The more power in the central government, the more corruption, no matter what form of government it is.
I'm not convinced that there is a straight-line relationship between the size of government and the amount of corruption. If that were true, smaller governments would experience less corruption, yet I can think of many examples of local governments in my own area that are horribly corrupt. Small towns can be just as wasteful and nepotistic as big cities, if not more so.
Corruption seems to be as much a cultural phenomena as a problem with the structure and size of government. On my trips to Latin America, I am continually amazed at how corruption pervades every aspect of government and business - so much so that it is often seen as a way of life, not an aberration, but just a way of getting things done.
And let us not forget, while we are comparing capitalism and communism, that corruption (and its partner, waste) also take place in private enterprise. Enron, Tyco and Worldcom are only the ones that got caught...
I think your questions assume that the impeachment for good cause. What if it is done for political purposes, to remove someone who is not guilty? The authors of the constitution realized this possibility and made impeachment difficult to avoid this very problem.
There is nothing preventing an impeached official from holding office again in the future...
In theory perhaps, but it seems very unlikely that an impeached official would be able to be reelected, or reappointed.
I agree - campaign finance "reform" is cynical, patronizing, futile and merely distracts from the important issues.
The biggest sign that those in political office in the US are primarily interested in their own position is the way impeachment is currently viewed. What happens if you get impeached? You're fired. Nothing else. BFD. Heck, it's such a non-penalty that our federal constitution makes sure to let Congress do it whenever they damned well please. You're not even barred from running for office again if the people so choose. But that sounds too much like regicide to the politicians (and, as they made sure, to everybody else) and so Congress instead makes vague complaints about "imperial presidents" and "activist judges" instead of doing their God damned job and taking individuals they're not happy with to task.
I don't see a way out of this. Impeachment is a dangerous thing, a weapon to be wielded with great care, and only when other options are exhausted. If abused, it upsets the balance of power between the branches of government.
You make a good point, but I don't see the internet doing much to change the system. The internet can inform and maybe help a few people to "meet up" but the system is still rigged against them. I live in a state that last went to a Democrat president in 1964 (remember that Dubya came in second in the popular vote so only the state's outcome counts). That means that nobody is politically active, both sides don't want to waste time here.
No argument here. The electoral college system, which allocates votes to states instead of at-large, is a major cause of disaffection with presidential politics. My state is also a "safe" one.
Others are making the decision about government, there is little I can do about it except to move. Then there is that little thing of liking my family and community. What are you going to do, the majority spoke. Why waste my time or money on something that I can not change?
Like you I am also frustrated by the current state of politics, but history shows us that political change does occur. For example the U.S. has changed over time, so that many citizens who did not originally have the franchise (women, slaves, non-landowners) have attained voting status. It didn't happen overnight, or without a struggle, but it did happen. If enough of us have the desire to change things, we can. Of course whether we could ever agree on what we should change them to is another story.
You know why the internet is worthless? The same reason democracy is worthless: the vast majority of people are incredibly stupid!
Would you choose to live in some other political system? Perhaps you would rather live under one of the tyrants you seem to admire. Sure democracy has its flaws, but it is preferable to the alternatives. Far from being worthless, it gives dignity and hope to people, at least those who know their history.
This is not even getting to the other major issue: it is the tyrants you condemn that created a civilization within which fellows such as yourself could do something besides hunt and gather fruit. Tyrants grabbed ahold of selfish, aimless people and forced them to be a part of his vision, or leave the tribe. In time, people flocked to the cities created and maintained by wise leaders. They would much rather trade some of their freedoms to live in a paradise free from constant threats of attack, and where creative arts could flourish in peace. Cities of the past had much more trouble keeping people OUT of their cities, than keeping them in.
True, many civilizations did grow up around strong leaders. However governmental systems have evolved away from the despotic arrangement you describe, gradually distributing power to more of the society: first to feudal lords, then rich merchants, and finally to larger groups like political parties, labor unions and corporations. At each stage the circle has widened and more people have been given access to power. I grant you some have more power than others.
You unfortunately live in a world where your reliance on others seems superficial and unnecessary, and you do not see how a community unified behind their common goal of survival was once an absolute necessity. Freedom meant nothing if you were dead.
