Obama Launches Change.gov 1486
mallumax writes "Obama has launched Change.gov. According to the site 'Change.gov provides resources to better understand the transition process and the decisions being made as part of it. It also offers an opportunity to be heard about the challenges our country faces and your ideas for tackling them. The Obama Administration will reflect an essential lesson from the success of the Obama campaign: that people united around a common purpose can achieve great things.' The site is extensive and contains Obama's agenda for economy and education among many others. They first define the problem and then lay out the plan. Everything is in simple English without a trace of Washington-speak. The site also has details about the transition. According to many sources, Obama's transition efforts started months ago. The copyright for the content is held by 'Obama-Biden Transition Project, a 501c(4) organization'."
dang (Score:1, Interesting)
no ipv6 connection=bullshit
Why only one "blog"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Shouldn't there be blogs and forums so users can actually communicate with each other and make their opinions known to each other? That would be a powerful force, as they could band together to keep Obama in line if he strays too far from his promises. The way it is set up currently, it simply is a bullhorn for Obama, while his users can "share their vision" with a recycle bin. I don't see much (yet) to get excited about. It reminds me of CNN's "talkback", which is heavily censored and filtered.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:5, Interesting)
We have mandatory community service in Ontario, to complete their highschool education, I for one was glad I was far out of reach of such policies. I'm not a fan of forcing people to go out and do things such as 'voluntary-mandatory community service'. With any luck, if he does decide to pull this bullshit through the air, people will run across fellows who remember this and happily do one thing(should it be a requirement for say graduation/etc), pay them for it; like many do here now.
Community service should remain that, a choice. Do it, great, nice job on you. Don't do it...well, it doesn't look as good and you might get passed over, but it doesn't matter in the end. It's the choices that make you what you are, not what the government is telling you what you should do.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:4, Interesting)
this country (Score:5, Interesting)
as well as many others, have fought important wars with drafted soldiers
"Mandatory community service? Great, let's send a bunch of unmotivated kids to do stupid work. Hell, that kind of shit would have been a nightmare for me at that age when I had massive social anxiety and was extremely uncomfortable in such situations."
so you have a problem with the fighting forces of world war i and world war ii? where we gave 18 year olds guns and made them serve on the front lines of mayhem and death? i'm just saying, you'd better have a problem with the idea of a military draft, for the sake of intellectual honesty
although, i've heard stories of many countries with mandatory military service as nothing more than a chance to learn smoking and peel potatoes. so mandatory civil service might prove stupid... or really good, can't tell
but i do like the idea of paying off part of your student loans this way. because it serves as a carrot and a stick. if your civil service effort is poor, you would be punished by having to still pay your loans in full, for example. this at least provides motivation
In other news... (Score:5, Interesting)
Joe the Plumber has launched:
http://www.secureourdream.com/ [secureourdream.com]
Yes, sadly now that his dreams of owning a plumbing business have crashed to the ground, he decided to become a political watchdog and "take it to the streets."
Who knows what we'll be saying about him 4 years from now? A 1 year "Freedom membership" costs a mear $14.95 .
Freedom, who among us is against that?
Re:Stresstest (Score:3, Interesting)
Well I skimmed the tech section, nothing on copyright infringement. If Biden would admit he is the RIAA lackey, then they would get a true stress test.
Re:Dear Sir (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly which part of the constitution are we deliberately misinterpreting to give the federal government the authority to do this?
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:5, Interesting)
Did You Read It?
Expand Service-Learning in Our Nation's Schools: Obama and Biden will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year.
seems reasonable to me, i remeber doing a lot more than that in school, I imagine most schools aready do that... think canning drives, fund raisers etc...
Require 100 Hours of Service in College: Obama and Biden will establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year.
again seems reasonable to me. You want money, do some work for it. Where else you gonna make $40 bucks an hour in college?
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:5, Interesting)
For instance, instead of cramming all the troublemakers into the cafeteria for Saturday school, they could me made to do various community service. The community would benefit and it would be more fun for the troublemaker than the alternative. Many would rather paint over graffitti or pick up trash as long as they could socialize with their fellows.
The GP laments about how that would've been torturous to his introverted psyche, but what he dosen't realize is that it may have been very beneficial to interact with others who have a common gripe(having to serve out their "sentence") as a team-building exercise.
