If your claims are correct, it sounds like one solution would be to dramatically reduce the debt that Americans accumulate in college. How do we do this? Well, we'd have to raise taxes on the nation as a whole, and redirect that wealth toward universities so that they could educate and perform research without charging (as much for) admission. We do some of it now, at both federal and state level. We could certainly do more.
End result: American degree holders graduate with much less debt, which seems like it would be good for everyone except MBNA.
If you live in a $100,000 mortgaged home, you only need $60,000 in equity to have $60,000 in assets (assuming all other finances net to $0). Why? Well, the home is worth $100,000. If the bank foreclosed tomorrow, they'd sell the home for its $100,000 value, take the $40,000 you still owe them, and be obligated to give you the rest... $60,000.
Where'd you go wrong? You forgot to consider that a home isn't like a car -- it holds its value. This means that every dollar you pay toward equity in your home is a dollar gained in the assets column.
Put another way. When you buy a home, you own the whole thing. Your name is on the deed. All $100,000 is assets, and it all belongs to you. You also carry a loan on the side. If you still owe $40,000 on your loan, you've got $100,000 - $40,000 = $60,000 in assets.
Does this statement hold true if a single company manufactures a large percentage of voting machines?
There are few companies making a significant majority of voting machines in tUS, which is a problem. However, many of those machines do have paper trails, either via optical scans, paper-trailed electronic machines, or otherwise. So long as those paper trails can be audited, the chance of a single entity (in this case, the voting machine manufacturer) swinging an election is extremely low.
This is, of course, why paper trails are so vital.
Especially when the code they run is not open to public scrutiny?
Generally speaking, it's far more important that the voter can physically look at a paper trail to confirm that his vote is recorded in meatspace (and hence audit-able) than the code itself be open to public scrutiny. While I do believe that open sourced voting code is better, I believe its far more important that the machines, open or closed source, are fully audit-able by physical count (so longs as those audits are actually happening with sufficient frequency).
Don't we have techniques for storing data without making certain connections? I.E. store my vote, but never attach my vote to my name in a way that is visible to anyone, unless it is necessary due to allegation of fraud or mistake?
So is it attached, or isn't it? If it is, then I have to trust my government -- a government I may be trying to vote out of office -- to not look at how I voted and take reprisals. If it isn't attached, then how can it be audited? If it can't be audited, that throws out an advantage of the proposed system.
Federalism: I'm arguing policy, not law. A constitutional amendment can quickly change the law, nevermind voluntary adoption by all 50 states.
You can't have the policy without the legal framework, and no constitutional amendment can be adopted quickly, by design. Furthermore, I'd argue that the diffuse, states-rights system we have now is superior to a federal voting system, precisely because it does help prevent the federal government from undermining the democratic process itself.
"What if my vote wasn't changed but I claim it was changed?" Then you are a liar, and we will look up the records and see. Fraud = prison.
So if my vote gets changed, I blow the whistle, and I can't prove it... then *I* go to prison. This seems like a perfect system for a totalitarian government. You vote the way *we* said you did, and if you say otherwise, to the gulag!
"Voting on a network is putting all your eggs in one basket, and so is generally a terrible idea." This is the only argument you make that I am at all persuaded by. But I still think we can make it work. The likelihood of an UNDETECTED hack is low if you have webservers run by skilled people, right?
Low isn't good enough, if one hack can wreck massive havoc on an election. The distributed, non-networked system we have now would require a massive conspiracy to have significant odds of changing the outcome of a presidential election. State elections have similar protections because each town has a different counting system, unlinked. A networked system requires you to trust that the sysadmins are always superior to all outsiders, and are above being influenced. I'm not so sure I'm happy about that system, especially given that most people simply don't know enough about systems administration to have faith in the entire framework. Most people do know how to count, which means that they can audit a paper trail ballot even if they can't be sure the initial count is correct.
The voting period could span several days or weeks, instead of hours.
Oregon uses vote by mail, and other states do have absentee ballots, so this process is (somewhat) available, depending on state law. An interesting side effect is that there is no campaign climax if people are voting over a two week span. Essentially, some people are choosing to vote without all available information, because they're voting before the campaigns are over.
The federal government could fairly easily create a webserver with logins for 300 million people. Each person would be given a userid and password. This could be sent in the mail or given online after supplying social security number and birthday, etc.
Secret ballots allow two important things: safety from coercion, and a prevention of the selling of ones vote. You can't be coerced if your vote is a secret vote with no receipt, and you can't sell a vote if you can't prove you actually voted the way you sold. There are some cases where people don't vote in secret -- see the question above, as well as instances where people with a handicap (blindness, for example) are assisted with their vote at the polling place. But, the vast majority of votes are cast in secret. Voting online prevents these guarantees, as well as guaranteeing that the person who cast the vote is the same as the person with the right to vote. Admittedly, this guarantee isn't 100% for meatspace voting, but the threshold is generally pretty high, and the chances of getting caught -- with a police officer right outside the door -- are high enough to keep nearly all people from becoming impostors in meatspace.
Furthermore, the diffuse system we use to collect and tally votes helps to prevent a single "hack" swinging an entire election. A single person would have a hard time stuffing a ballot box to swing a major election with paper ballots; a networked election, however, doesn't have that safety.
