
Change.gov - kirubakaran
http://change.gov/
======
lackbeard
"They will work to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, so
workers can stand up for themselves without worrying about losing their
livelihoods."

Does this scare anyone else? I can't articulate exactly why this scares me,
but it seems rather... un-free. If workers are free to unionize, shouldn't
employers be free to choose who they employ and when?

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mynameishere
Don't worry about that. Worry about the removal of secret votes following card
check procedures at businesses. That will allow union organizers to "organize"
unions by way of muscle. But don't worry about that either.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I suspect it's less by muscle, and more by social pressure. Don't
underestimate the desire to conform.

~~~
hugh
It also makes it easier to lie to the workers about exactly what the "card" is
for.

The UAW keeps trying to unionize postdocs at the University of California.
They do this by coming around to their offices, one-on-one, pulling them out
to the corridor, and pressuring them to sign a card which they say is "to get
more information" or something. Many people (and remember, an awful lot of
postdocs can barely speak English) just sign the card to get them to go away,
without realizing that they've just officially voted for unionization.

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patrickg-zill
_Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a
plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school
and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage
retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals
over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth
Build and Head Start._

(from <http://change.gov/americaserves>)

Compulsory volunteerism?

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rms
I believe that 100 hours of community service also includes $4000 worth of
tuition credit, but we'll see. Remember that this is his idealized plan, now
he has to govern.

Obviously compulsory volunteerism won't actually be mandated. This is America.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Lets not use euphemisms, especially oxymoronic ones like "compulsory
volunteerism." It's forced labor. We should not call it anything but what it
is.

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hugh
So, "slavery" then? Who'd have thunk President Obama would be the one to bring
back slavery?

Seriously though, it's not actually _forced_, it's just encouraged via one of
those offers-you-can't-refuse.

It really does make me very uneasy though. Why did people wait until after the
election to start discussing the more worrying aspects of Obama's policy
platform?

And how long before people start discussing Obama's triple goals of giving tax
cuts to 95% of the population while balancing the budget and starting up many
expensive new federal programs?

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yummyfajitas
Pointing out bad things about Obama's policies is one thing. But if you
replace "policies" with "skin color", then you would be a super crazy racist!

<http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001339.html>

His "tax cuts" to 95% of tax-filers is even more interesting when only about
60% of tax filers actually pay taxes.

~~~
RichardWaite
[http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/10/13/wsj/index....](http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/10/13/wsj/index.html?source=rss&aim=/politics/war_room)

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tc7
"Create a National Network of Public-Private Business Incubators: Barack Obama
and Joe Biden will support entrepreneurship and spur job growth by creating a
national network of public-private business incubators. Business incubators
facilitate the critical work of entrepreneurs in creating start-up companies.
Obama and Biden will invest $250 million per year to increase the number and
size of incubators in disadvantaged communities throughout the country."

Does this mean incubators like yc? Obviously it isn't limited to hightech, but
is that the sort of thing they speak of?

~~~
corentin
Can someone here who happens to be enthusiastic about this idea enlighten us
and explain why the federal government would be a better investor than private
entities?

~~~
tortilla
Government can take a longer term investment.

Example: Space exploration

~~~
corentin
Do you really think the government created and funded the NASA, the DARPA, the
Manhattan Project and the NSA for the love of science? (I certainly won't deny
all the really cool side effects they created, though.)

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lacker
Of course not, but I'm okay with doing something that only somewhat resembles
love of science.

~~~
corentin
I'm sure scientists and engineers would have discovered and created as many
cool things if the money was spent on peaceful research projets instead of
being confiscated by the government.

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wensing
Obama is already doing things I didn't know the President could do.

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jobeirne
Like mandating community service hours.

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ObieJazz
($4,000 / 100 hours == $40 / hour) tax credit for college students for
community service != bad news

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blackguardx
It's a $4000 tax credit. They aren't giving you $4000. If you don't have a
paying job, you get nothing. If you don't pay at least $4000 in tax, you
aren't getting the full benefit.