Additionally, there are many high school organizations which do community service and offer some kind of carrot(say, a trip to a theme park), as a reward. Working with the mentally challenged is a very eye-opening experience...those little funny-looking bastards are much smarter than we think they are.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:2, Interesting)
There, fixed that for you. Also:
These reasons don't exist anymore. In case you hadn't noticed, the remaining European monarchies are wholly without power and are really nothing more than show pieces. It is the 21st century, not the 18th. Please make a note of it.
America, land of the ....? (Score:5, Interesting)
land of the free. where freemen understand that freedom is protected by banding together, and fighting off threats to freedom. threats that exist abroad, in battle with evil ideologies that are antagonistic to freedom, or domestically, in poor areas of the country where freedom is threatened by economic misery
you are not free if you are poor. the battle for maintaining freedom is a domestic and a foreign battle. if you think it is only a foreign battle, you do not truly understand the nature of freedom
Re:this country (Score:2, Interesting)
In those other countries, the rich pay their share. All "community service" represents to me is yet another tax on the poor. If we are going to have mandatory service, then we should bring back the 94% tax bracket over $200,000 that Harry Truman had, or at least the 70% tax bracket that Nixon and Carter had. Right now, the rich pay only 35%, and many get out of paying even that. This just stinks, it's not as if working people don't already put in enough hours.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:5, Interesting)
Still not quite getting it. Community service is supposed to be a choice, that's it. Good moral standing character, doing good for the community, looks good on applications, looks good on whatever else. Telling everyone to do it, not only removes that, but it also add in resentment for various things.
Ontario requires 40, I had to see if I could find the original pamphlet "Students are to volunteer for compulsory community service." I always loved that sentence. So yes, bullshit. Don't try to sugar coat, forced labor to me.
I should say I graduated probably 7 odd years after they brought it in or more.
Re:Stresstest (Score:5, Interesting)
"Begin Intellectual Property Reform: rather than just the usual extension of copyright terms, Obama's staff recognizes the "need to update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated." That includes "opening up the patent process to citizen review [to] reduce the uncertainty and wasteful litigation that is currently a significant drag on innovation."
"Obama's running mate has been criticized for supporting current policy on copyright, but an exposure of government policy to sources of light outside of the lobbyists currently illuminating the dark caves of Washington is likely to change things dramatically."
What an Obama Presidency Means for Technology [roughlydrafted.com]
Get over it. (Score:3, Interesting)
It is not "slavery" to be forced to participate, it is not unjust, it is not unconstitutional. You have a responsibility to participate in your country.
Yes, true, you could "choose" to live off the fat of the land and not participate in the past... but that didn't excuse your behavior.
This country only exists in the minds of the people, because they participate. If those who participate decide that everyone needs to get off their butts and do SOMETHING, then you either go with it, or you actually do something about it. Don't agree? Go read Plato, Socrates' reason for committing suicide. Read the federalist papers. Read something pertaining to civil responsibility.
My children participate in scouts and 4H, both of which require community service. As you progress to Eagle scout, those requirements grow. I am an assistant scoutmaster, as well as council member. My wife is into the women's organization in town. Easily, I would guess a large portion of americans could already justify more than 25-50 hours a year without changing anything.
Heck a 1 hour a week meeting would give you 50 hours.
Why stop there? (Score:2, Interesting)
i honestly believe that the web is the key to realizing a true participatory democracy on a federal level in a country as big as the U.S. ... at least then politicians and can't plead ignorance.
Why stop there? Why just the U.S.? Why just participate in what the politicians do? Why have any politicians at all?
If you are serious about wanting real participation in governance, and you would like to get in at the beginning, the Metagovernment project [metagovernment.org] needs coders for the Metascore prototype [metagovernment.org].
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:4, Interesting)
If a school system thinks some time spent on community service is an important part of educating students, they make it a graduation requirement.
Forced labor? You want to try coordinating high school students doing a few hours of work at a time and see if you can wind up getting more done than if you sent them home and did it yourself? I'm thinking the motivation isn't the chance to exploit the fabulous labor pool provided by a few hours from untrained 16 year olds.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why stop there? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:watched the news (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't vote this time (the first time in 20+ years) as I didn't like either the Facist (McCain) or the Socialist, and there were no other important elections locally. So who won is really no disappointment to me--at least, not more than I was expecting anyway. McCain would have engaged in blatant idiocy as well, it only would have been different idiocy.