Finally, voting is a states rights issue -- with the exception of some specific issues like race in Constitutional amendments. Therefore, the US gov't can't make rules or collect votes for the states without each state's consent.
Your last point, that I just don't see security being a huge problem. Every single voter could self-monitor that their vote counted by logging back in to make sure that no hacker had changed their vote.
has tremendous problems. (1) What if my vote was changed and I claim it was changed? (2) What if my vote wasn't changed but I claim it was changed? (3) How does this guarantee against any other kind of tampering, incorrect addition and subtraction, etc.
Voting on a network is putting all your eggs in one basket, and so is generally a terrible idea.
have a spare one or two on land, ready to deploy? This is a good idea anyway, since one of the ducks could fail for any other reason, leaving people thirsty. If you lose a duck to a storm, you replace it with one stored on land.
It ain't perfect, but it ain't bad either. Combine that with reservoirs (either big lake, or lots of 1 gallon jugs of freshwater at homes), and it's much better than the status quo.
3. Prohibit Internet gambling. This isn't really a tech vote. This is a moral socio-economic vote. c|net wanted Senators to vote to allow (not to prohibit) Internet gambling... because it's on the Internet?!
5. Increasing paperwork for Internet Sellers. What's the amendment that c|net wanted a no vote against? "To require persons selling tangible personal property via the Internet to disclose to purchasers that they may be subject to State and local sales and use taxes on the purchases." That's it. Simply inform the buyer that he or she may have to pay taxes in other districts. You see, when you buy in meatspace, this part of the transaction is automagic. Not so in virtual space. Again, I don't see it as being a major technological issue vote.
11. Free Trade Bill. No, seriously. If you voted for free trade, you demonstrated your prowess as a technologist? Give me a freaking break.
12. Over-ruling state anti-SPAM with the CAN-SPAM. Now, you might not think that the legislation is tough enough, but I think it is fair to say that the pro-technology approach to Internet regulation is to not have 50 different sets of regulations within the United States.
16. For curbs on class-action lawsuits. Again, WTF? This isn't a technology issue per se. This is a judicial process issue. To put it in this list is asinine.
But, what wasn't on this list?
* Judicial approvals
* Regulatory approvals (think FCC, et al)
* Committee membership
* Interaction with lobbyists and money acceptance from PACs.
It's a dumb list, at least on the Senate side. I didn't even bother to check out the House side.
For one thing, voter rolls that the poll workers use (usually!) contain the DOB. So, it'd be hard to pull off the grandpa angle. For another thing, the town clerk should be coordinating activities with the state to purge dead people. Additionally, in (smaller) precincts, people know each other, and would notice.
Most importantly, however, is that for this form of voter fraud to have a significant chance of impacting the outcome of a race, it would have to be done multiple times. If done by the same person, he risks getting recognized. If done by many people, they risk their conspiracy being leaked, since it means far too many people keeping the same secret.
In MA, the fine is $10,000 and/or 5 years in prison... to cast a single fraudulent vote. Now, how many people do you think would risk that kind of punishment to cast a single fraudulent vote? Not bloody many.
Requiring voters to show ID is designed to filter out certain types of people. Who isn't likely to have a current, valid drivers license with their current address? City dwellers. The poor. Young people like college students who move frequently. All of these groups tend to vote Democratically (big D). So, is it any surprise that the Republicans are so afraid of the lone fraudster casting a vote under his grandfather's name, when it oh so conveniently also places a hurdle (both bureaucratic and financial) in front of so many voters who, statistically, will vote for Democrats? The GOP wants to discourage people like me -- a graduate student who lives in a city, doesn't own a valid drivers license, but has been voting (legally!) in my neighborhood for four years now -- from voting, since I likely won't vote for their candidates. Suburban and rural voters, where the GOP gets their votes from, almost always have valid drivers licenses. The requirement oh so conveniently isn't a burden on statistically likely GOP voters at all.
When you buy gas, you have to stop the car, get out and pump*, pay, and leave. You have to do that at any and all stations, and you rarely combine that with other shopping (maybe some convenince shopping, but not likely).
When you buy groceries, hygene products, or other consumables, you rarely shop for the single item. You don't drive to the red pepper store, then the shampoo store, then the Tylenol store. I think this is another reason why people price shop for gas, but aren't as sensitive to the price of red peppers. They're not going to drive to Save-a-lot to get out of their cars, walk to the produce section, find the red peppers, check out, and get back in their car, since that's a whole lot of non-laziness. Since the process for shopping for gas can't be merged with other items, price is the only comparison. For other items, price and laziness factors are both relevant.
* Excepting NJ, where you aren't allowed to pump your own gas.
Ignoring quality of life issues...
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The Engine of US Jobs
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Nothing has been made because Aunty Tilly got a $20,000 bypass instead of a $5 bottle of asprin.
If a bottle of asprin results in her passing away but the bypass gives her 20 years more life, then (adjusting for inflation, etc) she merely has to generate $1,000 more wealth each year than she consumes for the operation to be "worth it". And, consider this: she has some dollar value of training and experience, valuable both during her hours working and her other hours contributing to the community. It could be that buying her a bypass would be like fixing the alternator in your car; sure it doesn't result in anything "new" but it is a small repair on a valuable item. You wouldn't throw away your car with a bad alternator; don't throw away (valuable) Aunty Tilly because she's got a bad valve.
