I had a good experience with Insteon. Plus I tied their SDK into a speech recognition system, so I can tell the room to adjust lighting as I want. In addition to the SDK they had a web server - which took HTTP triggered commands quite nicely, to device or class of devices.
I found their SDK was sufficient to let me do the basics that I wanted - though their documentation was a pain to work with.
Very nice project. And not very expensive (at least for one room - you needed X10/Insteon devices everywhere you wanted it).
Insteon was nicer because it did dual transmissions - wireless and powerline - so I didn't have to worry about the house's wiring.
I'm going through the Rogers hassle now - I loathe dealing with them, but with the iPhone, they're the only game in town. I tried your calculator - very interesting, it really nails down the intense confusion the carriers play on to determine costs.
I run Vnet's iSip - a sip soft phone on the iPhone, which turns my iPhone into an extension on my PBX. Unfortunately, you need to jailbreak the iPhone if you're planning to use it to answer calls (I used to do this pre 3.0, now I just ring multiple devices, including the iPhone and hope for the best).
My5 with the PBX (with PBX-forwarding to my mobile number) and backdoor outbound dialing mean that my phone bills for outgoing calls is much lower than it otherwise should be (I'm still hovering around the $130/month mark including data, and feeling very ripped off).
The questionnaire process is very long, as you warned... and I'm sure results may vary. It was enlightening to see the results - but without data and without phone-specifics (e.g., iPhone only runs on Rogers), it limits the utility to me. That said, I'm sending all my fellow Canucks to your site. It may let them have a fighting chance, at the very least.
If he wanted to use a modem, he could probably get a cloned Wildcard. Otherwise, he'll have a hard time getting his modem to work as a Zap device (sorry, they're called DAHDI now...).
This is overkill as a solution, and does involve VoIP, but since it runs on Linux, and this is/., well, why not.
I'd recommend PBXinaFlash. It's the best way to get up and running in an hour or less. Very painless install, and a solid solution that does everything and more out-of-the-box.
Of course, no one bothered to point this out to the idjit mayor Tremblay, who decided to invest in building a permanent bike path through the downtown core, which halves parking on a busy main street (de Maisonneuve), while increasing the snow removal costs (a specialized snow plough has to remove the snow from this bike path throughout the winter)... and at the same time, manged to somehow cause massive structural damage to one of the city's underground metro stations.
This bike idea makes sense in the summer/spring/fall, but not our bloody awful winters. It also might make sense in those Caribbean cities Tremblay is so fond of visiting for 'ideas' on tax payer dollar, too.
Having just imported a.csv into a DB with PHP for my first time (10K records into 4 tables in less than 8 seconds), I laughed my ass off at this (my worst was an O'Malley, Jr.). Now, I HAVE to rent that movie again, too. Thanks!
Have you considered OpenMoko? The Neo1973 is real phone. Here's a feature:feature comparison with the iPhone. Very competitive in my opinion. And yes, it runs Linux.
In all honesty, I'm due for a new phone now (I've got a discontinued SmartPhone - the Sierra Wireless Voq - which I picked up cheap from Tigerdirect - appx. $100), and am having some windows issues with it (needs occasional rebooting, doesn't always answer calls, has periodic bizarre bugs, like dropping me into flight mode spontaneously...). I don't know which I prefer - the OpenMoko Neo1973, or the yet-to-be-announced real gPhone/Android device.
Google will certainly have a bigger user community developing apps. And I'm a bit more confident in the hardware support. But it's a tough decision.
I'm doing most of this already, using a mashup of Asterisk (open source), Voxeo Prophecy (2-4 ports free CCXML/VXML ASR/TTS in English), Linksys web-cams, and the Insteon developer kit. It works with wireless PDAs which have SIP clients running on them, too. The cost was just in hardware.
Yes. It is the voter's fault. It is also the fault of the corporate media, but that is more of a complicity/methodology/nefariousness issue than due to stupidity and lack of information.