One thing's for sure: there's not going to be the money for all the big, glamorous nanny-state programs that Obama has spoken so fondly of in the past. The markets are currently giving Bush Jr a supreme jackhammering, and they'll deal one to Obama's fairly-tale economics as well in due time. So when it comes to what Obama can really do, that leaves the free stuff (gun prohibition) and stuff that actually saves money.
The BIGGEST thing Obama could do to save money would be to bring troops back home, but it doesn't seem we'll be seeing that--as Obama looks to be a pawn of Israel just like Bush was, and many US presidents before them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/04/AR2008060403508.html [washingtonpost.com]
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When Obama promised "change", somehow I didn't think reversing his campaign promises was what they had in mind.
Oh well,,, how's that old saying go?
"People know what kind of government they want, and they deserve to get it good and hard"
~
Re:*sigh* (Score:3, Interesting)
I've seen you posting on Slashdot, and I usually respect what you write. However, I completely disagree with your conclusions here, and I urge you to think about this some more.
No gun ban has ever succeeded in keeping guns out of the hands of violent criminals. They want guns, so they get them.
Some people will tell you that we could keep guns out of the hands of bad guys if we had a consistent, national, Draconian ban. A War on Guns, if you will. Think for a moment about the War on Drugs. Have we been able to keep crack cocaine out of the hands of users? If not, is it because we don't have a nation-wide Draconian ban on crack cocaine? Now consider that the crack users need to buy more every week. They can get drugs every week, in the face of a nation-wide ban. A violent thug only needs to get a gun once, and then he will carry it for months. (Basically, until he throws it away because cops are after him or something... then he gets another one.)
And, consider how easy it is with a machine shop to make a functioning firearm. Even if all gun makers were driven out of business, and all firearms circulating in society were found and destroyed, and all gun smugglers were caught at the border... all of which I consider impossible, by the way... even then, the bad guys would start making their own guns.
So, it is an axiom with me that no amount of law can keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of the bad guys. What then?
Then, all you can do is disarm the law-abiding. Does that really help?
Now, you mentioned Europe. I urge you to read the book The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy [amazon.com]. I can't summarize a whole book in a few words, but the important takeaway is that violence is much more a cultural thing than a product of laws. England had a low violent crime rate. Then they banned guns. Then they had a low violent crime rate. People will tell you that England banned guns and has a lower crime rate than the USA; that's true, but can you really say it was the ban that caused the lower crime rate? (And in recent years, their violent crime rate has climbed...)
So, I don't believe that you can successfully disarm the bad guys. And I don't believe that you can lower the violent crime rate by passing gun control laws. And history and the law agree that the cops cannot protect everyone; all attempts to sue the police for failing to prevent any crime will fail, even if the police were horribly negligent. Given all this, I strongly oppose any and all efforts to ban firearms in civilian hands.
Also, bad neighborhoods in bad parts of town are where innocent people need firearms the most! I live in a boring, safe suburb, and I don't really need to own a gun. The truly poor people who live in horrible places are in much worse danger than I am. This is one reason I'm opposed to mandatory six-week training classes, expensive licenses, and bans on so-called "Saturday Night Specials". These things do nothing to stop the bad guys, and might keep an innocent citizen from getting a gun in a time of true need. I've read a few stories that curdled my blood.
steveha
Re:i enjoy playing with plutonium (Score:4, Interesting)
you enjoy driving your car. good for you. i don't enjoy thousands of unnecessary traffic deaths in this country. and for that reason, i have no problem taking away your toys. deal with it, child
~43.6k deaths from traffic accidents in 2005.
~30.6k deaths from firearms in 2005.
Cite: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_10.pdf [cdc.gov]
Oh, indeed. Racism is unfashionable. (Score:2, Interesting)
I think we sell the Civil Rights movement a little short when we forget that racism was as acceptable fifty years ago as sexism was in medieval times. No, the movement didn't end racism, but it did at least make it unfashionable; racists at least had to pretend to be interested in "law and order" or "national security" or "enforcement of immigration laws" whatever the dogwhistle is this season.