And I should care about that because...? I'm not scrabbling for roots and berries. I understand my reliance on others - it doesn't bother me. The rewards of civilization far outweigh the drawbacks.
Do you really think your voice matters? One of 6.8 billion??? Do you think because you can sit here and post on slashdot, or anywhere else on the internet that you will ever affect great change in the world? That you will be able to affect the minds of a meaningful number of people? You clamor for free speech, yet you can do nothing more than whimper.. all the while you delude yourself into thinking anyone really gives a fuck what you say or do.
Posting on slashdot is not the limit of my contribution. And yes my voice does matter, and so does yours.
Sooner or later, your own frustration with your own powerlessness, your own impotence will reach a critical point... lets hope you handle it well.
Judging from your commentary, I'm handling it a lot better than you.
I think most people are like me. We know that the pol are lying, if it isn't about not having sex it is about overthrowing another country's government. Go ahead and play your games just leave us out of it. The pol like it like that and most Americans like it like that.
This is a sad comment. For thousands of years people have struggled to gain their freedom from tyrants. Only within the last few hundred years have people been able to take part in running a country. And what do you choose to do with that power? Stand aside and let professional politicians hand the power right back to the ruling class. I guess when you choose to let others make your decisions for you, you get the government you deserve. Unfortunately I also get the government you deserve.
Let the political class and those who like politics play their game. All I ask is that you don't screw up the economy for the rest of us so we can enjoy our family and community
Is your own voice worth so little to you? You have sold yourself short.
I couldn't agree more. I'd mod you up, but I blew my points on the "MS Search Engine" thread. Now I have a bad case of modder's remorse...
I'm reminded of the story of the Shackleton expedition, and others like it, when men risked their lives to advance human knowledge. Where is that spirit of adventure today?
The big problem here IMO is that once the voter commits his ballot, there is no way to tie the ballot back to the voter, and thus to the ballot's precinct. This problem also existed in the old mechanical "lever-machines" used in many jurisdictions on the East Coast (at least they used to be - not sure if they still are today). In those machines the voters indicates his choice with dials or buttons, and commits it with a lever-arm (much like that on a slot machine, which should tell you something about the process:) ). The machine increments its counters mechanically and resets itself for the next voter. If the machine is set for the wrong precinct, and thus the wrong set of contests, well then the votes are invalid. It's interesting to note that many of the same complaints made about touchscreen voting also applied to mechanical voting machine: no audit trail, no indication to the voter that his vote was counted correctly, and no ability to hold a recount.
Of course there is a good reason not to tie the ballot back to the voter: secrecy of the ballot. This is handled easily with paper or punchcard ballots - after voting the ballot is dropped in a ballot box and mixed in with other ballots. In an electronic voting machine it seems that the ballot is essentially destroyed after being counted. This preserves secrecy, but if the voter was placed in the wrong precinct, his votes on some contests may be lost. Some touchscreen machines do allow "provisional" voting for voters whose identity or residence cannot be established at the time they vote - these ballots are set aside and counted when election officials have cleared them. So the capability to tie a voter to a ballot is present in some systems.
I've worked the "back room" operation for many elections with punchcard ballots, and find similar problems where ballots end up in the wrong precincts. Sometimes the election officials send ballots to the wrong precinct. In other cases the election workers use ballots from the wrong precinct when a polling place has more than one precinct assigned to it. However with punchcard or paper ballots we can detect these problems and move the ballots into the correct precincts for the official count. It should be noted that moving a ballot from one precinct to another does not affect the outcome of the election unless the destination precinct votes on non-compatible contests, and even then, only contests which do not appear in both precincts would be affected. So for example if the entire jurisdiction votes for President, but some precincts vote for local offices by district, only the local offices are affected.
Making changes to how a ballot is counted after it is cast is obviously a touchy subject. The makers of the current generation of touchscreen machines seem to have decided that they are better off removing this capability. This may be their own design philosophy, or it may be due to the requirements of the election jurisdictions, who are their customers. Leaving the capability in place could open up the system to potential manipulation - for instance, moving ballots from precincts with votes for a certain candidate into a precinct where that candidate's office does not exist, or worse yet, where his ballot position would count for another candidate.
