CA - Secty of State: Debra Bowen on MViMV
Mon Sep 19, 2005 at 12:31:36 PM PDT
Just got notice of this. Anyone interested in the Secty of State race in CA might want to check it out:
Each Monday from 8-9 PM Eastern (5-6 PM Pacific), a guest blogger is featured on the My Vote is My Voice (MViMV) Blog at http://myvoices.blogs.com/blog/. This is an Interactive Guest Blog. The MViMV guest stays for the scheduled hour to reply to comments that ask questions related to the guest's area of expertise.
Tonight, California Senator Debra Bowen blogs at the MViMV site. Senator Bowen represents California's 28th Senate District. She is also the Chair for the California State Senate's Standing Committee of Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee. Tonight, Senator Bowen will discuss the integrity of our voting system.
She's getting her web site put together, and has some info up @ http://www.debrabowen.com
She put together the legislation requiring California Legislative information to be posted online in 1995. Sorry for the rush, but just got the information.
[Disclaimer: I don't work for the campaign or MViMV].
Aftermath: Putting Locals to Work
Thu Sep 01, 2005 at 09:54:51 AM PDT
Labor + Waste = Energy.
When the people along that 90-mile stretch of destruction begin to return, the first job they'll have is rebuilding. The first phase of that job is to remove the untold tons of waste before actual construction begins.
The reality is that the process will be top-heavy, paper-intensive, and involve thousands of out-of-area contractors flooding (no pun) into the area. The locals in too many cases get left out. I think that's wrong, and have a suggestion.
||Give Them Jobs||
dKos Vets: Poll
Mon May 09, 2005 at 09:16:05 AM PDT
Reading way too many diaries on the military, and opinions of who should and shouldn't serve, got me wondering how many veterans are here. No big diary, just a poll.
Comments accepted but not required. [rba, USAF, '66-'70]
Delivering the Promise
Fri Apr 15, 2005 at 10:14:00 AM PDT
[
Cross-posted from BooMan]
In our echo chamber environment we tend to rush headlong into the future, while failing to look back. We respond to the daily onslaught of information without the means to state our position, or make our opinion known.
I think we can fix that problem with a 30-year-old experiment in direct democracy. Just a suggestion on how to untangle our own little Gordian knot.
First find the end of the string, the starting point:
It is widely believed that it would be impossible for millions of people to have the kind of participatory democracy available to the members of small communities such as the Greek polls, New England towns and Israeli Kibbutzim.
The quote is from an article written in 1972 by Amitai Etzioni, founder of the Communitarian Network. [SEE ALSO: Stewart Brand's The Media Lab, 1987. Brand also founded The WELL in 1985].
Can we really involve millions of people to both ask and answer questions on issues of the day? Yes, by using many-to-many communication tools. We have the technology.
BREAKING: Shiites+Kurds Reach Agreement
Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 01:15:14 PM PDT
Bloomberg is reporting that a coalition has been formed between Shiite & Kurds.
March 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Shiite Muslim cleric-backed coalition that won the most seats in Iraq's Jan. 30 vote for a national assembly joined forces with the second-placed Kurdish Alliance, as the Associated Press reported a suicide bomber killed at least 36 people at a funeral in the city of Mosul.
Sen. Byrd on the "Nuclear Option"
Wed Mar 02, 2005 at 08:16:37 AM PDT
There has been a much-publicized battle of words going on in the Senate regarding a change of rules to provide a work-around to the
filibuster.
Sen. Byrd's remarks included this:
Hitler's originality lay in his realization that effective revolutions, in modern conditions, are carried out with, and not against, the power of the State: the correct order of events was first to secure access to that power and then begin his revolution. Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal.
That is what the nuclear option seeks to do to rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate.
More below the fold
WH Press Corps: Remedy for the Reporting Impaired
Sat Feb 19, 2005 at 09:53:16 AM PDT
I think we all know by now that the hard part of reporting on the Bush administration is that they control the message with an iron grip. The flip side is that anyone with the temerity to ask hard questions may find it difficult to keep their press pass. We have seen this tactic work with devastating effectiveness in both the campaign [restricting public access], and in the White House press room.
More below. Fast load, fast read, easy answers. Poll.
