I just signed up for Change Congress… Lawrence Lessig’s (of creative commons fame) new initiative to change the way congress operates. From their site:
About Change Congress
Our Principles
Change Congress is a national movement to end corruption in America’s
congress. We’re organizing citizens to push candidates to make four
simple commitments:
1. No money from lobbyists or PACs
Congresspeople should be beholden to citizens, not special interests.
By committing not to accept money from lobbyists or PACs, candidates
give us confidence that their votes won’t be swayed by big money. This
pledge was most prominently advanced by Senator Edwards in his
Presidential campaign. To read more, click here.
2. Vote to end earmarks
Earmarks allow congresspeople to explicitly decide who should get the
money our government spends. Because of the earmark economy, money
that is supposed to go to our schools, our soldiers, and our citizens
is instead diverted to political donors and pork-barrel projects like
the “Bridge to Nowhere”. We can’t clean up Congress until we end this
blatant system of corruption. Republicans have recently pushed
prominently for changes such as these. To learn more, click here or here.
3. Support publicly-financed campaigns
It’s not enough to just push particular candidates to stay out of the
system of corruption; we have to reform the system itself. Publicly-
financed campaigns will stop the cycle of campaign finance reform
loopholes and ensure that big money stays out of Congress forever.
Public financing has been supported by both Republicans and Democrats.
For prominent campaigns, see here and here.
4. Support reform to increase Congressional transparency
Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and we would all benefit from a
cleaner Congress if more of its proceedings, and the proceedings of
its members, were public. This pledge calls for changes in the law and
rules of Congress to get all members to be more public about meetings
and contacts, including changing the rules so lawmakers post weekly
updates of their campaign contributions, meetings with registered
lobbyist, their latest earmark requests and significant changes in
their personal wealth. To learn more, click here.
I am proud to announce a new blog to the world… RealityCrowd.com! At RealityCrowd.com we will be exploring a wide range of subjects, but the idea that ties them all together is that there is a knowable reality that exists around us and making choices based on that reality is the only hope for mankind. Some of the subjects that we will be covering include (but are not limited to) science, religion, ethics, technology, computers, video games, genetics, physics, and astronomy.
So stop on by if you are interested in expanding your mind! Also since the blog is so new we are still thinking about what direction we want to go with it, so any suggestions would be appreciated!
So my lovely finance Stacia went a bridal show here in NYC a couple weeks ago. I missed out on all the “fun”, but apparently Stacia is the luckiest person on the face of the earth. She seems to have “won” virtually every drawing she put her name into… from free waxing to vacation getaways, she has probably been getting a call every other day from someone telling her that she won a contest. Amazingly, our friend Mandy who went with her also seems to have won all the same contests. Funny how that works.
Anyways, today’s call came from 21st Century Today’s Bride. They told Stacia that she won 2 nights and 3 days at a hotel from a choice of hotels, a $500 gift certificate, and the ability to purchase goods from their website for “up to 50% off”. All we had to do was go to a presentation at a hotel out by Laguardia airport about some cutlery. What a bargain right!
Well, of course 2 seconds of looking around the internet came up with this post from Ryan Cragun’s Blog describing how this is in fact a scam. I guess that the hotel stay is actually a timeshare thing (even though the lady on the phone assured us it was not), the $500 is for a scam site where everything is super overpriced, with shipping costing just as much as the items, and the cutlery that we can buy from them is overpriced and of poor quality. This is all according to the comments from Ryan’s post.
So thanks internet & Ryan for saving Stacia and I an afternoon out by the airport!
In honor of Ryan here is one of my favorite clips from Mr. Show:
If anyone is interested in trying out the new internet video service Joost I now have beta invites. Just post your email address in the comments section and I will send you an invite.
So what is Joost exactly? Joost is an internet TV service from the guy who created Kazaa and Skype.
Joost is a new way of watching TV on the internet. With Joost, you get all the things you love about TV, including a high-quality full-screen picture, hundreds of full-length shows and easy channel-flipping.
I’ll be back with a review later, but for now let me know if you want an invite!! Just post in the comments section with your email address:
