Just for the sake of pedantic accuracy, the process is as follows:

EITHER:
2/3 of both houses of Congress approve an amendment;
OR:
A Constitutional Convention is called which then proposes amendments.

After one of those two things has occurred, 3/4 of the states must ratify the proposed amendment.

I say this mainly to combat the myth that a constitutional convention could unilaterally change the constitution without subsequent approval by the states. It couldn't. The convention is an end-run around Congress, not around the states.

Many cities in the US use IRV now, and the Minnesota Supreme Court, at least, thinks it's perfectly constitutional.

I wouldn't be surprised if the White House has Dodd himself write a response. When the "End the TSA" petition got a response, it was written by the head of the TSA. Why not?

The last time I saw a response to one of these petitions, it was one for the elimination of the TSA. The response was written by the head of the TSA. Not to say you shouldn't push the button anyway. If the Obama administration is going to ask for our input and then blatantly disregard it, we may as well have them on record as doing so.

I hate to break it to the corporatist crowd, but the ISPs built those networks with our money, from government subsidies. They received those subsidies to enhance our national infrastructure. If monopolists have the same property rights as everyone else, the free market dies. And if monopolists control infrastructure without oversight to ensure equal access, democracy dies.

http://daggerxl.wordpress.com/

Mod parent up! He's exactly right. Any voting system where you select exactly one of N candidates is doomed to devolve into a two-candidate two-party system, on whatever scale the system is applied. It literally can not be any other way. We need to switch to Schulze voting, or at least IRV, to eliminate the clone-dependence hell we're in now. What's more, this is something we can do. Several cities in the US have already adopted IRV on a local level. This can be done from the ground up, instead of trying to do it from the top down. Expecting Washington to reform election law is a long wait for a train don't come. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clone_independence

Most victory comes, not from your own brilliance, but from instantly exploiting your enemies' stupid mistakes.

You're talking to a slashdotter. Bedroom curtains aren't for privacy, they're out of concern for your neighbors.

Of course, if you're buying tracks off the CDs they don't make any more, it's the difference between some profit and none.

Yet.

The fundamental problem with the American healthcare system is its high cost. That's why so many people don't have coverage, and that's why attempting universal coverage right now is going to cost so much more than it should. Universal access is a noble goal, but far better to lower costs first. This report does an excellent job of breaking down exactly where we spend more money than the rest of the world. My platform is based around lowering costs in four areas: administrative costs, prescription drugs, malpractice insurance, and practitioner conflict of interest. Based on that report, my proposals would lower the average American's health care costs by over $1000 per year, without requiring any new federal spending or expansion of government power.

If I can figure all this out in my spare time, you know Congress has to know it too. Which means either A) I'm horribly wrong, or B) both parties define the problem differently than I do. Which raises the question, exactly what do they see as the problem?

Baron Harkonen? Is that you?

Good paying jobs like being a rocket scientist?

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/
Actually, he's doing a surprisingly good job keeping his promises. Whether we want him to or not, that's a different question.