Eric Raymond describes two kinds of racism [ibiblio.org], essentially the kind where you think you're racist and the kind where you don't. Being Eric Raymond, he goes on to claim that the latter isn't racism at all, and so racism is over, but hey, it's Eric Raymond. The distinction, I think, is a useful one--what was once as common and universal as the very air is now essentially vanished from our mainstream discourse.
Racism isn't over, not by a long shot, but damn, is it ever not as bad as it used to be.
It's not *their* racism. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not so much racism among black voters, as the racism of the Republican party. Hell, the Republicans would, if not for the racism thing, be a good pick for at least a portion of that voting bloc, as they frequently lean socially-conservative on plenty of issues. (Take Prop 8 in California, for instance.) But in attempting to appeal to their own racists--the white kind--who make up the party's base, they alienate everyone else.
Consider this: the election was heavily influenced by Latino voters, who were previously a very Republican constituency, especially in Florida. But due to the influence of Tom Tancredo, of Lou Dobbs, of Michelle Malkin, of the Minutemen and all their ilk, Latinos are now considerably more Democratic.
So, no, black people didn't vote for Obama because he was black. They voted for Obama because the other part is the party of white racists. I'm not saying that all or even most Republicans are racists, but there's one party that's made its bones by courting them, and there's one party that hasn't; it's not hard to tell which is which.
Re:cmon people (Score:3, Interesting)
*Ahem* iPod: No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
Slashdotters get a lot of predictions wrong so you must be new here.
Re:Whoa! (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe 10 years ago but these days almost everyone has some sort of access to the internet, whether it be in the Library, public school, or at home. Computers are the cheapest they have ever been, where you can get a low grade desktop that is perfect for web browsing for 2 bills. Internet access may be a bit up there but dialup is still around and can be sought for around $10/month. Even broadband costs will only break the most broken wallets. Maybe 10 years ago there were many low income households that didn't want or could do without a computer but I think your assertion is a very dated one.
Re:watched the news (Score:1, Interesting)
Nice post I suppose. I agree with most of your sentiment, but you fall in line with many others who overlook history. We as black people never, as a whole, stopped trying to advance in society. But when you see your people shot, killed, and maimed in many instances for trying to advance...you tend to try to live in reality. This election has changed that reality for us not because one man became president, but because one black man became president after being voted in by the same people whose parents would have literally killed him. So when you hear us say "anything is possible", its not that it wasn't before, its that reality actually indicates anything is achievable, instead of just indicating the potential for achievement.
Re:Anti-White Racism in the Afro Community (Score:4, Interesting)
From my Canadian POV, I see 3 main reasons why Mccain lost:
1. Palin.
2. The continuous attack ads made him seem like a jerk.
3. His "de-mavericking" over the past few years, leading people to ask "WTF does this guy actually stand for?".
Re:Anti-White Racism in the Afro Community (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't suppose you noticed, but African-Americans regularly give somewhere in the upper 80% range of their vote to the Democratic candidate. At worse, you could say that maybe 5-10% of African-Americans voted for Obama on the basis of skin color. Of course, it's equally possible that the additional enthusiasm about the election this year caused people who usually are apathetic voters to turn out, and it's generally accepted that Democrats flake out on voting more than Republicans (I don't know why, but it's fairly common for rain to depress Democratic turnout disproportionately; this is the opposite case).
As for the primaries, the positions were similar for both candidates (Hillary more centrist on positions aside from health care). I'm not inclined to be all that critical of voting for a candidate that inspires you, even if it is partially due to their skin color, if the substance of their positions is so similar as to be irrelevant. Given the equally tilted voting preferences by white voters in large sections of Appalachia, it's a bit hypocritical to attack the black voters alone.
Gay "marriage" (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been thinking about this a little lately, and it occurs to me that perhaps "marriage" should be treated as a religious, rather than civil concept.
So the government could issue a "License of Union" but it would take a church to make it a "marriage."
I don't think it's unreasonable for a gay couple to want the same set of protections as a married heterosexual couple - inheritance, health benefits, tax benefits and implications, decisions about each other's health care, etc. But that doesn't necessarily have to be called "marriage." I understand that may be what the gay rights activists want, but you can't always get what you want.
Personally I just think people need to get over it. All the gay people I've known are just plain people, they just prefer that their partner have the same set of equipment in their pants as they do.