to until NDS is fully ported to linux) and the linux boxes for everything else. We are currently using NT (blah) for the public access computers because 1) a few databases we serve up require a winblows client 2) NT is sorta sercure/stable compared to 95/98. Though we do use Novell's application launcher for the system shell;-) Fortunately all of our databases will be webbased within the next year and we can move the public machines to Linux/X.
We have also resisted a few attempts to put NT on the back end mostly by finding a better OSS/Linux solution faster than a NT box could be ordered! As long as our users get the services they ask for they are happy (and so is the brass, esp when we do it w/out asking for more $$$)
"The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad" - Salvador Dali
Slashdot Mirror
I'm the slightest bit curious why NC (or any other state trying to tax the 'net) thinks they deserve a share of this money? It is my understanding that the primary justification for a sales tax is because it costs a city/state quite a bit of money every year to maintain a good enviroment for business to function (road work, police coverage other basic services) By this logic taxing transactions at brick and mortar shops makes sense. However it falls apart when applied to internet transactions. The user already pays for the services that make ecommerce possible: 1) phone line to the local utility 2) account with ISP. Now I know the utility is paying a tax on it's profits to the state and so is the ISP, therefor the state is still getting it's money. And if any e-business's are being run out of NC you can be sure that they too are paying income tax. In addition anybody employed by this e-business in NC is paying a sales tax on all the purchases the make locally. With that logic in mind NC should permantly ban the idea of a 'net sales tax, give lots of incentives for high tech and ecommerce companies to set up shop there and make the whole state a haven for e-business. Then they would make up the tax revenue lost to ecommerce, and would annoy the people alot less every tax season.
;->
Trying to tax internet purchases is a step in the wrong direction anyway and is probably supported very strongly the brick and mortar business's in NC, who would rather have the government hamstring their competition rather than rework their strategy to stay competitive. It's not the actual tax amount that is going to cause people worry, it's the fact that now everytime they surf over to Amazon.com or wherever they are not only going to be thinking about price and quality of service, the concept of saving all their 'net receits for a year and figuring up the totals and the taxes due carries a high "pain in the ass" factor that will discourage people from shopping online because in some cases it will become less convienent than driving to the mall. Thus this new tax will seriously undermine one of ecommerce's biggest competitive advantages. On the other hand I suspect most people to ignore the idea, take a wild (low) guess at tax time and ship NC an extra 20 bucks rather than deal with the hassal of actually keeping track of everything they buy online, I know I would.
Once again glad I live in Alaska, where even the government doesn't trust the government
This is one of the best arguments for living in Alaska, here I pay no state income tax, no state sales tax or any other state tax at all. In fact because of something called the Permanent Fund, which is basically an assload of money taken from the oil companies during the big oil boom that has been very well invested and managed for something like 20+ years now, the state issues a dividend to every citizen, every year. The amount of the dividend varies based on how much profit the fund earned (we never touch the priniciple) the last few years it's been above $1500 because of the stock market boom. ;-> Anyone interested in moving to Anchorage now feel free to email me. :-)
Oh yea I also don't have to pay Washington state sales tax either if I show my AK drivers license. Oh yea and I have a cablemodem.
the astronauts for this? ;-> ;->
I mean really, think about, NASA doesn't let anything happen in space that hasn't been simulated hundreds of times on Earth in their training facilities. Are they going to rig up some sort of harness and pulley system to simulate 0-G here on Earth? And if they do will I be able to buy one?
Last night I was lucky enough to hear Jello Biafra speak here in Anchorage, fresh from the Seattle protests. As expected he spoke on a wide range of topics written over the years (as a result he did contradict himself in a few places but that's not important now) including alot of new stuff about the WTO and the Seattle protests, which he activly participated in.
/.er from Calif mentioned the other day) Clinton/Gore have been rolling over pretty quickly saying that they can't easily repeal the laws but will stop enforcing them. Didn't this duo used to be somewhat green? At any rate the US is also just as guilty of using WTO/GATT powers to overturn enviromental/health regulations in the name of Free Trade, already having sued the EU and Canada on diverse issues such as genetically altered food and labeling, to gasoline additives. It's all fucked up.