Obviously, at some point people get old enough that society will never regain its financial investment in that elderly person (or lifetime-disabled person). S'OK. We're human beings; we take care of each other because we sympathize and empathize. It's part of the human condition, and it's a good thing.
According to this article dated May 31, this is already a work in progress. I'd bet its the same professor, although I was unable to confirm.
The idea is that you don't need all 50 states -- you need 270 electoral votes, the smallest number which guarantees a victory (of the 538 total votes cast). So, the compact doesn't go into effect until enough states sign such that 270 electoral votes are at stake.
According to the article I've linked, in addition to California the legislation is "in progress" in the New York Legislature, and its got some support in Illinois, Missouri and Colorado. That doesn't guarantee passage, of course.
Note also that this does not require a Constitutional Ammendment because each state is free to determine how to divvy up its electoral votes. There is no Federal requirements on how to allocate the electoral votes, just requirements on who can (and can't) vote. States have additional input, which is why prisoners, parolees, and those who have been completely released by the penal system may or may not be allowed to vote, depending on the state in which they live.
I'm sure there will be a large number of people listening to podcasts of their favorite politicians, but I am equally sure it will have no bearing on the outcome of the election.
Let's say I'm supportng Joe Smith in the 2008 election, and my friend hasn't made up his mind between Joe Smith and Sally Jones. I listen to Joe's podcast for a minute every day becasue I'm interested. Since it's so up to date, he uses it to explain/rebuff/discuss/declare current issuse, be they on policy, personal life and decisions, qualifications, whatever. Because I've listened to it, I'm up to speed, and can use that better (or at least more convincing) knowledge to more effectively persuade my friend that Joe Smith is the way to go.
You're right that only people who have already committed will tune in. But, they'll be more prepared to persuade their friends, since they'll have more up to date and relevant knowledge.
OPEC could destroy this country in one move and that has nothing to do with Oil companies gouging us.
Do you know how much oil we get from OPEC? If you said 24%, you'd be right. That also includes non-Middle Eastern countries in OPEC like Venezuela, who, spat with GWB not included, do not have the hate for tUSA that many Middle Easterners do.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) holds 60 days worth of oil. So, even if all of OPEC shut us off and nobody tried to cheat, we'd still have 240 days until we felt a pinch. Congress could extend that by just shy of another month by immediately dropping the highway speed limits back to 55.
All of that assumes that OPEC is just swallowing the oil, not selling it to anyone. That's not likely the case -- they'd sell it elsewhere. Now, instead of China buying oil from Russia, they'd buy it from the Saudis, and we'd get our oil from Russia. Even if they did just not sell the oil to anyone, tUSA's purchases wouldn't go down 24%, since the rest of the oil is being sold on an open market. tUSA's oil purchases would go down something less than 24%, as would China's, India's, most of Europe's, etc.
So, OPEC can play games to cause the market to defensively raise the price of a barrel. But, they can't stop tUSA from buying oil elsewhere, from other nations buying/selling/trading oil, from tUSA tapping its SOR, from tUSA eliminating its tax on Brazilian ethanol, from tUSA lowering speed limits to conserve fuel, etc.
And as for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), it'd be 10 years before that oil starts flowing, and it just isn't very much oil. Personally, I think its worth much more to this country if used as a long term SOR -- it's there, just in case technology and rollouts don't keep up with the decline of oil. Why blow through it now when we can consume someone else's oil and save ours for an emergency later?
If you can't take care of your kids, then you're unfit as a parent and CPS should step it. Case closed. It is NOT the responsibility of the country to raise anyone's children, except those children that don't have parents!
So it's not the government's responsibility to raise anyone's children, but a government agency should step in if you can't take care of your kids. Isn't that effectively what the government would be doing by changing myspace's age from 14 to 18? Taking responsibility for the kids who aren't being taken care of?
I'm not suggesting that this is a good idea. I just think your post was quite strange. It sure sounds like you're saying: People should take care of their kids, unless they don't, and then the government should! That's why the government shouldn't take steps to protect kids from predators if their parents aren't!
First of all, DoD spending is indeed massive within the United States. Second of all, neither Social Security nor Medicare revenue is eligible to be spent by Congress. It's not part of the general budget. This was done to keep Congress from raiding the social programs so that they could cut taxes on those who didn't need the social programs.
Some data: Social security, medicare, and other retirements: 36% (and can't be touched by Congress in the budget) National Defense and veterans affairs: 23% Net interest on the Debt: 7% Physical, human, and community development (nat'l parks, education, job training, NSF, NASA, etc): 10% Social Programs: 21% Law enforcement: 3%
So yeah, cutting back on the Iraq war (and the rest of the 31% == 23%/(100%-36%) of discretionary spending Congress spends on the military) would indeed leave quite a bit available for alternative energy research, spending on public and mass transit, pollution enforcement mechanisms, and other ways to reduce global warming.
We Americans (generally) don't think it's fair that Exxon/Mobil had record profits while we were paying more at the pump, and think the government should do something about it.
Except raise gas taxes.
We want the government to fight global warming, unless it might hurt job growth, or reduce our ability to drive an SUV, or mean the price of homes go up, or mean we have to take public transportation, or impose fines on individuals making behavioral choices that increase global warming.
