Funny. My wife & I (retired boomers) bought old house in the city earlier this year... It needs work, but we're fixing it up. We can walk to the hardware store, to grocery stores, to pubs. I mention the pubs because they are full of young people, and young people, with all their energy and enthusiasm, are fun to be around.
Sometimes we don't drive our car for weeks at a time. Yeah, we still need it for certain kinds of shopping. We're hoping that by the time we're too infirm to drive or to walk as far as we can now, we'll be able to summon a self-driving vehicle.
It's a good existence, and self-driving vehicles will make it even better for us and, I suspect, for subsequent generations.
Here's the URL for the an article on Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/tech-po... (Disclaimer: I have no relationship w/ Ars Technica. I just happened to read the article there.)
Sure, public email addresses are just that: public. Apparently the released info goes further:
For the Reps:
If I read the article right, similar personal info for aides and support staff was released. And this was only done for the Democrats. No information, personal or public, about the Republicans was released.
We are less than three months from election day. Campaigns need functioning, reliable communication channels to coordinate, to share information, to organize events, etc. If they're inundated w/ spam, they won't be able to work effectively. If they start changing their email addresses, phone numbers, etc., their communication can easily be impacted. It's likely that the dox will make it more difficult for the Democrats to compete in the upcoming election.
Further, "Guccifer 2.0" claimed in the announcement that this is evidence that the election is a "farce" (from G's blog)... that everything is done "behind the scenes". Thus, Guccifer 2.0 isn't just broadcasting information; he/she/they are trying to sow doubt about the validity of the electoral process. This isn't an attack on the Democrats. It's really an attack on a key element of our republic.
OR and WA states both use mail-in paper ballots. This circumvents some types of voter suppression techniques such as sending out fictitious notices of polling-place changes and limiting hours and staff at polling places in certain districts. There is also a paper trail that can be audited in the event of concerns about fraud.
I heard on the radio this AM that Senator Wyden (D, OR) is pushing legislation to make mail-in ballots standard. In case you're interested, here's a URL for a news article about it: http://www.ktvz.com/news/wyden...
Interestingly (to me, anyway) the article claims that mail-in ballots reduce election costs.
I think many of your points make sense, but there is another way to look a the data. What if, since the 2nd half of the 20th century, pandering to right-wing fringe groups has been necessary to the Republicans if they're to attract enough votes to win elections?
For example, the Republican Party platform has included a "right to life" plank for quite a while – yet I doubt the wealthy will ever be denied access to birth control or abortions. And, closely related, there's the prayer in pubic schools movement, the notion that America is a Christian country... These days, at least, those people aren't likely to vote Democrat.
And there's the neocon fringe – the "New American Century" folks. They see militarism and military intervention on a global scale as good things. And they care more about projecting American power abroad than they do about fiscal conservatism at home.
And there's the Grover Norquist pledge: Norquist has enough clout that it's hard to be elected as a Republican without signing his pledge. Once you sign that pledge, you're beholden to that fringe.
Some might consider that pulling these (and others, I'm sure you can list several more) into the Republican Tent a cynical manipulation of the credulous; others might consider it coalition building. Either way, it pulls right-wing fringe groups into a major political party. Again, I'm not trying to argue against your points; I just think we have a complex, multi-faceted electorate w/ many incongruent (and several conflicting) agendas. Shoehorning that electorate into a two-party system has effects. The Republican Party's lurch to the Far Right could be once such effect.
It might even be that a "free market" could do better, but there is nothing remotely like a free market in the telecom space. Instead, there's a highly consolidated market w/ a few behemoth players in many parts of the US.
Example: I'm getting ready to move and just called to set up web access at the new place. The CenturyLink guy was pleasant enough. Quoted me a price for a 7MB/second DSL. I asked how much it'd cost if I wanted a higher connect speed. "There's no higher speed available at that location," was his reply.
If municipal broadband were permitted under state (or federal) law, there'd be some pressure on the big guys to offer competitive services, but since the telecoms operate in protected markets, they have little incentive to innovate.
We live at the 48th parallel in the northern hemisphere. We have lots of daylight hours in summer... that makes up for wintertime pretty well. Our grid-tied 4KW PV array performs quite nicely. If it weren't for neighbors' evergreens to the south, we'd even produce credible amounts of energy in the "dark months."
Also, I note that our home is of a moderate passive solar design (i.e. nothing radical, just an emphasis on south-facing glass and good insulation). The differences in energy use and interior comfort are remarkable when we compare our home to those w/ no attention paid to what the sun provides automatically. People tend to forget about (or discount) that type of "renewable energy," but it makes a huge difference.
While I admit things have changed in the past twenty years, my time in Si Valley wasn't all about working for cynical manipulators. As one poster mentioned, the Valley went through various phases. I had the opportunity to work for several companies circa 1980 to 2008. Some were better than others. Some succeeded; others failed in interesting ways -- occasionally snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
But in a couple of the cases I saw first hand, the founders had great ideas. And some of them were brilliant people who worked long hours to bring their dreams into the world as products. In a couple of cases, people pretty far down the food chain were able to share in the founders' success to a credible degree. Sure, the people at the top made a ton of money, but in most cases, I thought they deserved to.
Anyway, while I expect there were examples of smoke-and-mirrors, hype, or whatever you want to call it, the headline to this thread paints negativity with a pretty broad brush. I don't think it's that simple... unless it's changed a lot in the past decade. Has it?
I think if the next president is a Republican, he'll probably get to nominate one or more Supreme Court justices. Ginsberg's getting up there, for example. If the majority on the SCOTUS swings just one more vote to the right, it will likely have a noticeable effect on reproductive rights (and not only abortion), what's left of the labor movement, separation of church and state, and so on. I mean, look what happened to McCain / Feingold.
Sure, I'd like a real progressive – a real liberal – to be elected, but that's not going to happen. And, anyway, were it to happen, we'd see even more paralysis at the Federal level. We'd probably see even more polarization in our society, which is not a good thing (look at some of the nastiness on this very thread, for example).
Sadly, I think the best we can hope for is someone who's willing to battle at the margins of our slide into complete domination by big money and the far right. Clinton is, at least, a moderate (especially compared to people like Scalia, Thomas, and Alito). If elected, she'll stay a moderate. Given the chance, a Republican President will hasten our descent.
So, as I read through the comments, I'm struck by the speed with which we stake out positions. Cyber armageddon (CA) vs. end of warfare? Isn't there anything in between?
You're a bunch of smart guys; I bet you could think of twenty alternatives to the either / or mentality we see so often here.
This kind of bugs me... I realize no one is actually saying that old + white == ignorant + bigoted, but that's how a lot of this comes across.
Please remember that, while no longer young, some of us are happy, educated, progressive people who have tried to make things better for everyone. Maybe we don't always get it right, but we're neither stupid nor unengaged in the political dialog. We are, however, drowned out by strident voices of all ages and outspent by well-funded ideologues who mostly dwell far to the right of center.
So, while I salute the next generation of progressives and hope you are more effective than we have been, I also hope you can find it within yourself to acknowledge our efforts.
Press On! (But don't forget to press Off when you're done...)
If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four tellers?