Elections are a lot more complicated than most voters realize. As with any information system, voting systems must satisfy many criteria that force design decisions. Building in the capability to recount ballots raises other important issues of privacy and potential fraud.
Stories like yours make me shake my head in disbelief. I wonder sometimes if we might be better off without auto insurance. Just sue the guy who caused the accident and get rid of the middleman! Much of the time that's what you end up doing anyway.
I often think that insurance makes for bad drivers. If you are driving around with the thought in your mind that someone else will pay for your mistakes, are you not more likely to be careless?
Criminal penalties make a difference as well. I remember driving down to the tip of Baja California once, and being amazed at the courtesy and caution of the drivers with Mexican plates (excluding the bus and truck drivers, who drove like maniacs). Later I found that a moving violation there was a serious offense, and drivers took great care to avoid a citation.
And to round out this thought - I suspect safety features like airbags have the perverse effect of increasing the accident rate, since drivers believe they will be OK no matter how poorly they drive. (No facts to back this up...hey, it's/.! )
If somebody were to give this unfortunate person Angelfire's highest "element plan", it would cost $15 for the setup and $14.95 for the first month, and give her 30 GB of monthly traffic. That might be enough to survive a slashdotting.
You know, maybe that would be a good use for all that Slashdot subscription money: funding for a place to mirror sites like these...
I worked in government for a while, municipal not federal, but the idea is the same I think. There are two major factors that affect budgets IMO: empire-building, and the "gravy train effect".
Empire building is the worst. Managers in government departments do not get cash bonuses or stock options like their counterparts in private enterprise. If a bureaucrat wants to increase his compensation he has two options: get promoted outside the department, or build up his department by adding staff until he has so many people working under him that he can go to his manager and say "Look how much more responsibility I have! Much more so than Joe over in the Department of Thumb Twiddling...and he makes more than I do!". So he is highly motivated to make his budget as big as he can. And what does he get if he (the fool!) reduces his budget? A "productivity award" plaque, which he can hang on the wall, much to the amusement of his buddy Joe.
Most budgets are operational, that is, you figure what you need to run your program, estimate what changed from last year, and request what you need for the year ahead. But now and then a major cross-departmental program is announced with funding for some initiative. It's a huge amount of money, and if you are a good manager, you will figure out how to get a slice of it. This is the "gravy train effect". Anything you do that has even the remotest connection to the program is reclassified, renamed, and generally reconfigured to siphon off money from it. That's why those major programs never seem to make an impact - much of the funding is diverted to non-related activities. (In defense of this practice, most government departments get their "operational" budgets squeezed every year, so robbing the "gravy train" as it rolls through town is often the only way to keep their department running day-to-day.)
Don't get me wrong: I'm no bureaucrat-basher. By and large, everyone I know in government is decent, honest and hard-working. But the compensation system does not reward people for efficiency or productivity.
Well we aren't likely to change each other's minds about this, but I will say this: voting is not the only way, or even the best way, to exercise political influence. Like it or not, we have a two-party system, and only a candidate nominated by one of the two major parties can win a presidential election, given our current electoral rules. By the time you go to your polling place to cast your vote, your choices have been whittled down by the parties, and your best option is to choose whichever viable candidate is closest to your views. I don't think that a voter doing this is being untrue to himself - he is doing the best he can with what limited power the system has given him.
There are other ways to influence the process. You can join a political party and advocate changes in electoral rules. You can contribute to a political action group. Some good folks working to change our current U.S. system can be found here. Their arguments for moving to a system of proportional representation are well worth reading.
U.S. politics is in large part a rigged game. Many people see this and either opt out, or opt to vote their conscience in protest, and I respect that choice. But it is important to see that it is the rules of the game which are the problem. Once you enter the voting booth you are subject to the rules of the game, much as you would be if you walked up to a roulette wheel. The two parties (like the house in Vegas) are in charge of the game, and your vote can only work within the parameters of the rules. If you play, you lose. But if you don't play, you lose more. So worry less about who wins the game, and more about changing the rules.
