] Florida's election supervisors, impressed by the success
] of early voting, proposed dramatic reforms Tuesday that
] would eliminate Election Day, replace it with an 11-day
] election season and do away with precincts.
]
]
] The association of the state's 67 chief elections
] officials voted in concept at its annual winter meeting
] in Orlando to informally present the idea to the
] Legislature and to start rallying support for what its
] members concede would be a sea change in how Floridians
] vote.
]
]
] ''I think the voters spoke loud and clear in the general
] election of 2004 that they want other options than to be
] limited to 12 hours on a Tuesday to vote," said Bill
] Cowles, Orange County supervisor of elections and
] president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors
] of Elections. "We should seize upon the opportunity in
] 2005 to make the changes so we can try it in 2006."

[ Mixed feelings on this. Extending the timeframe would seem likely to increase turnout, as it reduces the pressure on one day, diminishes lines, and so on. On the other hand, there would probably increased difficulty of getting certain groups (the poor and the elderly in particular) to polling places that would now be fewer and farther between, and also the centralization of ballots might promote a more dangerous environment for fraud.

I think these kinds of proposals deserve a lot of attention and discussion, because I think some changes are definitely needed.

I've always thought it made the most sense to simply make election day a national holiday. Voting is so undeniably critical to our way of life, it shouldn't have to be crammed in during lunch time. Volunteers would be far more acessible if they don't have to burn one of their precious 10 vacation days for the year. The fact that we already have 2 federal holidays in november is certainly a hurdle...

Ok, let the discussion begin... -k]

Election Reform in FL

] NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The CBS and NBC Networks have
] refused to run an ad by a liberal church promoting the
] acceptance of people regardless of sexual orientation
] because the networks believe the ad is advocacy
] advertising.
]
] The 30-second spot, run by the United Church of Christ,
] features two muscle-bound bouncers standing outside a
] church, selecting people who could attend service and
] those who could not. Among those kept out are two males
] who appear to be a couple. Written text then appears
] saying, in part, "Jesus didn't turn people away, neither
] do we."
]
] "It's ironic that after a political season awash in
] commercials based on fear and deception by both parties
] seen on all major networks, an ad with a message of
] welcome and inclusion would be deemed too controversial,"
] said Rev. John Thomas in the statement.

Rock that statement, Reverend!

Jesus accepting gays too hot for NBC, CBS - Dec. 1, 2004

A little old (9/2004) but none the less startling news for fans!

Early 1990's Hip-Hop collective Digable Planets have announced
that they have reunited and are working on a new album.

Digable Planets Reunite

] The United Church of Christ (UCC) plans to run a major ad
] campaign in December to raise public awareness of the
] denomination. One of the ads is meant,
] in the words of a UCC press release, to convey the
] message "that -- like Jesus -- the United Church of
] Christ seeks to welcome all people, regardless of
] ability, age, race, economic circumstance or sexual
] orientation."
]
] You can see the ad here -- it features two burly bouncers
] turning various people away from a church service. And if
] you watch it you'll see that the broad message of
] inclusion over intolerance places a prominent emphasis on
] acceptance of homosexuals in the life of the church.
]
] Yet, according to a press release out this evening from
] the UCC, both CBS and NBC have refused to air the ad
] because the subject matter is "too controversial."

[ The UCC press release quotes CBS as saying, as far as I can tell, "because there's a passing reference to homosexuality, and the administration is considering an amendment banning gay marriage, we won't air the ad."

Why don't they just come out and say what they mean... "This commercial will enrage a large subset of our viewership, which would harm ratings and damage the company. In order to fulfill our obligations to stockholders, we cannot accept the risk inherent in running this advertisement."

I still think it's awful, but at least I could respect an honest statement.

I suppose CBS news will be happy to run a story on "the developing UCC controversy" sometime down the road. -k]

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: November 28, 2004 - December 04, 2004 Archives

] Psychological stress can take off several years from your
] life as it makes your cells age faster.

] It was found that Telomeres and telomerase, parts of the
] chromosomes responsible for aging, are affected by
] psychological stress which also takes it's toll on the
] molecules believed to play a key role in cellular aging
] and, possibly, disease development.