Anyone who is a single issue voter should not be allowed to vote on general principles. I've always maintained that people should be given a quiz before voting (simple questions with simple answers to demonstrate that they are current on the issues at hand: identify the candidates and their parties, identify key positions on the top issues). Hell, you can give the answers out in advance in newspapers, flyers, radio, TV, whatever. The problem is uninformed voters.
Anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention before 2000 would know Bush was a serial liar and a piss-poor leader. Anyone who paid the slightest bit after 2000 would know this as fact - plus the litany of pure evil. Just take a look at this site - it was maintained by Jesse Berney until he just gave up in 2003. If you can read this, and still agree that voters aren't to blame for 2004, I'm willing to hear you out.
Kerry did a piss poor job - but the "anyone-but-Bush" candidate SHOULD have won hands down, despite the smears. That the swiftboating was even given credence speaks volumes about the quality of voters in the US. I'm from Canada - it's a bit different here, but not much. I would still like to see the quiz-to-vote process in place, here, too.
Here's an interesting question... how do you write-in a vote on a touch-screen? (nevermind that if your touchscreen is by Diebold, it will count as a vote for the Republican no matter what you do).
My hat is off to you, sir (a fair assumption, no?).
I've had my own moment of technological euphoria on the can, as well. There's no such a thing as too connected. There is, on the other hand, such a thing as being too addicted to said connectivity that we can't dissociate ourselves from the connected world to the point where our own non-connected lives suffer. John-time is dead-time otherwise, so no worries, and more power to you there (just don't hand your device to me afterwards!).
Frankly, Google is my external brain - a secondary SD card, if you will. And since Youtube (and Bittorrent...) I've practically stopped with old media - my life is now media-on-demand.
So I don't know how this fares against other mobile Linux devices like the Neo 1973, but I think that if things continue along the same vector, the connected life will soon get even more intrusive. Enjoy the fact that you can put it down.
Is this something that would change if there was sensible net neutrality policy and laws? This is obviously an infringement of free speech - although while people may have the right to free speech, they may not necessarily be guaranteed a specific platform to do so. In any case it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Slander and libel are one thing, and there's legal recourse for that, but censorship is quite another. IANAL - but it would be worth considering how the rules of the FCC could be interpreted for this to be legal.
> this has nothing to do with production costs, and everything to do with the change in the relative value of the currencies That was my point exactly. The only way I would accept the deviation in pricing is if they were produced by Canadian printers at a higher cost due to lower production runs.
Well to be fair the pricing reflects a CDN $ at $0.65 - which it hasn't been in a long time. I've spot-checked my books, which span from the 1980's to now (the ones I checked - I've got plenty predating 1980) - you're right, that currency does seem to play a bit of a role in pricing, but it is updated VERY slowly - pre 1997 books, I can understand. But post-1997, with the option to buy online at currency value, well,
Why, as a consumer, would I spend $20 more for the same book? In today's world, it makes no sense for books which have currency-based price deviations to have static prices, or prices updated so slowly.
I'm sorry that the small store suffers - $20 more in my pocket means that I've got disposable income to spend - or invest - elsewhere. It's the publishing houses which pocket the difference - I can't imagine how the book stores take a larger margin. The Canadian book and comic stores need to petition the publishing houses to have a more sensible and more dynamic pricing strategy. I don't mind if their prices are out of date if it's a small deviation, but raising prices by 30% which doesn't reflect the currency state for quite some time.
I don't know how the publishing houses would reflect currency rates for books already in stock - as a consumer, I hate to say that this is just not my problem. I would buy Canadian if the price was equitable, but only a fool would spend 30% more as a matter of national pride, when a more sensible corporate policy could address this. They've been pocketing the currency difference for years - sorry, but with the internet, they've got to change their business model if they want to keep their Canadian stores open.
For comics, which are produced monthly (more or less), they can update the pricing accordingly - who knows what they can do for subscriptions, but that's their problem.