The next time you go to vote, I respectfully suggest that you see your vote for what it is in the context of the political process - only one small part of the duty of a citizen. And one which may be most wisely used to reduce the harm caused by the winner of the election:)
It's thinking like that that has gotten us into this mess. Voting isn't about voting for the guy you think has the best chance of winning, voting is about voting for who you think is the best person for the job.
In an ideal world this would be true, but our election system does not reward you for voting for the candidate whom you think is the best. Every election is a strategic contest, not just an expression of values or desires. Voting strategically is distasteful - I certainly find it so - but it is necessary in our winner-take-all system. Voters who act otherwise are not acting in their own best interests, no matter how good it might feel.
The history of third-party candidacies is depressingly similar. They overwhelmingly tend to favor the side most opposed to their aims. I don't think you are "throwing your vote away" by not voting strategically, rather you are making a legitimate protest. But to what end? When the "other" side wins, you lose. Politics requires compromise - we musn't fool ourselves about that.
If you want to change this situation, support changes in our electoral system. But in the meantime, vote for the guy who can win.
I remember reading somewhere that design is the art of making choices. Well designed apps (or products for that matter) make good choices. Apps that don't make choices are passing the buck, in a way. Many open source developers seem reluctant to make those design choices, and pass the responsibility on to the user. Sometimes they can forget who is their target audience. Note that I don't think the Mozilla folks are in this category - Firefox is remarkably easy to install and works great with the default settings.
The best approach IMHO is to make the hard choices and bury the option settings where the geeks can easily get at them, but where Grandma is not likely to Ctrl-Alt-(whatever) her font settings to Cyrillic by mistake. (Of course if Grandma is a geek who reads Cyrillic then by all means go for it...)
...but if you were Microsoft's Lawyers, what would you do?
Why, I guess I would do what Microsoft Lawyers usually do: crack open another fetus and drink its still-bubbling blood, then pray to the Dark Lord for guidance!
After reading Stephen LaBerge's book "Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming" I bought a NovaDreamer from the Lucidity Institute. The device consists of a sleep mask with a small electronics unit, two LEDs, a REM sensor and a buzzer. To use it, you program it to flash the LEDs and (optionally) give a sound cue when you are in REM. It did work for me on several occasions, producing vivid lucid dreams, although I was disappointed that it did not work as often as I had hoped.
The flashing lights in this case are not an attempt to induce specific brainwave patterns (like you might find in an "entrainment" device), but are merely intended to gain your attention while you are dreaming, and thus allow you to become conscious of your dream state without actually waking up. To recognize the light cues, you must train yourself to react to the sight of flashing lights when you are awake. You go through your day as usual, and when a light flashes, you ask yourself "Am I dreaming?". This is supposed to prepare you to react the same way when you see the LEDs flashing while you are dreaming.
The rig was pretty cool to use, but after I while I gave it up as I wasn't getting the results I wanted, and it was not always comfortable to wear. It did help spark my interest in lucid dreaming, so I wouldn't say it was a complete waste.
Those who want to play around with lucid dreaming don't need these special devices to get started. A simple tape recorder or CD player plugged into a wall socket with a timer switch can produce sound cues at the approximately correct stage of REM sleep. Most people are pretty regular with their sleep patterns, and go into REM at the same time each night. With enough practice you can improve your ability to enter the lucid dream state, or so the theory goes.
You can certainly improve your ability to remember dreams, simply by writing them down or recording them each morning. So it is possible to measure how the effectiveness of your attempts to have a lucid dream.
I doubt that the "Dream Workshop" would work as intended for normal dreams. My own experience with this is that your dreams go in whatever direction they want, script or no script. However, a lucid dream is another animal altogether. When you are conscious in the dream state, you can actively direct it. Your ability to control what happens in a lucid dream may be absolute or minimal - it varies from person to person. But you will certainly be more in control than in a normal dream.
It's great fun to experiment with. The Lucidity Institute website has some excellent suggestions.
Sometimes the present have to sacrifice so the future can be better.
Easy to say if you aren't the one being sacrificed.