About the only think politicians feel they can do is give tax rebates on CF bulbs and hybrid cars. That alone isn't going to get it done.
So yes, Americans want to stop global warming, but we don't want to take personal responsibility, and we don't want to feel like the government is restricting or freedom to be selfish dirty consuming pigs.
IMO, the real reason why Apple users love Apple is that their products just work (tm). The hardware and software work together -- there's no fussing with drivers, with inoperable configurations, with non-supported features. The user interface is consistent, and the physical products are seemingly sturdy and well thought out.
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, this is known as quality. Apple has it. Sony used to have it. Microsoft has never had it.
Interesting how they tie the giveaway to current Republicans and Democrats and yet who is mentioned supporting the giveaway in the article?
* Charles Grassley, Republican (IA)
* Rick Santorum, Republican (PA)
* Gordon Smith, Republican (OR)
* Orrin Hatch, Republican (UT)
Who is mentioned as being against the giveaway?
* Lloyd Doggett, Democrat (TX)
So maybe it's the so-called "liberal media" who is just raking the GOP over the coals. Or, maybe it's representative of trying to show the corrupt GOP Congress as being bipartisan in a weak attempt to appear "fair and balanced."
Your point about weaning tUSA off of oil is a good one, since very little electricity in tUSA is generated with oil.
But, replacing nuclear isn't possible. Nuclear energy provides the baseline for power generation, and the amount generated per unit time is almost never altered. So, you might reduce the consumption of coal, natural gas, or fuel oil, but not nuclear.
But I don't delude myself into thinking that this is "charity" because when I give money to these projects, I benefit in that the project that produces something that I use is going to be able to advance faster.
When you give to homeless shelters, you don't have to step over bums on the street. When you give to Katrina funds, you help rebuild a community so it doesn't use social services in your area. When you give to the ACLU or the EFF, you benefit from the maintaining of freedom for everyone.
We're all connected, and when you reduce the suffering -- or increase the joy -- anywhere in the world, it very well might somehow, somewhere, come back to help you personally.
That doesn't mean that a generous gift of money or time isn't charity. Likewise, giving to a software project that benefits all who choose to use it, without regard to ability to pay or how it is to be used, is charity because, generally speaking, you personally could receive those benefits the charity is offering without you personally paying.
Sorry, but you're really incorrect there on a lot of counts. First, shrinkage as a percent of sales due to theft has actually shrunk in the past few years, mostly due to enormous investments in loss prevention systems and paid restitution from the theives they've caught.
Um, no. The most general definition of shrink is:
1 - ($revenue_recieved / $full_revenue) $revenue_received is easy. That's the money, less taxes, brought in for items sold. $full_revenue is trickier. To make easier, assume a store never puts anything on sale or raises prices in between two inventory assessments. $full_revenue is the amount of revenue the store would receive if it sold every single item it paid for at the retail price. The losses are from theft, right? Nope. Shrink includes theft, but also includes:
* item breaks, employee doesn't add item to "broken list" to remove it from denominator
* store pays for pallet containing 168 items, but only 166 ever arrived at the store. Those two missing weren't stolen -- it was a paperwork or inspection error.
* cashier errs in ringing up items, scanning 9 instead of all 10 items in the basket.
* employee uses item off of shelf (paper towels, screwdriver, whatever) and doesn't add item to the "store use list" to remove it from denominator.
* item is shipped with wrong UPC, resulting in shrink in one item and swell (negative shrink) in a different item, which either results in a net shrink or net swell. Usually shrink, since customers are more likely to speak up when asked to pay more than what they expected.
* mismeasurement. This happens in fabric stores, hardware stores, and other places where somebody gets a commodity sold by the unit measure. In almost all cases, the store will see some shrink because they'll never short a customer but might give customer a smidge too much.
Allowing prices to change in the scenario can make things more complex, but doesn't add much to shrink generally. Shrink comes from much more than theft. Most of it comes from bad auditing practices in recieving, returns, special sales, inventory management, and cashier inspections.
So while 45% may be gasoline, 65% is transportation. If that use goes to 0% due to biofuels, electric cars/trains/busses running on stored wind/solar/bio power, etc then we're only consuming 1/3rd of the oil we're consuming now. Since only about 20% of our oil comes from the Middle East (about 25% from OPEC, but that includes Venezuela, etc) we'd be able to cut out the Middle East entirely. Other domestic tricks (like using F-T to convert coal to liquid fuel) could extend tUSA's production, and Canada's tar sands could keep North America "truckin'" for a long time.
But then some other country would buy their oil from the Middle East, right? Well, if this technology existed at marketable prices in tUSA, you can bet it would be being used in Europe. The only major oil net-consumer left? China. I don't have any idea what position they'd be in, but I suspect if tUSA and Europe wanted to help China become more energy independant, China would be happy to go along for the ride... all the while, the price of Middle Eastern oil would fall.
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If your claims are correct, it sounds like one solution would be to dramatically reduce the debt that Americans accumulate in college. How do we do this? Well, we'd have to raise taxes on the nation as a whole, and redirect that wealth toward universities so that they could educate and perform research without charging (as much for) admission. We do some of it now, at both federal and state level. We could certainly do more.