;-> A good chunk of what he had to say about corporations was basically an emotional rant, kinda like Katz. Biafra went on to talk about how grassroots/underground forms communication were becoming the best source for information that mainstream news tends to ignore. Sorry to say that he didn't mention Slashdot (though I was tempted to shout "Read Slashdot!" a few times during the show ;-> ) In fact he only mentioned the Internet in passing and placed alot more importance on printed zines and pirate radio/tv of all things. This I found pretty silly, I think Katz had it right when he said that the 'Net was the driving force behind the Seattle protests and will be the primary means of communication and organization for all future grassroots social movements.
/. fashion) to give my own opinion. Where I disagree with Katz and Biafra on the issue of corporatism is that neither aknowledged the massive benefits those of us in the First World, specifically the US, enjoy because of corporations. For starters I personally don't have a bleak economic future because of corporations and technology advances and I doubt the most /. readers do either. As long as I'm willing to do a little hard work and make the best use of my natural Geek abilities I'll most likely have a profitable and rewarding career(s) for the rest of my life. Hell I have freinds my age (early 20's), who bypassed college, that are already making more money than my parents, because they work for large companies! That is the one point that Katz/Biafra really missed, corporations aren't a cohesive borg-like unit. They are made up of individuals like me and you. Here's a good example of huge company not screwing me over. I have a mobile phone through ATT Wireless, recently like a dumbass, I broke the beltclip off while unloading my winter tires from storage. On a whim I called ATT Customer Care to see how expensive it would be to get the phone cover fixed, Instead of charging me for repairs or depriving me of the phone for a week while they fixed it, I was sent a brand new phone (same model ;-( no upgrade for me) within two days of calling and a prepaid airbill to send the broken one back. It's a small thing I know but it goes to show that even ATT is in fact composed of real people and can avoid screwing consumers. Hell I was only on hold for about 15 seconds after calling. With the exception of Micro$haft customer support I've always had pretty decent service when dealing with large/very large companies from DEC to HP to IBM. In fact I've been treated worse and screwed over more by local businesses, particularly local monopolies than I ever have by the big boys. So from a purely consumer point of view I have no problems with companies getting really damn big, just so long as they still have competition, monoplies in any market are a Bad Thing(tm).
Alot of his sentiments were echoed by Jon Katz just now, in fact It's not an issue of left or right," e-mailed Mark, a college student arrested during the first day of the protests. "It's an issue of top to bottom." is a direct quote from Jello's performance last night, a sentiment he expressed several times.
Jello made several good points about how corporate media effectively censors the news by ignoring important stories in favor tabloid like headlines (Monica and the presidental staff for example) and non-news like parades and tree lightings. Meanwhile really important changes have been taking place quietly behind the scenes, without the American people knowing (according to him other industrial nations arn't quite as bad off as the US when it comes to current events) he had some examples of the WTO and GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariff's, this created the WTO) treaty provisions gutting American enviromental laws, are at least threatening them seriously. For example, the laws concerning the dolphin safe tuna stickers we have all come to know and love, have been in effect taken off the books. After the USA signed the GATT treaty non-US industrial fishing concerns sued (well not exactly, under current WTO policy only soverign nations can bring up greivences against other nations to the WTO, but more on that later) the US government claiming that the US dolphin safe laws restricted free trade and were illegal under WTO/GATT provisions. Federal and state clean air acts have also been challenged (as a
Previously I mentioned that only another soverign nation could challenge the laws of other nations in a WTO tribunal. Which BTW takes place behind closed doors, and the nation who's law(s) are being challenged is not allowed to attend and defend it's position. Not long ago an addition to GATT was in the works called MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment) that gave multinational corporations soverign status in the eyes of the WTO. This of course meant that any company that felt that it's free trade rights were being stifled by pesky enviromental or human rights regulations could challenge those laws at a WTO tribunal and have them tossed out if it was found that they unduely restricted free trade. Fortunely news of this got out in Europe (France I believe but am not sure) and alot of people raised alot of hell and the WTO backed down. Actually part of the WTO's Seattle agenda was to add provisions from the MAI to GATT itself so a whole new treaty wouldn't have to be ratified by members and potentially come under public scrunity again.
