Zeeblebrox - Slashdot User

A Digital Direct Democracy For the Modern Age 308

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 21, 2011 @02:27PM from the straight-from-the-digital-horse's-mouth dept.

New submitter lordofthechia writes "Last month the White House created an online petition system through which constituents can directly voice any grievances and concerns to the US government. Any petition that reaches 25,000 signatures (5,000 originally) is promised an official reply. This weekend the first petitions will be closing, and already many have far exceeded the required number of signatures. Is this the way for the voice of the electorate to gain more weight in modern politics, or is it the web version of a placebo button? Will the President's office really consider the top pleas, which include petitions to Legalize and Regulate Marijuana, Forgive Student Loan Debt, and Abolish the TSA?"

Comment Re:More Good Money After Bad! (Score 1) 123

by Zeeblebrox on Friday September 16, 2011 @05:27PM (#37424554) Attached to: NASA's Big Telescope Avoids Death-by-Budget-Cut

"With the money saved by killing JWST we could fly a dozen or so Explorer class missions that would provide real astrophysics and astronomy data sooner than JWST" Planetary Sciences, Geologists, and Astrobiologists benefit from "boots on the ground" missions. The types of astronomy serviced by JWST have little crossover with these disciplines, and so your generic "astrophysics and astronomy data" gathered by Explorer missions really can't be compared to the data JWST is designed to gather.

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