End result: American degree holders graduate with much less debt, which seems like it would be good for everyone except MBNA.
If you live in a $100,000 mortgaged home, you only need $60,000 in equity to have $60,000 in assets (assuming all other finances net to $0). Why? Well, the home is worth $100,000. If the bank foreclosed tomorrow, they'd sell the home for its $100,000 value, take the $40,000 you still owe them, and be obligated to give you the rest... $60,000.
Where'd you go wrong? You forgot to consider that a home isn't like a car -- it holds its value. This means that every dollar you pay toward equity in your home is a dollar gained in the assets column.
Put another way. When you buy a home, you own the whole thing. Your name is on the deed. All $100,000 is assets, and it all belongs to you. You also carry a loan on the side. If you still owe $40,000 on your loan, you've got $100,000 - $40,000 = $60,000 in assets.
Does this statement hold true if a single company manufactures a large percentage of voting machines?
:-)
There are few companies making a significant majority of voting machines in tUS, which is a problem. However, many of those machines do have paper trails, either via optical scans, paper-trailed electronic machines, or otherwise. So long as those paper trails can be audited, the chance of a single entity (in this case, the voting machine manufacturer) swinging an election is extremely low.
This is, of course, why paper trails are so vital.
Especially when the code they run is not open to public scrutiny?
Generally speaking, it's far more important that the voter can physically look at a paper trail to confirm that his vote is recorded in meatspace (and hence audit-able) than the code itself be open to public scrutiny. While I do believe that open sourced voting code is better, I believe its far more important that the machines, open or closed source, are fully audit-able by physical count (so longs as those audits are actually happening with sufficient frequency).
Does it hold true in Florida?
I would hope so, but Florida still seems to be having substantial voting problems.
Don't we have techniques for storing data without making certain connections?
I.E. store my vote, but never attach my vote to my name in a way that is visible to anyone, unless it is necessary due to allegation of fraud or mistake?
So is it attached, or isn't it? If it is, then I have to trust my government -- a government I may be trying to vote out of office -- to not look at how I voted and take reprisals. If it isn't attached, then how can it be audited? If it can't be audited, that throws out an advantage of the proposed system.
Federalism:
I'm arguing policy, not law. A constitutional amendment can quickly change the law, nevermind voluntary adoption by all 50 states.
You can't have the policy without the legal framework, and no constitutional amendment can be adopted quickly, by design. Furthermore, I'd argue that the diffuse, states-rights system we have now is superior to a federal voting system, precisely because it does help prevent the federal government from undermining the democratic process itself.
"What if my vote wasn't changed but I claim it was changed?"
Then you are a liar, and we will look up the records and see. Fraud = prison.
So if my vote gets changed, I blow the whistle, and I can't prove it... then *I* go to prison. This seems like a perfect system for a totalitarian government. You vote the way *we* said you did, and if you say otherwise, to the gulag!
"Voting on a network is putting all your eggs in one basket, and so is generally a terrible idea."
This is the only argument you make that I am at all persuaded by.
But I still think we can make it work. The likelihood of an UNDETECTED hack is low if you have webservers run by skilled people, right?
Low isn't good enough, if one hack can wreck massive havoc on an election. The distributed, non-networked system we have now would require a massive conspiracy to have significant odds of changing the outcome of a presidential election. State elections have similar protections because each town has a different counting system, unlinked. A networked system requires you to trust that the sysadmins are always superior to all outsiders, and are above being influenced. I'm not so sure I'm happy about that system, especially given that most people simply don't know enough about systems administration to have faith in the entire framework. Most people do know how to count, which means that they can audit a paper trail ballot even if they can't be sure the initial count is correct.
The voting period could span several days or weeks, instead of hours.
Oregon uses vote by mail, and other states do have absentee ballots, so this process is (somewhat) available, depending on state law. An interesting side effect is that there is no campaign climax if people are voting over a two week span. Essentially, some people are choosing to vote without all available information, because they're voting before the campaigns are over.
The federal government could fairly easily create a webserver with logins for 300 million people. Each person would be given a userid and password. This could be sent in the mail or given online after supplying social security number and birthday, etc.
Secret ballots allow two important things: safety from coercion, and a prevention of the selling of ones vote. You can't be coerced if your vote is a secret vote with no receipt, and you can't sell a vote if you can't prove you actually voted the way you sold. There are some cases where people don't vote in secret -- see the question above, as well as instances where people with a handicap (blindness, for example) are assisted with their vote at the polling place. But, the vast majority of votes are cast in secret. Voting online prevents these guarantees, as well as guaranteeing that the person who cast the vote is the same as the person with the right to vote. Admittedly, this guarantee isn't 100% for meatspace voting, but the threshold is generally pretty high, and the chances of getting caught -- with a police officer right outside the door -- are high enough to keep nearly all people from becoming impostors in meatspace.
Furthermore, the diffuse system we use to collect and tally votes helps to prevent a single "hack" swinging an entire election. A single person would have a hard time stuffing a ballot box to swing a major election with paper ballots; a networked election, however, doesn't have that safety.
Finally, voting is a states rights issue -- with the exception of some specific issues like race in Constitutional amendments. Therefore, the US gov't can't make rules or collect votes for the states without each state's consent.