Well, the price to produce the book hasn't changed. Most of the books I own with CDN and US prices are printed in the US. I'll acknowledge additional shipping expenses can be tacked on to the price, but it is just gouging to mark it up by 30%, plus CDN taxes - when I can buy it for the US price, without taxes. If publishing houses and Canadian book stores can't change their model, well, then they're going to lose my business.
There is simply no justification for the markup.
Can the book publishers start to change their book prices, then? It made sense before when they priced them out relative to currency, but at this point, to spend $32 CDN versus $21 USD for the same book, well, as far as I'm concerned, Canadian book vendors are going to go out of business as I start to buy more from Amazon.com rather than Amazon.ca - and Amazon.com frequently offers free shipping.
Well, as a Montrealer, I'll have to say that the city is being just freaking idiotic about downtown parking. From removing meters to replacing them with those station monstrosities, to changing the hours of operation to cover non-business hours (9 AM to 9 PM Mon-Fri), to killing legitimate businesses owning parking lots by denying them the right to operate in the downtown area, and then increasing parking rates continuously... The current plan to replace parking spots with bike lanes only makes sense if: 1. The city can support bicycles year 'round, instead of only having 5-7 months of bicycle-capable weather 2. There is sufficient parking during winter months (nevermind the mega-city incompetance resulting in the snow-removal contracts which leave snow in parking areas for days at a time).
If you work downtown - but don't live close to a metro (subway) - or train stop - you're f***ed.
To be fair, Quebec and Montreal gov't bureaucracy is narrow-mindend and limited beyond the scope of what is normally accepted for those mentalitites (hell - look at the idiocy for what's going on with St. Laurent Blvd. - different companies working on projects spanning over a year - every one rips the road up, does their sh**, and replaces the road, before the next company takes over and does the same thing). I know several businesses which have closed up simply because of this idiocy.
Just to work I pay in the order of $500 in parking tickets, as it is - because 2 minutes late = parking ticket, and conference calls are seldom forgiving. I don't see any road improvements - we have third-world quality roads.
So the article, although an editorial, really does ring true.
If Apple can pay for those spots fulltime, let them.
I've always been kind of curious about this, myself. I'm not a Christian, but my reading of the 10 commandments make it pretty clear that idolatry is right out. Turning a cross or a bible into an idol in this manner seems antithetical to the commandment. I mean, I recognize that as symbols of a faith, they represent something tangible about said faith, but I'd think that what they represent is an interpretation of the divine, rather than the objects themselves.
Frankly, the jarring nature of the visual of the disrespect inherent in the visual should make people more aware of this distinction.
Unfortunately, I suspect that the folk who have issue with such things tend towards literalism, and may not really grasp the substance of their faith.
That said, I suspect the earlier post had more to do with the violent reaction in the Muslim world to what they term as disrespect to objects of their faith (e.g. cartoon of Mohammed, desecration of a Koran) contrasted with the Christian gritted-teeth forced tolerance. In the case of the Muslim response, well, that's probably much more complex, and involves politicalization of faith, the legacy of colonialism, and anachronistic aspects of Islam. And of course, the disrespect to the Koran indicated above is also likely a reference to the torture and inhuman conditions at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib - deliberate attacks against a person's faith to humiliate and cause pain and anguish. A sensible reaction to this would be to get upset. Hell, I'm pretty critical about many ideas in Islam, and I'm pissed off about that.
I'd consider the parent to be trollng, but your response to be insightful.
Not to nitpick... but Heinlein wasn't involved with the Universal Life Church. It was Reverend Kirby J. Hensley who founded that church.
Robert Heinlein was mistakenly associated with the Church of All Worlds, inspired by Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.
I'm ordained by the ULC, and it's nothing like either the CAW or Scientology. It's quite benign, and allows people to bring their own individualism and belief system, is antithetical to doctrine or orthodoxy, and has the central tenet of doing right. They take donations, but don't charge for tiered education in the same way Scientology does. They offer 'degrees' for donations, which you can take with the same grain of sand with which you can take an ordaination.