I don't know about you, but I don't think I ever paid $4000 in tax during
college. I spent what little free time I had at part-time jobs, but didn't
earn much money. Most of my taxes were returned to me by the government for
being a poor student.

100 hours of mandated community service is a tremendous amount. If you don't
work during school, the tax credit is useless and if you do work during
school, it reduces the number of hours you can work.

That being said, I did other activities that might qualify as volunteer work
under this plan: I helped out with a local high school's FIRST robotics team.

~~~
msg
Ummm no. Refundable tax credits put money in your pocket whether you owe up to
the amount that year or not.

"Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit: Obama and Biden will make college
affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax
Credit. This universal and _fully refundable_ credit will ensure that the
first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and
will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or
university and make community college tuition completely free for most
students. Recipients of the credit will be required to conduct 100 hours of
community service."

<http://change.gov/agenda/education/>

~~~
ojbyrne
The language is kind of vague. Why is it "most Americans?"

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jbyers
Can't resist pointing out the joys of wildcard DNS:

<http://spare.some.change.gov>

(Best read in a cockney accent.)

~~~
corentin
Actually, that's more or less the purpose of government.

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jcdreads
Very interesting to note some of the links you can see commented out when
viewing source, including:

/newsroom/blog/

/newsroom/events/

/newsroom/press/

/learn/inauguration

And, within a comment block labelled "comment out america serves":

/americaserves/plan ("Service Plan")

/americaserves/serve ("Find a Way to Serve")

Probably gonna need to get that new CTO to clamp down on accidental leaks by
the IT staff. (Edited for formatting.)

~~~
jcdreads
Alas, now the Service Plan and Find a Way to Serve links are visible...and
link to pages that read, "Need Content". Launched early, I guess.

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arthurk
Someone forgot to replace the "Lorem Ipsum" text on the signup page:

<http://change.gov/page/signup>

and the "Plan" page needs content: <http://change.gov/americaserves/plan> ;-)

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kolya3
Lorem Ipsum? Nah, that's just that fancy soundin latino elitist talk ;)

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bk
Load balancer fail: "No suitable nodes are available to serve your request."

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makecheck
Two lines of text, guess how much source code Microsoft Word generated to
render it.

~~~
tc7
<http://www.smartcard.gov/thurston_bio.cfm>

This guy did it. :)

Saw his name as Author in the Word HTML that used to be there ("Keith Thurston
GSA"). Glad Word does that, so we know who to blame.

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frisco
<http://change.gov/americaserves/plan>

The Obama National Service Plan NEED CONTENT

nice.

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ardit33
Great step, but still mostly fluff. Very light on specifics. Hopefully they
will keep updating it as they go.

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kirubakaran
I hope they _change_ that soon.

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ph0rque
Did they just change the website? It looks nice and modern to me.

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kirubakaran
It was big bright yellow "www.change.com / Coming Soon" text on bright blue
background. The website seems to be down now.

~~~
ph0rque
Yeah, it took half an hour to load, and none of the links worked, but it looks
pretty good.

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technoguyrob
Wow.

[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-
bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=20...](http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-
bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2008_government_manual&docid=214669tx_xxx-3.pdf)

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ojbyrne
Nowhere in there does it say "we will stop the use of torture." And that just
sucks.

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siculars
compulsory national service, eh?

my ma grew up in communist russia. and when she hears obama speak all she can
think of is the 1917 revolution and the Khrushchev speaking at the 20th
congress of the communist party.

is she right, i dont know. did i grow up in a communist country, no. i was
born and grew up in nyc. but i do know that every russian i've talked to
thinks obamas 'change' sounds like the hammer and they all waitin for the
sickle.

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raheemm
What CMS do you think this is built on?

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pstinnett
obama's campaign site as expression engine. Guessing this is too?

~~~
r7000
builtwith.com agrees: expression engine

