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The First E-President
Posted by
Soulskill
on Tue Oct 28, 2008 09:01 PM
from the probably-not-ted-stevens dept.
from the probably-not-ted-stevens dept.
Szentigrade writes "Popular Science is running a letter by Daniel Engber of the online Slate Magazine in which he offers the US Presidential nominees advice on using the full potential of the Internet upon their election into office. Some examples discussed in the letter include: a project already being developed that speeds up the patent approval process, a UK site that aims to improve government-citizen interactions, and perhaps most importantly, a call for government information to be 'presented in a standardized and widely used data format, like XML, so that anyone — in or out of government — could use and reconfigure it however they pleased.' Will 2009 be the first year of the E-President?"
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Not if McCain wins! (Score:4, Funny)
Not if McCain wins! (Score:4, Insightful)
The last thing that the neo-cons want is for more government-citizen interaction and less secrecy in their more 'sensitive' actions. The less that the citizens know, the better! All this government-citizen interaction just gets in the way of what they believe a government is supposed to do: give away hundreds of billions of dollars to sleazy corrupt hedge-fund managers and mercenary corporations, and to then just disappear when it's completely broke (along with everyone's pensions and 401-K plans).
Would anyone want to be entrusted to have to try and explain anything technical to Sarah Palin? The first DAZ-MO president (dumb-as-shit mommy)! God, I've got hundreds of them trying to drive their space shuttles (huge SUVs) around town, occasionally flipping them over and crashing into poles because they haven't quite mastered the art of feeding the kids, dialing the phone, changing the DVD, and driving a huge truck-sized vehicle in dense highway traffic.
And a Palin presidency? Just tell her that "this is what America wants and needs", make a huge payoff to the people who are really deciding the policies, and walk off with the billion-dollar no-bid contracts. Two months of a Palin presidency and even the staunchest liberals will be begging the military to take over the country. Just don't shoot us, please. Shoot them, instead. You know who we mean.
Jeez.
Parent
Is XML a data format for documents? (Score:2)
Maybe you mean OOXML, that's definitely for documents.
Re:Is XML a data format for documents? (Score:5, Informative)
XML can be used for documents. just because it has broader uses doesn't mean it can't be used as a document format.
besides, OOXML, ODF, and XHTML are all based on XML--meaning they all validate as XML documents.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Now now, there's nothing wrong with using a gzipped xml for a document.
Now, there's lots of things wrong with using a vanilla xml fule...
"Will 2009 be the first year of the E-President?" (Score:5, Funny)
If the "E" stands for "ebony", then yeah, probably.
it's already happened (Score:5, Insightful)
in previous elections, grassroots fundraising was small time. dean certainly created buzz in 2004, and $, on the internet, but by far, obama has shown that internet fundraising is a tsunami. it dwarfs the old-boy network and other sources of funding
i think a lot of us lament the influence of money in american democracy. but i think this is the first election you would ever have republicans siding with that sentiment
Re: (Score:2)
I've seen claims that Obama's average donation size is $80 and that he has refused corporate donations. I've heard McCain refused corporate/lobbyist money too, but nothing about donation sizes and sources.
But what I would really like to see, from a place like factcheck.org, is a comprehensive breakdown of funding for both candidates by size, demographic, time frame and 'outside influences' like corps that lean on their employees to donate to a candidate or just a PAC - including the RNC and DNC and any oth
i should have known (Score:3, Insightful)
my comment would bring out the partisan hacks
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X marks the spot (Score:5, Funny)
The government has a problem giving information to the people, so it decides to use XML... now it has two problems.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
XML is like violence, if it doesn't work, use more.
It won't work (Score:5, Interesting)
The real "full potential of the internet" is that it allows the government to ignore people on a more massive scale than ever before.
Re:It won't work (Score:4, Interesting)
Not trying to be too harsh here, but you would rather do absolutely nothing and ignore the problem rather than try to fix it in any way you could?
Parent
Re:It won't work (Score:4, Insightful)
Refusing to legitimise the broken system by taking part *is* doing something. With enough weight behind it, non-participation can cause a lot of change.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Refusing to legitimise the broken system by taking part *is* doing something. With enough weight behind it, non-participation can cause a lot of change.
Yes, in the direction opposite of reform, unless you are willing to take up arms.
I'm reminded of the first primes in SG1. They participate in an inherently evil system, but as they train their successors they teach them how to introduce moderation to the goa'uld's despotic tendencies.
They could choose not to participate, but the snake head would just find someone else to do it, and that soldier probably won't have those values.
By choosing to participate and do what little they can, they save thousands of l
Re:It won't work (Score:4, Interesting)
Bullshit.
Sorry, but I don't buy that at all. Slow change from within is nonsense in the current situation, where embedded interests are perverting society slowly but enjoying the support of the citizenry.
Were it a totalitarian state with dictators, yes, people willing to work within the system might help.
Right now?
Dems or Repubs are going to keep on winning. The only protest possible is to stay home.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, the reason things are getting bad is because america is refusing to elect the alternating unified governments they did in the first half of the 20th century.
