TresSugar

If You Could Wake Up Anywhere Tomorrow, Where Would It Be?

CitizenSugar — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:30:24 -0800

Ask 50 people one question and you'll get, well, 50 answers. Fifty People, One Question travels to cities and does just that. Now it's off to New York, Brooklyn specifically, to ask 50 of its millions and millions if they could wake up anywhere tomorrow, where would it be? Many chose to stay in the fantastic hooray of the city - as if where else to go? - while others looked backward and forward, inward and way, way out there for answers. What would be yours?

Website Lets Public Track Slave Trade Voyages

LibertySugar — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 03:00:40 -0800

This year marks 200 years since the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, one of the largest, and most tragic, migrations of humans in history. To mark the anniversary, Emory University launched "Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database," a project that allows the public to search information about 35,000 trips and 70,000 slaves traded from the 1500s to the 1800s. In the introduction to the project, David Eltis of Emory writes:

It is difficult to believe in the first decade of the twenty-first century that just over two centuries ago, for those Europeans who thought about the issue, the shipping of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic was morally indistinguishable from shipping textiles, wheat, or even sugar.

Many of European ancestry can search records kept at Ellis Island or other entry points, if they want to know more about their ancestry. Now those of African slave descent can fill in details regarding the voyages of previously anonymous ancestors.

Source

Submit Your Ideas For a New America at Change.org

LibertySugar — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:30:33 -0800

At change.org you can submit your ideas for the Obama Administration, as well as comment and vote on other submissions. On Inauguration Day, the top-10 ideas for change will be presented to President Obama. Right now citizens are discussing ideas such as a Do Not Mail Registry to Stop Junk Mail, Single-Payer Health Insurance for All Americans, Vegan School Lunch Options, and End the Phony War on Terror.

But some users think change.org is out to censor.org. Those who posted popular suggestions for a new investigation into 9/11 or those who suggested abolishing the Federal Reserve claim they got an email saying that their topic had been removed because it "lies outside the scope of the Ideas for Change in America project, which is focused on identifying solutions that we believe can, through a grassroots lobbying effort, receive serious consideration from the Obama administration and/or Congress." If the group censors controversial ideas and handpicks its own top 10, can the result really be called a citizen-generated agenda?

Of course, you can always tell Obama your idea directly through his official website (change.gov not change.org) - but no commenter feedback promised there!

Are You a 52 With a Message For the 48s?

Molly — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:30:44 -0800

Now that the brutal - in both length and ferocity - election season is over, it's time to mend some broken fences. While making up with friends and family wasn't what you were most excited for post-election, there already seems to be less tension in the air and fewer heated political arguments during casual conversation. There's nothing wrong with a little healthy debate amongst friends, but there's also something to be said for putting any name-calling behind us.

Now, there's a website to do just that. From 52 to 48 With Love is a collection of photos and notes sent in by readers with the message that whomever you voted for, we are all Americans, and the only way this nation is going to get back on the right path is if we all work together. Sure, it's a little cheesy, but mostly it's heart-warming and funny to see Americans from all walks of life put forth the same message of unity. Do you have something you want to say to your friends across the aisle?

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What You Could Buy For $1 Trillion - Besides the Iraq War

CitizenSugar — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:00:04 -0700

Citizen Rob Simpson set out on a mission: to find out what else the US could have purchased for the $1 trillion dollars the war will probably cost. As with superhumanly large numbers, most recently and famously, the $700 billion bailout, it's helpful to put the number in concrete terms. That's what Simpson did with his new book What We Could Have Done With the Money.

The book's corresponding website has a ticker on it, calculating how much money has been spent since you've been looking at the site. I had it up for a bit this morning and presto, $25 million gone. Here's the entertaining (like a haunted house is entertaining) part of the website: you can "shop" with a $1 trillion dollar credit card. Anything from sports teams to Air Force One is up for sale - and if you choose the plane, the site asks you, "quantity"? The cost of the plane is only $325 million. I tried and bought every NFL franchise, Dracula's castle, and a theme park and didn't even come close.

To see what else $1 trillion buys, read more.

For $1 trillion, the US could the double the 663,000 cops on the beat for 32 years.
1.9 million additional teachers for America's classrooms.
Forget fixing roads, for that amount the US could pave the entire interstate highway system with gold - 23.5-karat gold leaf.
Every person on the planet could have an iPod.
Every American's credit card could be paid off.

See something on the list you'd rather have? Test yourself and see if you know where spending on Iraq stacks up against other wars.

