If things came out right, my logo is lined up with the margin of the text content below. Now, the logo has two edges, the white outer edge and the green inner edge. Do you think it is better to align the white or green edge with the text margin?
I’ll leave it on the white edge for a while.
I have modified the Cascading Style Sheets to rearrange and recolor exempli gratia. It was interesting, for a while, trying to figure out what would happen if I tweaked THIS or THAT. But in the long run, I would rather have a CSS editor that shows you the changes as you go rather than saving and refreshing.
I thought I had a problem getting the .php index file updated to publish the new look so I asked Elaine to look at it and she said she would tomorrow, but I figured it out on my own. I hope she doesn’t try to fix it in the morning. (I don’t think she cares for the new color scheme)
Let me know how it works with your browser.
I just want to throw out an idea, no taxation without representation.
Since Congress saw fit some 90+ years ago to limit the number of representatives to 435, the population of the United States has grown quite a bit. As we approach a population of 300 Million citizens, each representative will represent 690,000 citizens. This is not fair.
We shouldn’t expect a representative to represent more than 150,000 citizens. I think a target of 100,000 citizens per representative is a reasonable number. The Constitution set a lower limit (30,000) but never set an upper limit. I think it is time to set one.
Many questions and issues have been raised about monetary contributions to political campaigns. As campaigns become more expensive, candidates need to raise more money. But, Fair Election laws limit individual contributions to a relatively low amount so a candidate has to try to gather lots of contributors. Or contributors give their excess moneys to PAC or 527 organizations that then contribute to the candidate or campaign independently for their pet issues.
Either way it ends up as a mess. The candidates can’t vet all their sources and they may not have an incentive to do so. PACs and 527s that promote special interests don’t have any real controls on their activities. But do we need controls?
In some sense I think we do, unbridled contributions by all and sundry lead to either the appearance of a conflict of interest or a real conflict of interest between office-holders and their constituencies. And the appearance, or conflict, does not become apparent until well after the election. But individuals should be allowed to contribute what they want to whomever they want. That’s just basic American values.
I suggest the there be unlimited contributions by registered voters to the candidates of their choice and that there be full disclosure of the contributors within a reasonable time-frame, say 3-5 days, in a public domain. (Given the ubiquity of the Internet, passing the information back to the appropriate election committee and getting them to post it in an organized manner should be straight-forward.) No obscuring or obfuscating the information. The contributors will be identified by their voter registration information so some sort of cross-checking is possible.
I don’t know if there should be a minimum amount that doesn’t need to be publicly posted. Some people might not want it known by the Democratic neighbors that they contributed $50 to a Republican candidate. That can be debated, but putting a non-publicized level in place starts the process of obfuscation. If a citizen can’t participate in the political process because of fear of retribution, then the terrorists have won.
This approach may not eliminate the PACs and other special interest campaign groups, but it may cut back on their input because their contributors may send the money directly to the candidates. Any group that is collecting for referendum campaigns should also be covered by these election contribution rules.
I’m not sure about political party contributions. Should parties be required to provide full disclosure as to who is giving them money? Since the parties can’t contribute to a candidate’s campaign, most of what they would do is run issue ads or party promotional ads. And again, most contributors will probably be going directly to the candidates.
Putting a limitation of only allowing registered voters to contribute will change the political fiscal scene. It will be interesting to see what happens.
MileHiCon was a pleasant weekend. I was there promoting a small SF con we have in Colorado Springs, COSine. We have a bit of a SNAFU with our dates this year but I think we recovered in time. Our GOH, Joe Haldeman, was available for the follwing week and I only heard of one potential attendee that couldn’t make it on our new weekend.
Our Saturday party went on until 3 AM and ended with a discussion on the inappropriateness/inconsistencies of overloaded operators in C. I happen to like overloaded operators, but was starting to zone out at the time so didn’t contribute to the discussion.
The New York Times > Travel > Escapes > 36 Hours: In Denver
I never knew there was so much to see in Denver. Of Course, that’s 24 hours more than I would spend there, but I live 50 miles south of Denver.
But, I am spending this weekend in Denver, at MileHiCon.
Here is my brother Patrick at The European Lacrosse Championships, playing for Ireland. The Irish did well in their division, though it may be a while before they can play with the big boys.
Check out the roster of the Irish Team. Picture is courtesy of a teamate of Patrick’s.
Gary Farber, in Amygdala, points out Ron Suskind‘s article in the NY TImes Magazine. If this is the attitude you think is appropriate in a President, then by all means, vote for him.
As for me, I prefer someone who investigates all the angles and issues and who invites open discussion with advisors.
I heard on NPR this morning that Starbucks is implementing Media Bars. What an idea! Go in and select a bunch of songs online and burn a CD. It is such a natural for a place that has broadband Internet connections already in place. It takes 4 minutes or so to burn a CD. I imagine it would take longer to select the songs to burn. And you can listen to the songs before buying them.
I was just thinking that if you wanted to make a travelling music CD it would be so easy. I hope that they are using .WAV files and not mp3 or lower compression files. Music videos can be next.
Of course it is Starbucks, which means it stinks to high heaven of COFFEE. I have accidently wandered into one or two, following Elaine around, and quickly leave before I become physically ill from the malodorous smell. But, it is still a wonderful idea.
How would you and your party resolve the problem of the commons?