The Church of All Worlds... they sound a bit kooky, but what can you expect from those whose religion comes (albeit unintentionally) from a science fiction writer? I tend to lump the folk who put their religion down as "Jedi" into the same category.
As long as the followers are harmless, and leave non-believers well enough alone, I've got no problem with those of faith. As to the other sort of faithful, well...
In theory, you're absolutely right. Political opinion really shouldn't fall neatly into one of two (or three if you count the Green party) opinions, but the reality of how American politics play out really does force people into bipolar camps. Republicans tend to vote in lock-step with the party, which basically means that you're really voting on the party, not the individual when it comes to them. Democrats, less so.
Given an apathetic public (as you mention) unwilling to do basic familiarization with nuance, let alone turn out in sufficent quantities to vote... that's probably not a bad thing for them to vote based on party rather than individual candidate. At least there's a chance they're somewhat informed.
Well... not entirely. People voting for Republicans for the normal reasons of party (they're fiscally sound, believe in individual privacy, believe in small government, etc...) are really not paying much attention.
I've always felt that you should be obliged to take a short quiz before being allowed to cast your vote. Name the candidates and associate them with their party. Name 3 top national or state (or local) issues, and associate the party/candidate with them. Nothing hard - just prove you're remotely aware of what you're doing. Give people a tax credit for passing and being allowed to vote.
I'm not so sure that partisan behaviour is so bad - except when it comes from the media. A very big case can and should be made about reforming journalism, and forcing the FCC to break-up monopolies.
All told, people in power do things which lead to lying. We can both agree on that. But the real concern I have is in terms of the things they lie about, and the scope of the lies, and the extent to which they actively try to disseminate once caught.
What makes it news is the magnitude and impact of the lie.
Canadian governments almost invariably get caught. We just had an election which turned on the fact that the previous government in power got caught in a set of elaborate lies about funnelling money to PR firms. We spent more money investigating this than they'd funneled over. I'd call that, relatively speaking, a small lie. And certainly less newsworthy than any of the lies you hear from the US government. (Again, not trying to be a troll, here!)
Slashdot Mirror
I had a good experience with Insteon. Plus I tied their SDK into a speech recognition system, so I can tell the room to adjust lighting as I want.
In addition to the SDK they had a web server - which took HTTP triggered commands quite nicely, to device or class of devices.
I found their SDK was sufficient to let me do the basics that I wanted - though their documentation was a pain to work with.
Very nice project. And not very expensive (at least for one room - you needed X10/Insteon devices everywhere you wanted it).
Insteon was nicer because it did dual transmissions - wireless and powerline - so I didn't have to worry about the house's wiring.
I'm going through the Rogers hassle now - I loathe dealing with them, but with the iPhone, they're the only game in town. I tried your calculator - very interesting, it really nails down the intense confusion the carriers play on to determine costs.
I run Vnet's iSip - a sip soft phone on the iPhone, which turns my iPhone into an extension on my PBX. Unfortunately, you need to jailbreak the iPhone if you're planning to use it to answer calls (I used to do this pre 3.0, now I just ring multiple devices, including the iPhone and hope for the best).
My5 with the PBX (with PBX-forwarding to my mobile number) and backdoor outbound dialing mean that my phone bills for outgoing calls is much lower than it otherwise should be (I'm still hovering around the $130/month mark including data, and feeling very ripped off).
The questionnaire process is very long, as you warned... and I'm sure results may vary. It was enlightening to see the results - but without data and without phone-specifics (e.g., iPhone only runs on Rogers), it limits the utility to me. That said, I'm sending all my fellow Canucks to your site. It may let them have a fighting chance, at the very least.
My spidey-sense is tingling...
Boy Bitten by Radioactive Spider Dies of Leukemia (Sorry, couldn't source the original)...