Source

Where I'm Clicking Now: Global Electoral College

LibertySugar — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:00:15 -0700

The Economist polled the world to find out who would win the US election if the result depended on a global electoral college. The results so far: Obama would win 9,103 votes to McCain's 163. The poll gives every country a minimum of three votes, and then allocates additional votes based on the proportion of the world's 6.5 billion voting population located in each country.

The methodology becomes less than scientific after that, as those visiting the website to vote make up the sample. Once a country has more than 10 votes, the results get added to the map. As of now, Afghanistan and Iran are strong Obama countries, while Iraq's 43 electoral votes seem secure in the McCain column. Macedonia is the only country in Europe leaning McCain right now, in addition to a few countries in Africa.

The fact that the world is painted solid blue hints that the international media must have painted Obama in a positive light. It also provides evidence that a President Obama could help make the American brand internationally popular again.

Source

Where I'm Clicking Now: ConservativesForChange

LibertySugar — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:40 -0700

With the electoral map looking like it might be wearing a dramatic shade of blue this Fall, I have to wonder who these trendsetters are. Not the independents or moderates, but those defying voting history and voting for the other party's candidate.

Conservatives For Change interviews Republicans who have not fallen in line, but have chosen their candidate with thought and, in many cases, reservation. Of course, that candidate is Barack Obama, but who's counting. Besides everyone?

Is this too touchy feely? The explanation you've been waiting for? Anyone here voting for a candidate they never imagined?

The RNC Small Donor Look Up Tool: Gimmick or Great?

CitizenSugar — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:00:59 -0700

A new online donation-tracking tool on the RNC website has people making wagers as to its effectiveness. The simple setup is supposed to track small donors, any amount up to $200. With controversy over the provenance of some of Obama's small donations, the tool appears to be pointed right at that. But is it a great addition to transparency, or a campaign gimmick?

A spokeswoman for the Center for Responsive Politics gives it a mixed review. "As a transparency tool it is pretty dull. As a political tactic it is a bit sharper because the other side has done nothing of the sort and has not even responded to watchdog calls to say more about their small donors." Though the piece nods that "it's a step beyond what the Obama camp has been willing to do," (a campaign whose average contribution is $86) it continues, blasting the tool saying, "By putting out something so incomplete and, in the end, relatively useless, they have undercut their own criticisms of Barack Obama.

It is very simple and doesn't allow for searching by location or workplace, key details the GOP have access to and important if you have a common name. There are other tools out there that allow for that, Fundrace, and OpenSecrets. Though I will say the RNC tool is the only one that accurately returned results on my donations. So what do you think?

Interactive Info on Ads: Who Spent How Much & Where

CitizenSugar — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:00:05 -0700

We've been soaking in a bathtub full of political ads for so long, my fingers are beyond pruney. Though there's great talk of who has how much money to spend on making the suckers, it's not until you can see the true data behind of the ad campaigns compared side by side that you can get a real fix on it.

Ever the masters of the interactive graphic, the Times has maps that let you pit the groups with money side by side to see how much was spent, and where ads were bought. The McCain vs. Obama number is interesting ($90,415,962 to broadcast 57 television ads compared to Obama's $145,064,338 to broadcast 86 television ads) but I was most struck by the DNC vs. RNC as shown in the maps above: $436,015 to $10,080,774. That's a discrepancy. Most of the RNC dough as you can see is pretty geographically targeted.

There are more fun features to play with, read more.

The feature lets you search by issue as well. For instance, a total of $1,356,628 was spent to broadcast five ads related to the presidential campaign on the issue. For comparison? My pal T. Boone Pickens spent $24,026,256 to broadcast nine ads.

It all makes me remember a wackier time in political ads, when Hillary wrapped up some Christmassy goodness, and Bill Richardson gave a pretty stellar and funny job interview, and who can forget - "my plan to secure the border? Two words: Chuck. Norris.

What do you make of the differences in spending?

Source

Where Did the Current Economic Crisis Come From?

CitizenSugar — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:00:05 -0700

As closely as we've all been following the economic, um, situation, it's complicated enough that just when you think you've got a handle on it, you come up short. That's why I was delighted when Nurse DeAnna sent this video my way explaining the roots of the problem - that stretch all the way back to the Carter administration and the Community Reinvestment Act.

Now don't let the length of the video scare you off, it flies by - and sound not necessary, though the music is pretty good. It's a pretty Spurlocky breakdown of the whole history of the mortgage business complete with facts, figures, and encouragement to Google the details for yourself. The video plants a good deal of the end-blame square in Obama's lap, and since it's a compelling, though a not unpartisan look at the crisis, I'd love to know what you think. Does the video succeed in explaining it? Did you learn stuff - or are you fired up?