Back then, things got done, and got done better.
Republicans would get upwards of a decade, then democrats.
This allowed them to actually implement, in full, their policies. They and the public got to see how they played out and apply correction where necessary.
In a gridlock situation, or one in which unitary governments fluctuate every 2-6 year
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Yes, I'd rather not waste my time and effort on boot licking these management assholes to get things changed only to end up where I started, which is no where.
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Agreed. It's the same crap you get from your MP when you write to them. A form letter that misses the points you raise and tells you that they know best so shut the hell up.
The website just allows them to do it to everyone at once. It's a total scam.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, not taking part weakens the system to the point that change must happen because the government no longer have the mandate of the people.
It weakens the government and makes some sort of societal reset more likely and widely supported.
Not taking part is a legitimate political action, whereas voting not only gives your mandate to one or other set of sheisters, but continues to prop up and legitimise a broken system.
Internet Secretary (Score:5, Funny)
300 million critics (Score:2)
could use maybe a pdf, but I'm thinking xml makes tracking data changes too difficult. So:
1) put the US budget proposals, including all the fat and pork online for one week before it gets a vote or passage
2) put all expenditures (except the dark stuff) online in lists that can be viewed; maybe streamed.
3) mandate all legislation gets to be downloaded for one week before it can be voted on, for public scrutiny
4) mandate all trade agreements, and all bi-lateral information is published for a week prior to sig
Hey what now? E-President getting advice (Score:2)
from the Internet?
Do we really want Anonymous Internet Trolls giving the next US President advice? That will lead to things like making "Chocolate Rain" as the new National Anthem and making it so that Plan9 is the official and only operating system to be used for the government and instead of being called The Commander In Chief the President will be called The National Idiot in Command.
Good grief! They might even try to change the US Flag to a Goatse or Tubgirl motif. :)
Anyway, yes we do need a standard fo
Re: (Score:2)
No, they'd never go that far. They might, however, change our symbol from the American Eagle to a pony. OMG! PONIES!!1! LOTS AND LOTS OF PINK PONIES111!!!!!11!!!!!lll
Will 2009 be the first year of the E-President? (Score:2, Funny)
No.
Dynamic congressional voting (Score:2)
I'd love to see a congressional voting site where you can vote on X numbers of issues that come before the congress, before they come before the congress. Congressmen could then use or ignore that information when making decisions.
Of course, that congressional divergence would be online for all to see. You could even see the %divergence between various senators and your personal votepoints on the issues. Does Feinstein really agree with your POV? Does Liberman? Now you can know.
Power broker? (Score:2)
You know, I'd like to be a power broker too, but I'm just as irrelevant as this douche.
Online Government Open Accountability Ledger (Score:2)
This is what I have proposed in OnlineGOAL [google.com] - the Online Government Open Accountability Ledger.
Opening up the (massive) pocketbook ledger of any level of government is going to significantly improve accountability for where the taxpayer's money flows (both in and out).
Contact your local representative and find out when they're going to support this proposal (for whatever country or level of government they are in).
That UK site... (Score:4, Informative)
a UK site that aims to improve government-citizen interactions,
Hahahaha. Have you ever read any of the replies to the petitions on the no.10 e-petitions site? I don't know of a single one that actually worked. Usually it's either "we're already doing this, honest" or "you don't understand the benefits of what you're signing against!"
It really serves no other purpose other than to make people think they're doing something when really they're not.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Many government agencies have to release public information whenever asked, including the school I used to work for. However, you have to figure out who to ask, and make an appointment, then fill out forms, then sometimes pay a small copying fee, then they give you copies of their budgets. Why the hell aren't all government agencies (especially the small, local ones!) putting this info on the web? I brought this up to the dean of finance and she damn near had a stroke! I would love, as a taxpayer, to be
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I imagine the issue is simply money. It would cost a lot of programming time to put something good together, especially spread across all of the local departments.
The only way to convince them to do it (without major public demand) would be to show it would somehow save them money in the long run. Maybe automating output in standard formats would allow other common systems to aggregate reports and generate graphs, saving manual labor, for example.
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The information is already there in electronic form. I se
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Re:can they use? (Score:4, Insightful)
Right answer, wrong explanation. if they made it obvious and easily accesible to figure out where all of the money went, it would make it that much harder for any of it to stick to their hands. You really think people are willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars just to get a 6-figure salary, a comped mansion and an impressive title for a couple of years? You think that such people could actually manage to win?
Parent
Re:can they use? (Score:4, Insightful)
perhaps one of the greatest benefits of IT is the possibility of establishing a direct democracy on a national scale through online referendums.
gone are the days when logistical obstacles prevented the public from directly participating in the legislative process. there's really no excuse to not involve the public in public policy decisions and create a participatory democracy at the federal level.
a government of the people, by the people, for the people, is not just a catchy phrase from the Gettysburg Address. if we want to continue to call ourselves a democracy, then we need to actually employ a democratic system of government that carries out the will of the people.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"there's really no excuse to not involve the public in public policy decisions and create a participatory democracy at the federal level."