This is overkill as a solution, and does involve VoIP, but since it runs on Linux, and this is /., well, why not.
I'd recommend PBXinaFlash. It's the best way to get up and running in an hour or less. Very painless install, and a solid solution that does everything and more out-of-the-box.
Of course, no one bothered to point this out to the idjit mayor Tremblay, who decided to invest in building a permanent bike path through the downtown core, which halves parking on a busy main street (de Maisonneuve), while increasing the snow removal costs (a specialized snow plough has to remove the snow from this bike path throughout the winter)... and at the same time, manged to somehow cause massive structural damage to one of the city's underground metro stations. This bike idea makes sense in the summer/spring/fall, but not our bloody awful winters. It also might make sense in those Caribbean cities Tremblay is so fond of visiting for 'ideas' on tax payer dollar, too.
Having just imported a .csv into a DB with PHP for my first time (10K records into 4 tables in less than 8 seconds), I laughed my ass off at this (my worst was an O'Malley, Jr.). Now, I HAVE to rent that movie again, too. Thanks!
For the record, I code in Notepad++ and nano.
I've read about this before - but haven't been able to get a reputable source. Do you have one for this info?
In all honesty, I'm due for a new phone now (I've got a discontinued SmartPhone - the Sierra Wireless Voq - which I picked up cheap from Tigerdirect - appx. $100), and am having some windows issues with it (needs occasional rebooting, doesn't always answer calls, has periodic bizarre bugs, like dropping me into flight mode spontaneously...). I don't know which I prefer - the OpenMoko Neo1973, or the yet-to-be-announced real gPhone/Android device.
Google will certainly have a bigger user community developing apps. And I'm a bit more confident in the hardware support. But it's a tough decision.
I'm doing most of this already, using a mashup of Asterisk (open source), Voxeo Prophecy (2-4 ports free CCXML/VXML ASR/TTS in English), Linksys web-cams, and the Insteon developer kit. It works with wireless PDAs which have SIP clients running on them, too. The cost was just in hardware.
Anyone who is a single issue voter should not be allowed to vote on general principles. I've always maintained that people should be given a quiz before voting (simple questions with simple answers to demonstrate that they are current on the issues at hand: identify the candidates and their parties, identify key positions on the top issues). Hell, you can give the answers out in advance in newspapers, flyers, radio, TV, whatever. The problem is uninformed voters.
Anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention before 2000 would know Bush was a serial liar and a piss-poor leader. Anyone who paid the slightest bit after 2000 would know this as fact - plus the litany of pure evil. Just take a look at this site - it was maintained by Jesse Berney until he just gave up in 2003. If you can read this, and still agree that voters aren't to blame for 2004, I'm willing to hear you out.
Kerry did a piss poor job - but the "anyone-but-Bush" candidate SHOULD have won hands down, despite the smears. That the swiftboating was even given credence speaks volumes about the quality of voters in the US. I'm from Canada - it's a bit different here, but not much. I would still like to see the quiz-to-vote process in place, here, too.
Here's an interesting question... how do you write-in a vote on a touch-screen? (nevermind that if your touchscreen is by Diebold, it will count as a vote for the Republican no matter what you do).
I've had my own moment of technological euphoria on the can, as well. There's no such a thing as too connected. There is, on the other hand, such a thing as being too addicted to said connectivity that we can't dissociate ourselves from the connected world to the point where our own non-connected lives suffer. John-time is dead-time otherwise, so no worries, and more power to you there (just don't hand your device to me afterwards!).
Frankly, Google is my external brain - a secondary SD card, if you will. And since Youtube (and Bittorrent...) I've practically stopped with old media - my life is now media-on-demand.
So I don't know how this fares against other mobile Linux devices like the Neo 1973, but I think that if things continue along the same vector, the connected life will soon get even more intrusive. Enjoy the fact that you can put it down.
