Tag: ideas

Categories
life politics State

Starting Something New

At Pursuit of Liberty I have issued an invitation to join with me in forming a new group to encourage wider political participation.

The group I will be forming will be open to, even encouraging of, participation by people of all political perspectives. The only requirement for participation is a commitment to avoid the playground politics of name calling and guilt by association . The aim of the group will be to draw people out of the silent majority until the silent become the minority by fostering civil dialog between people of differing perspectives. We will not aim to come to a consensus except the consensus that wider participation is better than narrower participation. I would like the group to seek to engage other group members in public discussion of issues so that people who have been silent will have a chance to be exposed to various positions on important issues without the likelyhood of being personally insulted by those who disagree with them. I also would like the group, individually and collectively, to engage in discussing issues with candidates for office and elected officials with an emphasis on local candidates and officials and a balance of local, state, and national issues. (emphasis original)

I note it here in case there is anyone who reads here but not there who would be interested in this effort. If you are, please email me or comment on the original post.

Categories
culture politics

Transit Oriented Development

The idea that we need more transit friendly ways to develop our urban and suburban areas is not new to me. I have long believed it. The idea that government restrictions hinder as often as they help is also easy for me to accept. That’s why I was interested to read about the ways that existing zoning laws often impede smart development.

Many of us will abandon our big gas-guzzling vehicles and forsake new land-guzzling, auto-dependent suburban developments in favor of commuter hubs and “new urbanism” communities clustered near mass-transit stations.

We’ll live sensibly for a change. . . We won’t go kicking and screaming, either. Just give it a little more time. Let the air pollution and traffic congestion and gas pumps that ring up $50, $60, $70 in a blur sink in, and we’ll embrace smart growth and new urbanism and commuter hubs like grandmas hug babies and babies hug puppies.

It’s already starting to happen . . . But there’s still one big obstacle . . . If commuter hubs and bus stop/train station developments are going to become the norm, if we’re going to change our wasteful ways and ease the burden on our environment and pocketbooks, local governments have to lead, or at least get out of the way.

“High density” can no longer be dirty words. Commercial and residential zones must be melded. Those tired old requirements of two parking spaces for every doorstep have to go.

My ideals for my family living situation include a large yard and I begin to wonder if that conflicts with my ideals for smarter growth and a more transit-centric lifestyle.

I think I’ll try to tackle that issue with some ideas of how to meld the two ideals – not just for me, but in general municipal planning. Any thoughts for me to consider?

Categories
National politics

Many Primary Ideas

There are a variety of ideas for how we can fix our primary election process. They range from a lottery system proposed in comments and a post earlier on my site to more authoritative proposals such as rotating regional primaries as outlined by Trey Grason (go to page 25 of the PDF – hat tip the Senate Site)

Unfortunately, it is too late to fix the process for 2008, but steps can be taken for 2012. The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) is hoping to generate support for rotating regional primaries as a step toward that goal. The association’s bipartisan proposal, created by the nation’s chief state election officials, divides the country into four regions and establishes primary windows in March, April, May and June.

I was also interested in the proposal published in the New York Times by Jonathan Soros suggesting a national primary day where individual voters could opt to vote early.

There is, however, a simple way to establish a national primary and yet still allow retail politicking to meaningfully affect the course of the campaign over several months: allow early voting, with regular reporting of the tally.

Here’s one way it could work. Set a national primary date of June 30 and create a window for early voting that opens on Jan. 1. The early votes would be counted and reported at the end of each month from January through May. . .
If we began counting and reporting the interim results in advance of a national primary, the voters who cast early ballots would play the same role as voters in Iowa and New Hampshire do now: they could signal viability or create momentum for their favored candidates. These early voters would be self-selecting, trading the opportunity to watch the campaign unfold for the ability to demonstrate early conviction.

Most important, every voter, no matter where he or she lived, would have the freedom to make this choice. Right now, when one votes is determined by where one lives.

The national primary day has drawbacks, but I’m sure there are detractors to the rotating regional primaries as well and I know there are those who gripe about the lottery idea. I’m not ready to advocate for one idea over another, and I’m sure that all of them would offer an overall improvement over the current mess. What I would really like to see is an widespread, active, and public conversation now – not sometime after 2009 – to decide how we would like this system to operate because the current setup is going to lead to perpetual campaigning (like having candidates declaring six months into the four year cycle) unless we take steps to rein it in.

Categories
technology

Note Taking in the Future

I’m picky. I might as well get that out in the open. I also like to write a lot to record my thoughts. I have tried a number of different methods of taking notes from various binders to keeping my laptop with me at all times. I have discovered problems with every setup I have tried. The notebooks either start out bulky or else they become bulky after my notes begin to pile up. My laptop is pretty good except that the battery life is limited to a mere three or four hours. not bad for a laptop, but PDA’s get much better battery life, so why not get a PDA? Small screen and something between no keyboard and a small keyboard. Why pay hundreds of dollars for something that I already know I am going to complain about at times. The PDA does not offer enough to get me to replace my laptop so it is not worth the money it would cost.

One day I ran across a new Virtual Laser Keyboard which would allow me to have a full sized keyboard for a PDA. Nice idea, but after thinking about it I think we can do one better. If we can project a keyboard onto a desk or table, why not project the text onto a vertical surface and fix the whole small-screen issue. Get a gadget that combines a sound recorder and a hard drive with a mini-projector. We could use a virtual keyboard and suddenly we have a device the size of an iPod with the battery life of a PDA and more than enough storage for all the notes I could ever take. Give it a USB port as a means of transferring your files to your desktop and you have the perfect note-taking device. The operating system would have to do input and output and manage files, but this would be meant to not browse the net or anything else so security and processing power should be minimal concerns.

Who wants to invent my idea?

Categories
technology

Nice Idea

I am sure that Lazyweb will come in handy for me because I do sometimes have ideas that I think others are more qualified to solve than I am. Thanks to Marco for pointing it out for people like me to find it.