Your last point, that
I just don't see security being a huge problem. Every single voter could self-monitor that their vote counted by logging back in to make sure that no hacker had changed their vote.
has tremendous problems. (1) What if my vote was changed and I claim it was changed? (2) What if my vote wasn't changed but I claim it was changed? (3) How does this guarantee against any other kind of tampering, incorrect addition and subtraction, etc.
Voting on a network is putting all your eggs in one basket, and so is generally a terrible idea.
have a spare one or two on land, ready to deploy? This is a good idea anyway, since one of the ducks could fail for any other reason, leaving people thirsty. If you lose a duck to a storm, you replace it with one stored on land.
It ain't perfect, but it ain't bad either. Combine that with reservoirs (either big lake, or lots of 1 gallon jugs of freshwater at homes), and it's much better than the status quo.
Consider the Senate Methodology
3. Prohibit Internet gambling. This isn't really a tech vote. This is a moral socio-economic vote. c|net wanted Senators to vote to allow (not to prohibit) Internet gambling... because it's on the Internet?!
5. Increasing paperwork for Internet Sellers. What's the amendment that c|net wanted a no vote against? "To require persons selling tangible personal property via the Internet to disclose to purchasers that they may be subject to State and local sales and use taxes on the purchases." That's it. Simply inform the buyer that he or she may have to pay taxes in other districts. You see, when you buy in meatspace, this part of the transaction is automagic. Not so in virtual space. Again, I don't see it as being a major technological issue vote.
11. Free Trade Bill. No, seriously. If you voted for free trade, you demonstrated your prowess as a technologist? Give me a freaking break.
12. Over-ruling state anti-SPAM with the CAN-SPAM. Now, you might not think that the legislation is tough enough, but I think it is fair to say that the pro-technology approach to Internet regulation is to not have 50 different sets of regulations within the United States.
16. For curbs on class-action lawsuits. Again, WTF? This isn't a technology issue per se. This is a judicial process issue. To put it in this list is asinine.
But, what wasn't on this list?
* Judicial approvals
* Regulatory approvals (think FCC, et al)
* Committee membership
* Interaction with lobbyists and money acceptance from PACs.
It's a dumb list, at least on the Senate side. I didn't even bother to check out the House side.
For one thing, voter rolls that the poll workers use (usually!) contain the DOB. So, it'd be hard to pull off the grandpa angle. For another thing, the town clerk should be coordinating activities with the state to purge dead people. Additionally, in (smaller) precincts, people know each other, and would notice.
Most importantly, however, is that for this form of voter fraud to have a significant chance of impacting the outcome of a race, it would have to be done multiple times. If done by the same person, he risks getting recognized. If done by many people, they risk their conspiracy being leaked, since it means far too many people keeping the same secret.
In MA, the fine is $10,000 and/or 5 years in prison... to cast a single fraudulent vote. Now, how many people do you think would risk that kind of punishment to cast a single fraudulent vote? Not bloody many.
Requiring voters to show ID is designed to filter out certain types of people. Who isn't likely to have a current, valid drivers license with their current address? City dwellers. The poor. Young people like college students who move frequently. All of these groups tend to vote Democratically (big D). So, is it any surprise that the Republicans are so afraid of the lone fraudster casting a vote under his grandfather's name, when it oh so conveniently also places a hurdle (both bureaucratic and financial) in front of so many voters who, statistically, will vote for Democrats? The GOP wants to discourage people like me -- a graduate student who lives in a city, doesn't own a valid drivers license, but has been voting (legally!) in my neighborhood for four years now -- from voting, since I likely won't vote for their candidates. Suburban and rural voters, where the GOP gets their votes from, almost always have valid drivers licenses. The requirement oh so conveniently isn't a burden on statistically likely GOP voters at all.
When you buy gas, you have to stop the car, get out and pump*, pay, and leave. You have to do that at any and all stations, and you rarely combine that with other shopping (maybe some convenince shopping, but not likely).
When you buy groceries, hygene products, or other consumables, you rarely shop for the single item. You don't drive to the red pepper store, then the shampoo store, then the Tylenol store. I think this is another reason why people price shop for gas, but aren't as sensitive to the price of red peppers. They're not going to drive to Save-a-lot to get out of their cars, walk to the produce section, find the red peppers, check out, and get back in their car, since that's a whole lot of non-laziness. Since the process for shopping for gas can't be merged with other items, price is the only comparison. For other items, price and laziness factors are both relevant.
* Excepting NJ, where you aren't allowed to pump your own gas.
Nothing has been made because Aunty Tilly got a $20,000 bypass instead of a $5 bottle of asprin.
If a bottle of asprin results in her passing away but the bypass gives her 20 years more life, then (adjusting for inflation, etc) she merely has to generate $1,000 more wealth each year than she consumes for the operation to be "worth it". And, consider this: she has some dollar value of training and experience, valuable both during her hours working and her other hours contributing to the community. It could be that buying her a bypass would be like fixing the alternator in your car; sure it doesn't result in anything "new" but it is a small repair on a valuable item. You wouldn't throw away your car with a bad alternator; don't throw away (valuable) Aunty Tilly because she's got a bad valve.
Obviously, at some point people get old enough that society will never regain its financial investment in that elderly person (or lifetime-disabled person). S'OK. We're human beings; we take care of each other because we sympathize and empathize. It's part of the human condition, and it's a good thing.
