What you should know today

http://nonprofitshoppingmall.com/
This seems pretty cool. I've never used it, but I like the idea.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/geekthevote08
This is a really easy place to see what the upcoming presidential hopefuls think about a few issues related to geekdom. How does this affect you that might not be geeks? Well, luckily geeks today are on the leading edge of the environment discussion...and they might be the only ones that can safeguard your freedoms in the future. Okay, that might be a proud overstatement, but seriously, some real privacy and property issues that affect everyone will be dealt with in the upcoming election. Vote for someone that understands the issues.

FCC Relaxes Media Ownership Rules
I'm pretty upset about this one. For years there have been laws about who can own what in the media. For example, if you are a major network owner in a town, and you want to buy the newspaper too - you probably can't...until now.

There are many negatives that can happen with media consolidation. For instance, a single ownership is going to limit the coverage of the news. It's also going to limit the venues for advertising. This means you are going to see less diversity in advertising (but I highly doubt less advertising).

Anyway, the biggest rub is that the FCC did this against the advice of the public and Congress. If you feel so inclined to look into the issue and maybe take a little time to be active in the political stage, go here.

[rant warning]

[rant]
Congress slashes science budget. also here.
This one really pisses me off. I don't use that language often, but I mean it when I do.
My idea is this, about IRAQ and about PATENT REFORM:

1. We shouldn't have gone to war. We should have gone after Osama, and if the country wanted to (which we obviously must have) gone after Saddam, but not total war/cleanup everything. We should have defined the mission, and if the rest of the world hated us for going in and leaving after we were done killing our enemies: fine. They hate us now anyways.
2. The better option to war with any Middle Eastern country would be to revolutionize the economy in a way that does not involve oil. We spend about 275 billion a day on the war! Can you honestly tell me that, if we had spent $275 million per day on energy research that we wouldn't have it figured out by now?

We realized with Sputnik that we needed more emphasis on education so that we can do better research. You know what? It worked! We did awesome in the second half of the 20th century. When are we going to learn we need to KEEP LEARNING! WE ARE NOT AT A TIME WHERE WE CAN SLOUCH ON RESEARCH AND KNOWLEDGE! The rest of the world is shifting to value all of this more, and we are shutting down because we don't see the immediate benefit...and of course it doesn't get many elected.

THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE. Without this you will see more emphasis on war, more emphasis on spending, and less economic development. Not only that, we make our aged economic behemoths that are relying on old, and non-green, technology even more comfortable - and thus scared of change - which further delays progress.

[/rant]