Is this something that would change if there was sensible net neutrality policy and laws? This is obviously an infringement of free speech - although while people may have the right to free speech, they may not necessarily be guaranteed a specific platform to do so. In any case it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Slander and libel are one thing, and there's legal recourse for that, but censorship is quite another. IANAL - but it would be worth considering how the rules of the FCC could be interpreted for this to be legal.
> this has nothing to do with production costs, and everything to do with the change in the relative value of the currencies
That was my point exactly. The only way I would accept the deviation in pricing is if they were produced by Canadian printers at a higher cost due to lower production runs.
Well to be fair the pricing reflects a CDN $ at $0.65 - which it hasn't been in a long time. I've spot-checked my books, which span from the 1980's to now (the ones I checked - I've got plenty predating 1980) - you're right, that currency does seem to play a bit of a role in pricing, but it is updated VERY slowly - pre 1997 books, I can understand. But post-1997, with the option to buy online at currency value, well,
Here's an example:
K&R's C Programming Language in Amazon.com is $40 (rounded)
http://www.amazon.com/C-Programming-Language-2nd/dp/0131103628/ref=pd_bbs_2/105-0648757-4344429?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190309328&sr=8-2
The same book from Amazon.ca is $60 (rounded)
http://www.amazon.ca/Programming-Language-Brian-W-Kernighan/dp/0131103628/ref=sr_1_1/701-4896514-8538726?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190309304&sr=8-1
Both are shipped free.
Why, as a consumer, would I spend $20 more for the same book? In today's world, it makes no sense for books which have currency-based price deviations to have static prices, or prices updated so slowly.
I'm sorry that the small store suffers - $20 more in my pocket means that I've got disposable income to spend - or invest - elsewhere. It's the publishing houses which pocket the difference - I can't imagine how the book stores take a larger margin. The Canadian book and comic stores need to petition the publishing houses to have a more sensible and more dynamic pricing strategy. I don't mind if their prices are out of date if it's a small deviation, but raising prices by 30% which doesn't reflect the currency state for quite some time.
I don't know how the publishing houses would reflect currency rates for books already in stock - as a consumer, I hate to say that this is just not my problem. I would buy Canadian if the price was equitable, but only a fool would spend 30% more as a matter of national pride, when a more sensible corporate policy could address this. They've been pocketing the currency difference for years - sorry, but with the internet, they've got to change their business model if they want to keep their Canadian stores open.
For comics, which are produced monthly (more or less), they can update the pricing accordingly - who knows what they can do for subscriptions, but that's their problem.
Well, the price to produce the book hasn't changed. Most of the books I own with CDN and US prices are printed in the US. I'll acknowledge additional shipping expenses can be tacked on to the price, but it is just gouging to mark it up by 30%, plus CDN taxes - when I can buy it for the US price, without taxes. If publishing houses and Canadian book stores can't change their model, well, then they're going to lose my business. There is simply no justification for the markup.
Can the book publishers start to change their book prices, then? It made sense before when they priced them out relative to currency, but at this point, to spend $32 CDN versus $21 USD for the same book, well, as far as I'm concerned, Canadian book vendors are going to go out of business as I start to buy more from Amazon.com rather than Amazon.ca - and Amazon.com frequently offers free shipping.
Well, as a Montrealer, I'll have to say that the city is being just freaking idiotic about downtown parking. From removing meters to replacing them with those station monstrosities, to changing the hours of operation to cover non-business hours (9 AM to 9 PM Mon-Fri), to killing legitimate businesses owning parking lots by denying them the right to operate in the downtown area, and then increasing parking rates continuously... The current plan to replace parking spots with bike lanes only makes sense if:
1. The city can support bicycles year 'round, instead of only having 5-7 months of bicycle-capable weather
2. There is sufficient parking during winter months (nevermind the mega-city incompetance resulting in the snow-removal contracts which leave snow in parking areas for days at a time).
If you work downtown - but don't live close to a metro (subway) - or train stop - you're f***ed.