I am not arguing that corruption is not a problem - indeed I agree that it is the main problem. But to turn your back on the unfortunate people who are starving today due to the incompetence or the malfeasance of their governments is needlessly cruel. Charitable giving is not "blindly funneling money". There are many charities that do recognize and attempt to address the root causes of starvation in addition to simply feeding people.
Approach the source of the problem, not the result.
Ending world poverty requires removing corruption and improving logictics in 3rd world countries, pumping money at them will not solve these problems, it will sustain them.
Gee, you're right. It's much better if we stand back and merely criticize the governments of impoverished countries instead of giving direct handouts to those starving people. While their bellies may be empty, their souls can feed on our ideals.
And if witholding charity is better than giving, perhaps the next logical step is for us to steal from the poor! When they have nothing left, why then they will have nothing left to lose!
Slashdot Mirror
The more power in the central government, the more corruption, no matter what form of government it is.
I'm not convinced that there is a straight-line relationship between the size of government and the amount of corruption. If that were true, smaller governments would experience less corruption, yet I can think of many examples of local governments in my own area that are horribly corrupt. Small towns can be just as wasteful and nepotistic as big cities, if not more so.
Corruption seems to be as much a cultural phenomena as a problem with the structure and size of government. On my trips to Latin America, I am continually amazed at how corruption pervades every aspect of government and business - so much so that it is often seen as a way of life, not an aberration, but just a way of getting things done.
And let us not forget, while we are comparing capitalism and communism, that corruption (and its partner, waste) also take place in private enterprise. Enron, Tyco and Worldcom are only the ones that got caught...
There is nothing preventing an impeached official from holding office again in the future...
In theory perhaps, but it seems very unlikely that an impeached official would be able to be reelected, or reappointed.
I agree - campaign finance "reform" is cynical, patronizing, futile and merely distracts from the important issues.
The biggest sign that those in political office in the US are primarily interested in their own position is the way impeachment is currently viewed. What happens if you get impeached? You're fired. Nothing else. BFD. Heck, it's such a non-penalty that our federal constitution makes sure to let Congress do it whenever they damned well please. You're not even barred from running for office again if the people so choose. But that sounds too much like regicide to the politicians (and, as they made sure, to everybody else) and so Congress instead makes vague complaints about "imperial presidents" and "activist judges" instead of doing their God damned job and taking individuals they're not happy with to task.
I don't see a way out of this. Impeachment is a dangerous thing, a weapon to be wielded with great care, and only when other options are exhausted. If abused, it upsets the balance of power between the branches of government.
You make a good point, but I don't see the internet doing much to change the system. The internet can inform and maybe help a few people to "meet up" but the system is still rigged against them. I live in a state that last went to a Democrat president in 1964 (remember that Dubya came in second in the popular vote so only the state's outcome counts). That means that nobody is politically active, both sides don't want to waste time here.
No argument here. The electoral college system, which allocates votes to states instead of at-large, is a major cause of disaffection with presidential politics. My state is also a "safe" one.
Others are making the decision about government, there is little I can do about it except to move. Then there is that little thing of liking my family and community. What are you going to do, the majority spoke. Why waste my time or money on something that I can not change?
Like you I am also frustrated by the current state of politics, but history shows us that political change does occur. For example the U.S. has changed over time, so that many citizens who did not originally have the franchise (women, slaves, non-landowners) have attained voting status. It didn't happen overnight, or without a struggle, but it did happen. If enough of us have the desire to change things, we can. Of course whether we could ever agree on what we should change them to is another story.
Yeah, those would be great examples...if any of those were tyrannies.
Are you saying the countries of Eastern Europe under communism were not tyrannies? I think in the context of the article they fit the bill perfectly.
Uh, you aren't Gerald Ford posting under a nick, are you? :)
Would you choose to live in some other political system? Perhaps you would rather live under one of the tyrants you seem to admire. Sure democracy has its flaws, but it is preferable to the alternatives. Far from being worthless, it gives dignity and hope to people, at least those who know their history.