The above was the meat of what Jello had to say about the WTO and the corporate world, that he could back up with facts. I havn't had a chance to check the facts he presented either so if I turned out to be wrong on the details please don't flame me
Ok now that I've summarized someone else it's time for me (in true
What does bother me is corporate involvment in goverenment, at any level and to any degree. We can't exactly blame the corporations though, they in all reality have NO social obligations and are legally and morally required to act in a manner that will increase profit and give the largest return to their shareholders, period. It's the role of government to deal with social/legal issues. It's our government that should protect the enviroment and human rights. And of course it's the responcability of each and every citizen in a democracy to elect a honest and ethical government that represents the people they govern. In this sense we have failed, by electing and re-electing leaders that whore themselves out to the highest bidder and pander to the lowest common denominator during elections.
We do have to rise up and take a stand. Protests like the ones we saw in Seatle are a good first step, they make us take notice of issues and think about them. Commentary by people like Katz, Biafra and even Limbaugh are good things to listen to/read even if you don't agree agree with a word they say you at least have to THINK about why don't agree. Slashdot is even better because not only do you have to think about about it, if you post, you also have to take the time to (hopefully) rationally consider your opinions and put your thoughts in a reasonable order. And best of all you have the opportunity to read hundreds of opinions on the issue. Places like this are where it all starts.
Remember, the price of freedom is eternal vigilence.
The compariason between the PRC and modern Germany is pretty absurd. First of all WWII ended over 50 years ago, after the end of the war Germany was partitioned off into four sections (the US, the UK and France each had a chunk of what became West Germany, the USSR had East Germany) most of the Nazi power structure was hung at Nuremburg or sentenced to life in prison a whole new government was established and thanks in part to the Marshall plan West Germany was rebuilt very quickly and humanely after the war. Currently Germany has very strict anti-facism laws and every German I've spoken with is deeply ashamed by the atrocities commited by the Nazi's. It seems to me that same PRC that invaded Tibet, sent troops to Korea, sent tanks against unarmed students in Tiamimen (sp?) square and has commited just about every human rights violation possible is still in power.
It seems that there really is no grounds for comparison between the two, until the Communist power structure has been ousted and a democratic government established, with no connections to the old power base, can you rightfully compare modern Germany to the PRC. However if you were trying to compare modern China to Nazi Germany I think you've got an excellent point.
Part of the reason why people don't get more invovled is because we've let the system get so complex, that no one understands it. Legislation is so hard to read people really do need a lawyer to explain what the law says. We need to take the concept of law down to the level of the average educated person, to where the average /. reader could read an understand the law the way it is written. I for one have problems understanding what most legislation says when i try to read it as written with out an explanation. Part of the reason why laws are so complex is because the various lobbies representing the legal profession like it that way, having the law elevated to the point where the common citizen doesn't understand it, and can't defend him/herself is their lifeblood, so they give heavily whenever someone tries to reform the way the law is written.
Maybe we should, at the local and state level at least, replace our current form of democracy with something similar to the Athenian model, in which the lower house is made up of randomly selected people who would serve for one year. A senate that is elected by the lower house (who will be well informed, much better so than the general public) and a mayor/governor type that is elected by the general public, out of a pool of candidates picked by the lower and upper houses. I know this isn't exactly how it was done in ancient Athens, but it was a good model and I think that we could do well by using a few peices of their system in our own. Whatever else you can about Athenian Greeks, they were involved in politics and understood the laws which they lived by. They had to, there was no "legal profession" at them time, if you had to go to court you defended yourself, and if you had a beef with a neighbor you procecuted.
The problem isn't with the big corporations, or the PACs, or even the corrupt politicians, the problem is with the whole system of campaigning. Right now no candidate can get elected without a major television/radio/newspaper ad blitz. And like any good advertiser they know that to get the most "bang for the buck" they need to hit a large as audience as is possible, which means catering to the lowest common denomater. So we get thousands of hours of very highly hyped, spinn-doctored crap every time there is an election. What, if any, solid beliefs the candidates have about real issues is lost in a storm of BS that even voters who are seriously looking for real info can't find any, much less the average voter. So we get a mix of negative ads (that merely turn voters off from the whole process) and sensational ads speaking passionately about controversial NON-issues (for god's sake we must protect the CHILDERN from, from...err from everything!!)