Are you insane?
Let's not kill Socrates again. (Score:4, Informative)
a government of the people, by the people, for the people, is not just a catchy phrase from the Gettysburg Address. if we want to continue to call ourselves a democracy, then we need to actually employ a democratic system of government that carries out the will of the people.
"Direct democracy," no matter how well intentioned, is a recipe for dystopia. Every democracy worth living in has mechanisms set up to protect individuals from "the will of the people."
We don't "need" to make radical changes, at all. Sorry to get all conservative on you, but given such a high level of complexity, a established system, incorporating countless bug-fixes, is preferable to a complete re-write. A similar principle applies to software developement.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The courts will still be there to overrule unconstitutional legislation and protect minorities from
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While it may be common sense that such a system will not work - it has worked in a number of places.
You did notice the subject of the post you are responding to? ;)
Wikipedia was slated by many to fail, and it did not.
Wikipedia allows people who know something about something to write what they know, to have it corrected by other someones and ultimately to be subject intervention from on high. Direct democracy would involve getting people who know nothing about anything to decide everything. OK, that's
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In Bush's case, the mechanism is the Secret Service, and "the will of the people" is to tar and feather him. nd that's just for starters.
Your statement is inaccurate and should be rephrased as "Every democracy currentlyworth living in" ... we now have the means to devise a future democraciy that would have been unimaginable in times past.
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In Bush's case, the mechanism is the Secret Service, and "the will of the people" is to tar and feather him. nd that's just for starters.
When simply voting the incumbent party out of office (or convincing oneself that the party, with its new candidate, has seriously reformed itself) would be a much more civilised response. The "tar and feather" bit is exactly what I'm afraid of, thanks.
Your statement is inaccurate and should be rephrased as "Every democracy currentlyworth living in" ... we now have the
Re:can they use? (Score:5, Insightful)
In many ways, it's You Tube that's killed the Republican coalition between fiscal conservatives (libertarians), social conservatives, and the "National Greatness" conservatives (the neo-cons, more or less.)
Obama's campaign helped the Republicans self-destruct by aggressively running a 50-state campaign, not a 50% +1 campaign. This meant that the RNC had to run ads to shore up its base in formerly secure red states. The problem is, the message that rallies the base - using "liberal" as a smear word, attacking patriotism, etc - alienates the middle. An ad attacking the Democrats in North Carolina will be seen by voters in New Hampshire and Minnesota, and they will find it repellent. Meanwhile, Obama does not have to appeal to the far left to mobilize his base, and his base is already extremely well mobilized. He is more or less in a situation where he never has to apologize or be sheepish about any ad with "I'm Barack Obama, and I approve this message" on it, while a lot of the John McCain ads are frankly embarrassing.
The result is Republican meltdown. Fiscal conservatives already suspect that it may be easier, as in the Clinton era, to get fiscally conservative policy out of a Dem administration than out of the Republicans. It's definitely easier to push fiscal conservatism in the Democratic party than it is to push social liberalism in the Republican one. Now, the tensions between the generally secular neo-cons and the religious social conservatives (many of whom, like Huckabee, are actually comfortable with a government that provides a lot of services) is being reflected in the cracks between McCain's camp and Palin's camp.
I think what YouTube has done is put an asterisk next to Tip O'Neill's old axiom that "all politics are local." That asterisk is "but all communications are global."
Parent
Re:can they use? (Score:4, Funny)
I think it is time that we ask both major Presidential candidates to submit code samples. Bonus points will be awarded if they submit the code in Perl, Assembly, or FORTRAN.
Lets be fair to both candidates. Switch settings for a bombe [wikipedia.org] should be acceptable.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it is time that we ask both major Presidential candidates to submit code samples. Bonus points will be awarded if they submit the code in Perl, Assembly, or FORTRAN.
I think blub [docforge.com] would be most appropriate.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you're voting for Obama, [youtube.com] not McCain? [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Bonus points will be awarded if they submit the code in Perl, Assembly, or FORTRAN.
Bonus points if the same source works in 3 or more languages, see http://www0.us.ioccc.org/1986/applin.c [ioccc.org]
Re:Album title: Oval Office Party - Chiefs and Squ (Score:2)
Nah if they appealed Bill Clinton's impeachment they'll appeal Barack Obama's impeachment as well for the same reasons.
Look at all of the stuff George W. Bush is accused of doing, and they still can't impeach him. That is because they don't have enough evidence to start an impeachment trial, but what they do have is accusations, rumors, gossip, and opinions, but no "hard evidence" beyond a reasonable doubt. There wouldn't be enough "hard evidence" for Obama either even if he did make the album public becaus
Re: (Score:2)
What makes you think an impeachment can be appealed? Who would hear it? The Supreme Court? They're the judges in the impeachment, they can't also hear an appeal, and there's nobody else left. If the President is successfully impeached, he's out, no ifs, ands or buts. Judging from what you've written, you think that Clinton's impeachment hearings before Congress were an appeal. They
Re: (Score:2)