There was recently a conversation about organizing a public financing initiative. I wanted to check back in on that and see if people want to get to work and start meeting regularly. Matthew Green and I were talking about this at the coffee shop recently and he wants to work on it also.

Who's in? When can we meet?

Castro Stepping Down as Cuba’s Leader Javier Galeano/Associated Press

Read the story at The New York Times

I reprinted this entire column because I feel if lends itself to recent discussions and makes very important points about the effects poverty has on people. Mea Culpa, mea culpa.

You can also read it at The New York Times

Nobody is being civil, everybody is on the attack. There is NO POINT in just hosting another version of the Olympian comments here. It's not just one person, or two people, everybody is feeding it. It sucks here.

CNN is reporting that Hillary Clinton has replaced her campaign manager just a day after being swept in three primaries and has been projected to lose today's Maine primary as well. Clinton also announced that she loaned her campaign $5 million dollars in the month of January.

NGUYEN HUY VU

Associated Press Writer

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — If John R. Koza gets his way, American voters will never again have to wonder about the workings of the Electoral College and why it decides who sits in the White House.

Koza is behind a push to have states circumvent the odd political math of the Electoral College and ensure that the presidency always goes to the winner of the popular vote.

Basically, states would promise to award their electoral votes to the candidate with the most support nationwide, regardless of who carries each particular state.

"We're just coming along and saying, 'Why not add up the votes of all 50 states and award the electoral votes to the 50-state winner?'" said Koza, chairman of National Popular Vote Inc. "I think that the candidate who gets the most votes should win the office."

Read the full AP article here

The Long Emergency What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle?

JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLERPosted Mar 24, 2005 12:00 AM

A few weeks ago, the price of oil ratcheted above fifty-five dollars a barrel, which is about twenty dollars a barrel more than a year ago. The next day, the oil story was buried on page six of the New York Times business section. Apparently, the price of oil is not considered significant news, even when it goes up five bucks a barrel in the span of ten days. That same day, the stock market shot up more than a hundred points because, CNN said, government data showed no signs of inflation. Note to clueless nation: Call planet Earth.

Carl Jung, one of the fathers of psychology, famously remarked that "people cannot stand too much reality." What you're about to read may challenge your assumptions about the kind of world we live in, and especially the kind of world into which events are propelling us. We are in for a rough ride through uncharted territory.

It has been very hard for Americans -- lost in dark raptures of nonstop infotainment, recreational shopping and compulsive motoring -- to make sense of the gathering forces that will fundamentally alter the terms of everyday life in our technological society. Even after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, America is still sleepwalking into the future. I call this coming time the Long Emergency.

On another thread we were discussing voting and the topic of my "anarchist side" came up after I offered some alternatives to the current system. One comment alluded that I shouldn't express my opinions about how to fix a system that I disagree with. Another asked some questions which I will attempt to answer below.

I'm really glad to have this conversation as this topic is very important to me.

In my opinion, Representative Democracy is not ideal because I feel that it creates a ruling class that is out of touch with the needs of average people and doesn't serve them the way it is touted to.

I am a huge fan of other forms of democracy however. Consensus Democracy, Direct Democracy, and Participatory Democracy are three that I think would work better than our present system.

In order to give you a clear sense of where I'm coming from, I think I need to real break down my political views for you. That way we don't get hung up on "panic button" words like "anarchist".

One thing I dislike about modern society is our propensity to label one another. Labels can be divisive and destructive, in my opinion, if we rely too much on them to serve as definitions of one another's character. Labels can be used to bring people together as well, or show solidarity with an idea or a cause, so they're not all bad, but we just need to handle them with care and keep in mind that we are not, as individuals, ever completely defined by one word or another. Each of us are unique, and one word does us no justice.

Let's share our caucus stories and results.

What would you say was the #1 issue talked about at the caucuses?

Update:

From the results we're seeing so far and from other sources, I think it's safe to say that Barack Obama is going to win the State of Washington in landslide fashion. Personally, this comes as not much of a surprise, as Obama has been out fund raising Clinton in the state by a pretty large margin.

I'm interested in how big a role local issues played in people's choices today. What things in Olympia will benefit from your candidate's presidency?