This is not even getting to the other major issue: it is the tyrants you condemn that created a civilization within which fellows such as yourself could do something besides hunt and gather fruit. Tyrants grabbed ahold of selfish, aimless people and forced them to be a part of his vision, or leave the tribe. In time, people flocked to the cities created and maintained by wise leaders. They would much rather trade some of their freedoms to live in a paradise free from constant threats of attack, and where creative arts could flourish in peace. Cities of the past had much more trouble keeping people OUT of their cities, than keeping them in.
True, many civilizations did grow up around strong leaders. However governmental systems have evolved away from the despotic arrangement you describe, gradually distributing power to more of the society: first to feudal lords, then rich merchants, and finally to larger groups like political parties, labor unions and corporations. At each stage the circle has widened and more people have been given access to power. I grant you some have more power than others.
You unfortunately live in a world where your reliance on others seems superficial and unnecessary, and you do not see how a community unified behind their common goal of survival was once an absolute necessity. Freedom meant nothing if you were dead.
And I should care about that because...? I'm not scrabbling for roots and berries. I understand my reliance on others - it doesn't bother me. The rewards of civilization far outweigh the drawbacks.
Do you really think your voice matters? One of 6.8 billion??? Do you think because you can sit here and post on slashdot, or anywhere else on the internet that you will ever affect great change in the world? That you will be able to affect the minds of a meaningful number of people? You clamor for free speech, yet you can do nothing more than whimper.. all the while you delude yourself into thinking anyone really gives a fuck what you say or do.
Posting on slashdot is not the limit of my contribution. And yes my voice does matter, and so does yours.
Sooner or later, your own frustration with your own powerlessness, your own impotence will reach a critical point... lets hope you handle it well.
Judging from your commentary, I'm handling it a lot better than you.
Here is one counterexample
Also see the Poland, East Germany, the Soviet Union
This is a sad comment. For thousands of years people have struggled to gain their freedom from tyrants. Only within the last few hundred years have people been able to take part in running a country. And what do you choose to do with that power? Stand aside and let professional politicians hand the power right back to the ruling class. I guess when you choose to let others make your decisions for you, you get the government you deserve. Unfortunately I also get the government you deserve.
Let the political class and those who like politics play their game. All I ask is that you don't screw up the economy for the rest of us so we can enjoy our family and community
Is your own voice worth so little to you? You have sold yourself short.
I'm reminded of the story of the Shackleton expedition, and others like it, when men risked their lives to advance human knowledge. Where is that spirit of adventure today?
You're welcome!
Lucky for me I live in that bastion of individual freedom: the U.S. of A.!
Hang on, someone is knocking at the door...
The big problem here IMO is that once the voter commits his ballot, there is no way to tie the ballot back to the voter, and thus to the ballot's precinct. This problem also existed in the old mechanical "lever-machines" used in many jurisdictions on the East Coast (at least they used to be - not sure if they still are today). In those machines the voters indicates his choice with dials or buttons, and commits it with a lever-arm (much like that on a slot machine, which should tell you something about the process :) ). The machine increments its counters mechanically and resets itself for the next voter. If the machine is set for the wrong precinct, and thus the wrong set of contests, well then the votes are invalid. It's interesting to note that many of the same complaints made about touchscreen voting also applied to mechanical voting machine: no audit trail, no indication to the voter that his vote was counted correctly, and no ability to hold a recount.
Of course there is a good reason not to tie the ballot back to the voter: secrecy of the ballot. This is handled easily with paper or punchcard ballots - after voting the ballot is dropped in a ballot box and mixed in with other ballots. In an electronic voting machine it seems that the ballot is essentially destroyed after being counted. This preserves secrecy, but if the voter was placed in the wrong precinct, his votes on some contests may be lost. Some touchscreen machines do allow "provisional" voting for voters whose identity or residence cannot be established at the time they vote - these ballots are set aside and counted when election officials have cleared them. So the capability to tie a voter to a ballot is present in some systems.