[ Not to mention, it'll suck more while you're living it. I think this past summer took about 6 months off my life, in addition to the 3 months that were ruined by the bs from my job. -k]

Stress can make your life 10 years shorter

] Academics such as the next secretary of state still
] decorate Washington, but academia is less listened to
] than it was. It has marginalized itself, partly by
] political shrillness and silliness that have something to
] do with the parochialism produced by what George Orwell
] called "smelly little orthodoxies."

[ There's some truth in this article, to be sure. Liberals do suffer from a certain amount of that "consensus effect", which explains, I think, why we say things like "I just don't understand the way people think in rural america."

That being said, I have trouble listening George Will talk about all the institutional barriers to conservative thought in academia, and crying about how marginalized academics have become without once mentioning the crusade of anti-intellecualism propagated by the far right for the past 30 years. You want an orthodoxy to parade around, consider looking to your right, where you'll find the most tightly knit and well organized message machine in modern history.* Message discipline is definitionally orthodox, a subscription to talking about issues only in one way. I'm not saying liberals don't fall into echo chamber mode somewhat, but for fucks sake, "intellectual" didn't become a dirty word by itself.

It must have been hell for Mr. Will, all those years at Trinity College, Oxford and Princeon, surrounded by liberals.

-k

* Will even telegraphs a bit of that message consistency in this article : I see the word "shrill" more often in conservatives' references to liberals than vice versa. It's a keyword perfectly suited to simultaneously discredit the oppositions viewpoint as unreasoning and childish and paint them an irritation, making it difficult to work.]

Academia, Stuck To the Left

flynn23 wrote:
] Firstly, manufacturing hydrogen cleanly and at low cost is
] ridiculous. Today's technology is already cleaner and at lower
] cost than the current fossil fuel system. I'm producing it
] today and my total investment (minus time) is about $200.
] There's no way in hell that I could've produced and refined
] fossil fuels on my own for an equivalent price. The only thing
] that has not been attempted is to manufacture hydrogen at
] scale. So until someone is willing to pony up the investment
] to do that, shut the hell up, because the numbers prove that
] it is superior in comparison to current and most importantly
] previous fossil fuel acquisition systems.

[ You have a hydrogen production apparatus? How's yours work?

I'm interested in your results... what kind of efficiency are you finding?

As for the article, it wimps out at the end, mostly. I think it's obvious that a hydrogen economy is pointless, at best, until we're getting our hydrogen from a root fuel which is not a hydrocarbon. Which means nuclear, really. Given the resistance people have to the word nuclear, I'm concerned.

I wonder how those PBR's are coming along... -k]

RE: Hydrogen Production Method Could Bolster Fuel Supplies

] "There is something wrong with the principle of
] neutrality," said Scalia, considered among the court's
] staunchest conservatives. Neutrality as envisioned by the
] founding fathers, Scalia said, "is not neutrality between
] religiousness and nonreligiousness; it is between
] denominations of religion."

Our founding fathers and other great national leaders were brilliant men who developed powerful ideas about how to build a successful society. However, you have to put them in a context. Abraham Lincoln, for example, would be viewed as a contemptible bigot were he alive today, but that does not mean that we should not honor him and the value of his ideas. What Scalia misses is that the society which existed in 1776 is not the same society which exists today, and in fact it was a great deal less mature.

The valuable idea here is that the government should not get involved in the task of dictating religious beliefs or doctrine. However, in the context of the late 1700's all of the white people in America practiced some form of Christianity or Judaism. Other religions were certainly practiced by people who weren't white, but this mattered little in an institutionally racist society. So, in that context, references to God were not understood to fall into the scope of dictating religious doctrine. People were simply not aware of an example of a way of thinking which did not include God.

Today we are much more mature. There are a far wider array of religions acknowledged and practiced in our society, including a growing minority of the population that does not practice any religion at all. In that context the fundamental philosophy of the founders must be applied differently then it would have been applied 200+ years ago. That means building a society which respects religious beliefs but doesn't require them.

Of course, the cynical thought here is that Scalia is far too intelligent to have missed this distinction, or to be unaware of the context in which he lives. Its clear in the quotes taken in this article that he promotes a religious government, and opposes secularism. In doing so, he in fact advocates the establishment of religion, and stands opposed to the fundamental constitutional law that he is tasked with defending.