To be fair, Quebec and Montreal gov't bureaucracy is narrow-mindend and limited beyond the scope of what is normally accepted for those mentalitites (hell - look at the idiocy for what's going on with St. Laurent Blvd. - different companies working on projects spanning over a year - every one rips the road up, does their sh**, and replaces the road, before the next company takes over and does the same thing). I know several businesses which have closed up simply because of this idiocy.
Just to work I pay in the order of $500 in parking tickets, as it is - because 2 minutes late = parking ticket, and conference calls are seldom forgiving. I don't see any road improvements - we have third-world quality roads.
So the article, although an editorial, really does ring true.
If Apple can pay for those spots fulltime, let them.
Frankly, the jarring nature of the visual of the disrespect inherent in the visual should make people more aware of this distinction.
Unfortunately, I suspect that the folk who have issue with such things tend towards literalism, and may not really grasp the substance of their faith.
That said, I suspect the earlier post had more to do with the violent reaction in the Muslim world to what they term as disrespect to objects of their faith (e.g. cartoon of Mohammed, desecration of a Koran) contrasted with the Christian gritted-teeth forced tolerance. In the case of the Muslim response, well, that's probably much more complex, and involves politicalization of faith, the legacy of colonialism, and anachronistic aspects of Islam. And of course, the disrespect to the Koran indicated above is also likely a reference to the torture and inhuman conditions at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib - deliberate attacks against a person's faith to humiliate and cause pain and anguish. A sensible reaction to this would be to get upset. Hell, I'm pretty critical about many ideas in Islam, and I'm pissed off about that.
I'd consider the parent to be trollng, but your response to be insightful.
Robert Heinlein was mistakenly associated with the Church of All Worlds, inspired by Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.
I'm ordained by the ULC, and it's nothing like either the CAW or Scientology. It's quite benign, and allows people to bring their own individualism and belief system, is antithetical to doctrine or orthodoxy, and has the central tenet of doing right. They take donations, but don't charge for tiered education in the same way Scientology does. They offer 'degrees' for donations, which you can take with the same grain of sand with which you can take an ordaination.
The Church of All Worlds... they sound a bit kooky, but what can you expect from those whose religion comes (albeit unintentionally) from a science fiction writer? I tend to lump the folk who put their religion down as "Jedi" into the same category.
As long as the followers are harmless, and leave non-believers well enough alone, I've got no problem with those of faith. As to the other sort of faithful, well...
I wish I had mod points for you!
What, like this kid?
Given an apathetic public (as you mention) unwilling to do basic familiarization with nuance, let alone turn out in sufficent quantities to vote... that's probably not a bad thing for them to vote based on party rather than individual candidate. At least there's a chance they're somewhat informed.
Well... not entirely. People voting for Republicans for the normal reasons of party (they're fiscally sound, believe in individual privacy, believe in small government, etc...) are really not paying much attention.
I've always felt that you should be obliged to take a short quiz before being allowed to cast your vote. Name the candidates and associate them with their party. Name 3 top national or state (or local) issues, and associate the party/candidate with them. Nothing hard - just prove you're remotely aware of what you're doing. Give people a tax credit for passing and being allowed to vote.
I'm not so sure that partisan behaviour is so bad - except when it comes from the media. A very big case can and should be made about reforming journalism, and forcing the FCC to break-up monopolies.
All told, people in power do things which lead to lying. We can both agree on that. But the real concern I have is in terms of the things they lie about, and the scope of the lies, and the extent to which they actively try to disseminate once caught.
What makes it news is the magnitude and impact of the lie.
Canadian governments almost invariably get caught. We just had an election which turned on the fact that the previous government in power got caught in a set of elaborate lies about funnelling money to PR firms. We spent more money investigating this than they'd funneled over. I'd call that, relatively speaking, a small lie. And certainly less newsworthy than any of the lies you hear from the US government. (Again, not trying to be a troll, here!)