I've worked the "back room" operation for many elections with punchcard ballots, and find similar problems where ballots end up in the wrong precincts. Sometimes the election officials send ballots to the wrong precinct. In other cases the election workers use ballots from the wrong precinct when a polling place has more than one precinct assigned to it. However with punchcard or paper ballots we can detect these problems and move the ballots into the correct precincts for the official count. It should be noted that moving a ballot from one precinct to another does not affect the outcome of the election unless the destination precinct votes on non-compatible contests, and even then, only contests which do not appear in both precincts would be affected. So for example if the entire jurisdiction votes for President, but some precincts vote for local offices by district, only the local offices are affected.
Making changes to how a ballot is counted after it is cast is obviously a touchy subject. The makers of the current generation of touchscreen machines seem to have decided that they are better off removing this capability. This may be their own design philosophy, or it may be due to the requirements of the election jurisdictions, who are their customers. Leaving the capability in place could open up the system to potential manipulation - for instance, moving ballots from precincts with votes for a certain candidate into a precinct where that candidate's office does not exist, or worse yet, where his ballot position would count for another candidate.
Elections are a lot more complicated than most voters realize. As with any information system, voting systems must satisfy many criteria that force design decisions. Building in the capability to recount ballots raises other important issues of privacy and potential fraud.
I'm ready for my droud
Stories like yours make me shake my head in disbelief. I wonder sometimes if we might be better off without auto insurance. Just sue the guy who caused the accident and get rid of the middleman! Much of the time that's what you end up doing anyway.
I often think that insurance makes for bad drivers. If you are driving around with the thought in your mind that someone else will pay for your mistakes, are you not more likely to be careless?
Criminal penalties make a difference as well. I remember driving down to the tip of Baja California once, and being amazed at the courtesy and caution of the drivers with Mexican plates (excluding the bus and truck drivers, who drove like maniacs). Later I found that a moving violation there was a serious offense, and drivers took great care to avoid a citation.
And to round out this thought - I suspect safety features like airbags have the perverse effect of increasing the accident rate, since drivers believe they will be OK no matter how poorly they drive. (No facts to back this up...hey, it's /.! )
You know, maybe that would be a good use for all that Slashdot subscription money: funding for a place to mirror sites like these...
Empire building is the worst. Managers in government departments do not get cash bonuses or stock options like their counterparts in private enterprise. If a bureaucrat wants to increase his compensation he has two options: get promoted outside the department, or build up his department by adding staff until he has so many people working under him that he can go to his manager and say "Look how much more responsibility I have! Much more so than Joe over in the Department of Thumb Twiddling...and he makes more than I do!". So he is highly motivated to make his budget as big as he can. And what does he get if he (the fool!) reduces his budget? A "productivity award" plaque, which he can hang on the wall, much to the amusement of his buddy Joe.
Most budgets are operational, that is, you figure what you need to run your program, estimate what changed from last year, and request what you need for the year ahead. But now and then a major cross-departmental program is announced with funding for some initiative. It's a huge amount of money, and if you are a good manager, you will figure out how to get a slice of it. This is the "gravy train effect". Anything you do that has even the remotest connection to the program is reclassified, renamed, and generally reconfigured to siphon off money from it. That's why those major programs never seem to make an impact - much of the funding is diverted to non-related activities. (In defense of this practice, most government departments get their "operational" budgets squeezed every year, so robbing the "gravy train" as it rolls through town is often the only way to keep their department running day-to-day.)
Don't get me wrong: I'm no bureaucrat-basher. By and large, everyone I know in government is decent, honest and hard-working. But the compensation system does not reward people for efficiency or productivity.
There are other ways to influence the process. You can join a political party and advocate changes in electoral rules. You can contribute to a political action group. Some good folks working to change our current U.S. system can be found here. Their arguments for moving to a system of proportional representation are well worth reading.
U.S. politics is in large part a rigged game. Many people see this and either opt out, or opt to vote their conscience in protest, and I respect that choice. But it is important to see that it is the rules of the game which are the problem. Once you enter the voting booth you are subject to the rules of the game, much as you would be if you walked up to a roulette wheel. The two parties (like the house in Vegas) are in charge of the game, and your vote can only work within the parameters of the rules. If you play, you lose. But if you don't play, you lose more. So worry less about who wins the game, and more about changing the rules.
The next time you go to vote, I respectfully suggest that you see your vote for what it is in the context of the political process - only one small part of the duty of a citizen. And one which may be most wisely used to reduce the harm caused by the winner of the election :)
In an ideal world this would be true, but our election system does not reward you for voting for the candidate whom you think is the best. Every election is a strategic contest, not just an expression of values or desires. Voting strategically is distasteful - I certainly find it so - but it is necessary in our winner-take-all system. Voters who act otherwise are not acting in their own best interests, no matter how good it might feel.
The history of third-party candidacies is depressingly similar. They overwhelmingly tend to favor the side most opposed to their aims. I don't think you are "throwing your vote away" by not voting strategically, rather you are making a legitimate protest. But to what end? When the "other" side wins, you lose. Politics requires compromise - we musn't fool ourselves about that.
If you want to change this situation, support changes in our electoral system. But in the meantime, vote for the guy who can win.
That is so funny it hertz!
I remember reading somewhere that design is the art of making choices. Well designed apps (or products for that matter) make good choices. Apps that don't make choices are passing the buck, in a way. Many open source developers seem reluctant to make those design choices, and pass the responsibility on to the user. Sometimes they can forget who is their target audience. Note that I don't think the Mozilla folks are in this category - Firefox is remarkably easy to install and works great with the default settings.
The best approach IMHO is to make the hard choices and bury the option settings where the geeks can easily get at them, but where Grandma is not likely to Ctrl-Alt-(whatever) her font settings to Cyrillic by mistake. (Of course if Grandma is a geek who reads Cyrillic then by all means go for it...)
...which means that the offending code must have been written in whitespace
Why, I guess I would do what Microsoft Lawyers usually do: crack open another fetus and drink its still-bubbling blood, then pray to the Dark Lord for guidance!
The flashing lights in this case are not an attempt to induce specific brainwave patterns (like you might find in an "entrainment" device), but are merely intended to gain your attention while you are dreaming, and thus allow you to become conscious of your dream state without actually waking up. To recognize the light cues, you must train yourself to react to the sight of flashing lights when you are awake. You go through your day as usual, and when a light flashes, you ask yourself "Am I dreaming?". This is supposed to prepare you to react the same way when you see the LEDs flashing while you are dreaming.
The rig was pretty cool to use, but after I while I gave it up as I wasn't getting the results I wanted, and it was not always comfortable to wear. It did help spark my interest in lucid dreaming, so I wouldn't say it was a complete waste.
Those who want to play around with lucid dreaming don't need these special devices to get started. A simple tape recorder or CD player plugged into a wall socket with a timer switch can produce sound cues at the approximately correct stage of REM sleep. Most people are pretty regular with their sleep patterns, and go into REM at the same time each night. With enough practice you can improve your ability to enter the lucid dream state, or so the theory goes.
You can certainly improve your ability to remember dreams, simply by writing them down or recording them each morning. So it is possible to measure how the effectiveness of your attempts to have a lucid dream.
I doubt that the "Dream Workshop" would work as intended for normal dreams. My own experience with this is that your dreams go in whatever direction they want, script or no script. However, a lucid dream is another animal altogether. When you are conscious in the dream state, you can actively direct it. Your ability to control what happens in a lucid dream may be absolute or minimal - it varies from person to person. But you will certainly be more in control than in a normal dream.
It's great fun to experiment with. The Lucidity Institute website has some excellent suggestions.
Easy to say if you aren't the one being sacrificed.
I am not arguing that corruption is not a problem - indeed I agree that it is the main problem. But to turn your back on the unfortunate people who are starving today due to the incompetence or the malfeasance of their governments is needlessly cruel. Charitable giving is not "blindly funneling money". There are many charities that do recognize and attempt to address the root causes of starvation in addition to simply feeding people.
Approach the source of the problem, not the result.
Why not do both?
Gee, you're right. It's much better if we stand back and merely criticize the governments of impoverished countries instead of giving direct handouts to those starving people. While their bellies may be empty, their souls can feed on our ideals.
And if witholding charity is better than giving, perhaps the next logical step is for us to steal from the poor! When they have nothing left, why then they will have nothing left to lose!