love

If you can’t beat them, change the system so you can!

Here’s the story. The electoral college is mandated by the Constitution as the way to determine the winner of presidential elections, but it’s up to each state to decide how to apportion their electoral votes. Traditionally, states have chosen a winner-take-all system, because that maximizes the state’s clout. Indeed, that’s why large and close states such as Pennsylvania, Florida, and Ohio are so important in presidential elections.

But now, as Nick Baumann reports, Republicans who control Pennsylvania government after the 2010 elections are pushing a scheme to apportion electoral votes by Congressional district (as Maine and Nebraska currently do). The effect would be to basically make Pennsylvania a marginal player in the 2012 election. After all, most House districts (including those in the Keystone State) have lopsided partisan majorities, so they wouldn’t be in play, and parties would be unlikely to devote serious resources to try to pick off a couple of electoral votes in the swing districts — and even less unlikely to devote the massive resources it would take to capture the two remaining at-large votes, given that it would be far more efficient to use the money in much smaller states with more (winner-take-all) electoral votes up for grabs.

This display by Chris Matthews and his gushy, gooey love fest over the Palin/Bachmann rally is, well should I say not ethical, moral or professional?

Read this and see exactly who wrote it.

This is the same type of corruption that brought us the Medicare plan in 2003 that lead to disaster for millions of seniors.

From HuffPo:

Anti-abortion activist Lila Rose said at last weekend's Value Voters Summit that as long as abortions are legal, they should be "done in the public square," thus disgusting people into action. And then "we might hear angels singing as we ponder the glory of conception."

Sure I’ll get behind this idea, but only if it is coupled with this one. These wingers that are such war hawks get to go into theater and recover the remains of our soldiers killed in duty. Also they get to be present when the family is informed of their loss. Let them see the gruesome results of their love for war.

Gallup released a poll today that the right is in love with:

A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves "pro-life" on the issue of abortion and 42% "pro-choice." This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.

So does that make us a pro-life nation? By reading that first paragraph you would sure think so, but let’s look at the next question:

Even with 51% saying they are “pro-life”, we still have less than 1/4 of this country who think abortion should be illegal. Doesn’t that actually make only 23% of the country pro-life?

But it doesn’t stop there. It’s not that the nation is moving towards pro-life at all. Let’s go deeper into this poll:

That’s a very serious question for a very serious issue:

The housing crisis is hitting military families particularly hard, according to real estate agents and service member advocacy groups. Many who bought during the boom and must now relocate because of fresh orders are faced with selling their homes at a big loss. They are finding few buyers, or even renters, particularly in the hardest-hit markets. That is leaving some families facing options including renting at a loss, separation from their loved ones or, in some cases, foreclosure.

Rick Santelli called people who are losing their homes “losers”. So why is the right making a person calling our brave soldiers losers into such a hero of their own? Fighting in a war is a loser, but calling those fighting that war “loser” is a hero? Wow the Republican party really has changed.

At least the Democrats still have nothing but respect and love for our troops.

90% of the work I do is in the open source software field. This blog runs off of open source software, as do most. It’s also turned into a multi-billion dollar industry. Imagine, software that is given away for free is now generating tons of revenue in a field that keeps on growing.

I think this whole concept would have made George Bush’s head explode, but Barack Obama seems open to it:

The secret to a more secure and cost effective government is through open source technologies and products.</p>

The claim comes from one of Silicon Valley's most respected business leaders Scott McNealy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems.

He revealed he has been asked to prepare a paper on the subject for the new administration.

"It's intuitively obvious open source is more cost effective and productive than proprietary software," he said.

"Open source does not require you to pay a penny to Microsoft or IBM or Oracle or any proprietary vendor any money."

I have championed for this for years now. The government currently is in a love fest with Microsoft, and that costs us billions of dollars alone. Making a move to open source software not only eliminates a bunch of that cost, but also moves us to a much more secure government. I would love to see this come to being and our government kick Microsoft to the curb.

Two of my biggest passions are photography and history. Combine them and what do you get? The new archive of Life Magazines photos and illustrations dating back to 1750  (big h/t to Cesca). Here’s the cover from June, 1958 and it is so fitting for today:

(Click for larger view and details)