There is another argument in there, which Scalia does not make, but which must be asked...

Insofaras we can see that philosophically the values inherent in our system of government require protecting rights that the populace, on the whole, doesn't respect, how should we respond? One might argue that the democratic government ought to drive these changes, as if the court out steps the democracy too far its legitimacy is threatened. On the other hand, we don't need to defend popular rights. The whole purpose of limited government is to protect unpopular minorities from the tyranny of the majority. The Constitution, and the court, mean nothing, if we are simply operating on majority rule. How do you strike that balance?

To be honest, the impeachment mechanism provides a safety value through which a court that went too far could be reigned in by the democracy without violence and without threatening the basic institution.

So my answer is, Insofaras we can see that philosophically the values inherent in our system of government require protecting rights that the populace, on the whole, doesn't respect, we should respond by protecting those rights unless we would be impeached for doing so.

Scalia opposed to separation of church and state

* People seem to grasp onto oversimplified solutions.

* I have always felt that these problems were systemic and structural rather then limited and specific

* Part of the problem is that we see teenage suicides and mass murders as the problem, rather then as symptoms of larger problems.

[ I will read the article later but wanted to highlight these specific points made by Decius beforehand, because I found them partiularly critical.

That last is one of the most important, I think. We do the same thing in medecine. Treatment vs. prevention. Arguably we do the same thing in criminal justice, to a large extent... trying to rehabilitate criminals rather than eliminate societal ills.

Setting our sights on the video games, access to assault rifles, the rejection of church/religious values is like a doctor claiming the root cause of someone's death was going out in the cold without a jacket. It may have contributed, or worsened the outcome, but the disease is certainly deeper than that. Likewise, arguing that the kid who snaps is "evil" or "crazy" is no better than blaming illness on spirits or god's wrath.

Americans, in general, need to shift their focus from treatment to prevention. Dialogue will be mostly pointless until that happens, i think. -k]

Why Nerds are Unpopular (Long, and worth it.)

Here is an idea. Everyone grab a hold of all the basic religious scripture and celebrated philosophical writings that they can, spend some time studying them, cast aside all cultural predispositions, and use the light of reason to cast a critical gaze upon the collected wisdom of the ages in an honest search for a path towards an ethically sound and spiritually fulfilled life.

Guess what, that is called 'liberalism'. That is what the definition of a religious liberal is. Apply the same line of thought to politics, and you have what is called a political liberal.

Unfortunately, we in the modern world have gotten into a fairly interesting political debate after the early success of free market capitalism transformed into industrialized oppression of a newly formed 'working class' at the turn of the last century. The reaction to this rather nebulous and yet obvious system of serfdom and resultant economic theory, communism, would unfortunately morph into a horrific system of bureaucratic oppression. Even though both of these inherently flawed ideas are now over a century old, it is still the fact that communism is newer than capitalism, and so it is widely viewed that the 'conservative' is one who supports the free market, and the 'liberal' is one that supports government intervention in an economic market. The answer to the question of government intervention in economics seems to involve a concept that has somehow become a four letter word in recent debate, that is 'nuance'. In reality, both major political parties in the United States support a wide variety of programs of government intervention ranging from corporate welfare and farm subsidies to social security and nationalized health insurance plans.

The honest truth of the matter is that if you subject our current political and social institutions to rational scrutiny and speak your mind concerning the fruits of your research independent without fear of the majority viewpoint then you are a liberal. Even if you don't have any sushi on the dinner table and hate government economic intervention you are a liberal. Thought you were a conservative? Well too bad.

I have a feeling that right now quite a few small-government liberals have been hoodwinked by political conservatives. They have been told that liberalism is socialism, when in fact it is an appeal to reason over what one is told. The political concept of 'conservatism' has been all dressed up with a bizarre infusion of the financial concept of 'fiscal conservatism', which ought to be relabeled 'fiscal sanity'. Holding onto ones money bears little resemblance to holding onto antiquated ideals and corrupt institutions.

Quite a few hawkish liberals have been hoodwinked by social conservatives. After the success of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. it has been easy to play semantic games and try to say that liberalism means nonviolence. Well, I will note that Bertrand Russell, one of the fathers of mod... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

On Liberalism