/. reader wouldn't have a few opinions on every subject ;-> )
;->
How does all of this relate to money you ask? Well as we all know television air time is expesnive, and the more people you reach the more it costs. Politicians, even ones already in office, are always running for office and will do pretty much anything to stay there. Since they arn't paid enough to fund their own campaigns they have to get donations, and most of the really big donations come with certian strings attached. Oh the strings may not be very visible but it is bribery pure and simple.
The only way we can really stop the problem is to change the nature of campaigning itself. I don't know the solution, and it won't be simple, or maybe what we need is a simple solution. I do have a few ideas though (what self respecting
1. Eleminate all ads of every kind. All registered voters will be mailed a packet in which the candidates describe the views and have short bio. Add in several televised, mediated, public debates.
2. The government pays an equal (and small amount) of money so each candidate can have exactly the same resources for their campaign. This is all the money that a candidate can use period. And to discourage people who would defraud the system, it comes in the form of vouchers for the air time used.
3. Eleminate representive democracy as we know it and replace it with a system in which everyone votes on major issues, on a daily or weekly basis via the internet, or a more secure subset of the internet. We would still want to elect a president and a small senate for handeling day to day affairs and so we could have strong leadership during a crisis. There would be alot of details to work out, esp veto power ect...
Regardless of what is done, something very fundamental about the system has to change. If not the whole system of American democracy is going to cave in on itself.
hmm this gives me a few ideas. I like the idea of a kitchen computer (make use of all those damn recipe sites my mom keeps sending me) and a bathroom computer (mostly just so i can say that I have one)
/. at 2:30 am ;->
lessee if i move the microwave over near the sink I can put the kitchen puter in that snug little corner the microwave used to be. all i would need on it would be netscape, licq and maybe an irc client, same for the bathroom box. this way i can obsessivly stay in touch through the whole food consumption proccess!
Only problem i see with the bathroom computer is humidity from the dangerously hot showers i take, hmm i suppose i could shut it down and rig up some kinda plastic cover.
Ohh the bathroom computer would be a big hit at parties i'm sure... specially when i get the MP3 jukebox with the web interface hooked up to the stereo....all requests from the bathroom could be grouped together as the shit list!
*sigh* this is what happens when i post to
In my mind, though the dictionary definition didn't state it, evolution is forward change, and devolution is "backwards" change.
Not exactly, evolution doesn't move forward or backwards, creatures just change over time to adapt to new situations. For example, most of us have a much smaller appendix(sp?) than we did even a few hundred years ago because it is no longer needed to process food. We are also loosing wisdom teeth while at the same time getting taller (better nutrition) a few thousand years ago a substandard appendix(sp?) or no wisdom teeth would be a step backwards, but today it's not even an issue.
About a year or so ago UAA (U of Alaska, Anchorage) made a similer deal with M$ (and pepsi ;-) but I havn't really seen the effects. The CS dept still uses Digital Unix, same with the MIS dept at the School of Busisness. At the library ,where i work as a part time network tech, we have a pair of old netware servers and two linux servers (including a shiny new rack mount unit from Dell, of course the racks havn't arrived yet and the new server is sitting in a chair in a coworkers office...) We use netware for file and print sharing (and will continue to until NDS is fully ported to linux) and the linux boxes for everything else. We are currently using NT (blah) for the public access computers because 1) a few databases we serve up require a winblows client 2) NT is sorta sercure/stable compared to 95/98. Though we do use Novell's application launcher for the system shell ;-) Fortunately all of our databases will be webbased within the next year and we can move the public machines to Linux/X.
We have also resisted a few attempts to put NT on the back end mostly by finding a better OSS/Linux solution faster than a NT box could be ordered! As long as our users get the services they ask for they are happy (and so is the brass, esp when we do it w/out asking for more $$$)
"The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad" - Salvador Dali