metablogging roundup

[jrtom]

National Budget Simulation: allows you to play with different assumptions about how money will be spent, relative to current spending patterns.

I like the concept of this sort of thing. But you know what? _Anybody_ that plays with this will be able to come up with budget savings; it doesn't require any particular virtue, just a less diffuse set of priorities than Congress has. If you want me to be impressed with your economic acumen, get together with 534 people of diverse interests and backgrounds in different areas of the country and come up with a budget that you can get 51% of them to support. I doubt you'll be able to cut it as far under those circumstances.

Representative democracy sure sucks when not everyone agrees with you, huh? (Or even when most do, but hold out for quid pro quos anyway.)

iPod baby costumes (from BoingBoing)

The iron-on graphic is especially nice.

Daily Illuminator: Iraq Agrees on Constitution

"Next up for discussion is Dexterity."

heh heh heh...

Comments

[ewin.livejournal.com]

"Next up for discussion is Dexterity."

BWAAAH HA ha ha ha ha....

Democrat?

[fdmts.livejournal.com]

I like the concept of this sort of thing. But you know what? _Anybody_ that plays with this will be able to come up with budget savings; it doesn't require any particular virtue, just a less diffuse set of priorities than Congress has. If you want me to be impressed with your economic acumen, get together with 534 people of diverse interests and backgrounds in different areas of the country and come up with a budget that you can get 51% of them to support. I doubt you'll be able to cut it as far under those circumstances.

My contention is starting to be, (and it's still just a germ of an idea), that while we certainly can't agree on everything, there are certain things that we *can* agree on. If we started with the simple problems, we'd have a better chance of not coming down to a partisan slap-fight on the big ones because (a) we'd have experience and trust working together and (b) more of the variables would be pre-solved.

Our current system encourages a winner-take-all, go-for-the-big-kill-first mentality. Insert rant on the toxicity of the two party hegemony here.

Re: Democrat?

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Don't know if you read David Brin's site or not, but you might be interested in this article:

http://www.davidbrin.com/candidatestipulation.html (http://www.davidbrin.com/candidatestipulation.html)

There are also a number of other interesting politically motivated articles on his site. I don't always agree with him by any means, but it's thought-provoking...and often his perspective reminds me somewhat of yours.