According to this article dated May 31, this is already a work in progress. I'd bet its the same professor, although I was unable to confirm.
The idea is that you don't need all 50 states -- you need 270 electoral votes, the smallest number which guarantees a victory (of the 538 total votes cast). So, the compact doesn't go into effect until enough states sign such that 270 electoral votes are at stake.
According to the article I've linked, in addition to California the legislation is "in progress" in the New York Legislature, and its got some support in Illinois, Missouri and Colorado. That doesn't guarantee passage, of course.
Note also that this does not require a Constitutional Ammendment because each state is free to determine how to divvy up its electoral votes. There is no Federal requirements on how to allocate the electoral votes, just requirements on who can (and can't) vote. States have additional input, which is why prisoners, parolees, and those who have been completely released by the penal system may or may not be allowed to vote, depending on the state in which they live.
I'm sure there will be a large number of people listening to podcasts of their favorite politicians, but I am equally sure it will have no bearing on the outcome of the election.
Let's say I'm supportng Joe Smith in the 2008 election, and my friend hasn't made up his mind between Joe Smith and Sally Jones. I listen to Joe's podcast for a minute every day becasue I'm interested. Since it's so up to date, he uses it to explain/rebuff/discuss/declare current issuse, be they on policy, personal life and decisions, qualifications, whatever. Because I've listened to it, I'm up to speed, and can use that better (or at least more convincing) knowledge to more effectively persuade my friend that Joe Smith is the way to go.
You're right that only people who have already committed will tune in. But, they'll be more prepared to persuade their friends, since they'll have more up to date and relevant knowledge.
OPEC could destroy this country in one move and that has nothing to do with Oil companies gouging us.
Do you know how much oil we get from OPEC? If you said 24%, you'd be right. That also includes non-Middle Eastern countries in OPEC like Venezuela, who, spat with GWB not included, do not have the hate for tUSA that many Middle Easterners do.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) holds 60 days worth of oil. So, even if all of OPEC shut us off and nobody tried to cheat, we'd still have 240 days until we felt a pinch. Congress could extend that by just shy of another month by immediately dropping the highway speed limits back to 55.
All of that assumes that OPEC is just swallowing the oil, not selling it to anyone. That's not likely the case -- they'd sell it elsewhere. Now, instead of China buying oil from Russia, they'd buy it from the Saudis, and we'd get our oil from Russia. Even if they did just not sell the oil to anyone, tUSA's purchases wouldn't go down 24%, since the rest of the oil is being sold on an open market. tUSA's oil purchases would go down something less than 24%, as would China's, India's, most of Europe's, etc.
So, OPEC can play games to cause the market to defensively raise the price of a barrel. But, they can't stop tUSA from buying oil elsewhere, from other nations buying/selling/trading oil, from tUSA tapping its SOR, from tUSA eliminating its tax on Brazilian ethanol, from tUSA lowering speed limits to conserve fuel, etc.
And as for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), it'd be 10 years before that oil starts flowing, and it just isn't very much oil. Personally, I think its worth much more to this country if used as a long term SOR -- it's there, just in case technology and rollouts don't keep up with the decline of oil. Why blow through it now when we can consume someone else's oil and save ours for an emergency later?
If you can't take care of your kids, then you're unfit as a parent and CPS should step it. Case closed. It is NOT the responsibility of the country to raise anyone's children, except those children that don't have parents!
So it's not the government's responsibility to raise anyone's children, but a government agency should step in if you can't take care of your kids. Isn't that effectively what the government would be doing by changing myspace's age from 14 to 18? Taking responsibility for the kids who aren't being taken care of?
I'm not suggesting that this is a good idea. I just think your post was quite strange. It sure sounds like you're saying: People should take care of their kids, unless they don't, and then the government should! That's why the government shouldn't take steps to protect kids from predators if their parents aren't!
So they shouldn't, unless they should. Got it.
First of all, DoD spending is indeed massive within the United States. Second of all, neither Social Security nor Medicare revenue is eligible to be spent by Congress. It's not part of the general budget. This was done to keep Congress from raiding the social programs so that they could cut taxes on those who didn't need the social programs.
Some data:
Social security, medicare, and other retirements: 36% (and can't be touched by Congress in the budget)
National Defense and veterans affairs: 23%
Net interest on the Debt: 7%
Physical, human, and community development (nat'l parks, education, job training, NSF, NASA, etc): 10%
Social Programs: 21%
Law enforcement: 3%
So yeah, cutting back on the Iraq war (and the rest of the 31% == 23%/(100%-36%) of discretionary spending Congress spends on the military) would indeed leave quite a bit available for alternative energy research, spending on public and mass transit, pollution enforcement mechanisms, and other ways to reduce global warming.
We Americans (generally) don't think it's fair that Exxon/Mobil had record profits while we were paying more at the pump, and think the government should do something about it.
Except raise gas taxes.
We want the government to fight global warming, unless it might hurt job growth, or reduce our ability to drive an SUV, or mean the price of homes go up, or mean we have to take public transportation, or impose fines on individuals making behavioral choices that increase global warming.
About the only think politicians feel they can do is give tax rebates on CF bulbs and hybrid cars. That alone isn't going to get it done.
So yes, Americans want to stop global warming, but we don't want to take personal responsibility, and we don't want to feel like the government is restricting or freedom to be selfish dirty consuming pigs.
IMO, the real reason why Apple users love Apple is that their products just work (tm). The hardware and software work together -- there's no fussing with drivers, with inoperable configurations, with non-supported features. The user interface is consistent, and the physical products are seemingly sturdy and well thought out.
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, this is known as quality. Apple has it. Sony used to have it. Microsoft has never had it.
Interesting how they tie the giveaway to current Republicans and Democrats and yet who is mentioned supporting the giveaway in the article?
* Charles Grassley, Republican (IA)
* Rick Santorum, Republican (PA)
* Gordon Smith, Republican (OR)
* Orrin Hatch, Republican (UT)
Who is mentioned as being against the giveaway?
* Lloyd Doggett, Democrat (TX)
So maybe it's the so-called "liberal media" who is just raking the GOP over the coals. Or, maybe it's representative of trying to show the corrupt GOP Congress as being bipartisan in a weak attempt to appear "fair and balanced."
In this case, I suspect it's the latter. YRMV.
I'm not disagreeing with your sentiments, but Jews have no problem with Gentiles not keeping Kosher.
Your point about weaning tUSA off of oil is a good one, since very little electricity in tUSA is generated with oil.
But, replacing nuclear isn't possible. Nuclear energy provides the baseline for power generation, and the amount generated per unit time is almost never altered. So, you might reduce the consumption of coal, natural gas, or fuel oil, but not nuclear.
Maybe not... this fish might find a pH of 4.2 far too basic for it's tastes, and keel over as a result.
That'd be 1,210,000 of the 1kW units stacked on your DeLorean. Yeah, beowolf cluster and whatnot.
But I don't delude myself into thinking that this is "charity" because when I give money to these projects, I benefit in that the project that produces something that I use is going to be able to advance faster.
When you give to homeless shelters, you don't have to step over bums on the street. When you give to Katrina funds, you help rebuild a community so it doesn't use social services in your area. When you give to the ACLU or the EFF, you benefit from the maintaining of freedom for everyone.
We're all connected, and when you reduce the suffering -- or increase the joy -- anywhere in the world, it very well might somehow, somewhere, come back to help you personally.
That doesn't mean that a generous gift of money or time isn't charity. Likewise, giving to a software project that benefits all who choose to use it, without regard to ability to pay or how it is to be used, is charity because, generally speaking, you personally could receive those benefits the charity is offering without you personally paying.
Giving to an open source project is charitible.
Sorry, but you're really incorrect there on a lot of counts. First, shrinkage as a percent of sales due to theft has actually shrunk in the past few years, mostly due to enormous investments in loss prevention systems and paid restitution from the theives they've caught.
Um, no. The most general definition of shrink is:
1 - ($revenue_recieved / $full_revenue)
$revenue_received is easy. That's the money, less taxes, brought in for items sold.
$full_revenue is trickier. To make easier, assume a store never puts anything on sale or raises prices in between two inventory assessments. $full_revenue is the amount of revenue the store would receive if it sold every single item it paid for at the retail price. The losses are from theft, right? Nope. Shrink includes theft, but also includes:
* item breaks, employee doesn't add item to "broken list" to remove it from denominator
* store pays for pallet containing 168 items, but only 166 ever arrived at the store. Those two missing weren't stolen -- it was a paperwork or inspection error.
* cashier errs in ringing up items, scanning 9 instead of all 10 items in the basket.
* employee uses item off of shelf (paper towels, screwdriver, whatever) and doesn't add item to the "store use list" to remove it from denominator.
* item is shipped with wrong UPC, resulting in shrink in one item and swell (negative shrink) in a different item, which either results in a net shrink or net swell. Usually shrink, since customers are more likely to speak up when asked to pay more than what they expected.
* mismeasurement. This happens in fabric stores, hardware stores, and other places where somebody gets a commodity sold by the unit measure. In almost all cases, the store will see some shrink because they'll never short a customer but might give customer a smidge too much.
Allowing prices to change in the scenario can make things more complex, but doesn't add much to shrink generally. Shrink comes from much more than theft. Most of it comes from bad auditing practices in recieving, returns, special sales, inventory management, and cashier inspections.
I clicked on the parent's link, and found this chart:
y sis_publications/oil_market_basics/Dem_image_US_co ns_sector.htm
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/anal
So while 45% may be gasoline, 65% is transportation. If that use goes to 0% due to biofuels, electric cars/trains/busses running on stored wind/solar/bio power, etc then we're only consuming 1/3rd of the oil we're consuming now. Since only about 20% of our oil comes from the Middle East (about 25% from OPEC, but that includes Venezuela, etc) we'd be able to cut out the Middle East entirely. Other domestic tricks (like using F-T to convert coal to liquid fuel) could extend tUSA's production, and Canada's tar sands could keep North America "truckin'" for a long time.
But then some other country would buy their oil from the Middle East, right? Well, if this technology existed at marketable prices in tUSA, you can bet it would be being used in Europe. The only major oil net-consumer left? China. I don't have any idea what position they'd be in, but I suspect if tUSA and Europe wanted to help China become more energy independant, China would be happy to go along for the ride... all the while, the price of Middle Eastern oil would fall.