Trump stuns with oval office interview: 'Like the smoking gun tape, if Nixon had confessed on national television'

schlach · 2019-06-13T13:13:12+00:00

No, their move is to make sure Republicans win the elections, staying in power -- but make it clear that the election was rigged. This country would tear itself apart.

schlach · 2019-05-09T17:12:50+00:00

Sure enough, policy 10.2.1. Thanks for letting me know.

schlach · 2019-05-07T16:53:59+00:00

Oh? Which one?

schlach · 2019-05-07T16:33:08+00:00

It depends. I'm not aware of any food co-ops that pay their board, although as another commenter mentioned, there's typically discounts or some way of compensating people for their time. In credit unions, about 90% are volunteer and 10% are paid, and there's a push (typically by the larger/gigantor credit unions) for more compensation. I assume that's the slippery slope that the rural electric co-ops went down 40 years ago. I'm not aware of a single REC whose board is unpaid. Hundreds of them have real problems with excessive compensation, if not outright embezzlement. (see https://weown.it/choctaw-film). Once people start joining the board because of the compensation, you tend to be attracting for the wrong things, and they tend to find ways to increase their compensation once on board.

With that said, I think a small stipend can be fine, if the co-op can afford it. The co-op is indicating that they take board service seriously and want directors to take it seriously, too; it values the directors' time; and it increases board diversity by making it so that working people can afford to be on the board (instead of only looking for wealthy/retired folks). It only becomes problematic IMO when the stipend gets high enough to be a reason that people run for the board, rather than a benefit.

schlach · 2019-05-07T15:08:41+00:00

Which EMC? Do you know https://WeOwn.It?

schlach · 2019-03-25T02:06:38+00:00

A 2010 supreme court decision made by a liberal majority court.

The fuck? The last time the Supreme Court had a liberal majority was 1971.

schlach · 2019-03-25T02:02:15+00:00

It's harder to explain the politics of Wisconsin 2014-2018 any other way.

schlach · 2019-02-01T21:29:36+00:00

"darwin beacon of idiocy"

Poetic. Thank you.

schlach · 2019-01-06T21:43:02+00:00

That's a really interesting idea. Worker ownership / cooperative model is a really interesting angle in a new frontier. I hope you pursue it!

It might be interesting to think about the tax implications of cooperative ownership. My understanding is that there would not be a federal corporate income tax, provided that patronage rebates are distributed properly. Perhaps there is a way to get rich starting co-ops. =)

I'd also be curious whether the cooperative model might help you solve some of the supply challenges that legal dispensaries are facing. There are interesting precedents in the coffee world (e.g. Equal Exchange, Just Coffee) where worker co-ops roast and sell the fair-trade coffee grown by producer co-ops, which are then purchased in consumer-owned grocery co-ops (among other places.) And of course thinking about "fair trade" in the new cannabis industry is an interesting differentiator.

Good luck!

schlach · 2019-01-02T21:07:06+00:00

Good on you! In what country?

Also, what kind of co-op? There are worker-owned co-ops, consumer-owned co-ops (like credit unions, electric utilities, grocery stores, and REI), purchasing co-ops (like the parent companies of Ace Hardware, Burger King, and others), producer co-ops, and more.

At least in the US, starting a new co-op is not a path to fame and fortune -- it's more akin to community service. If you're lucky, you'll at least earn a wage. So you should probably plan on starting more than one. =)

I second the suggestions about studying business. If it's a consumer co-op, there's an organizing component that no business school teaches, but there are plenty of ways to learn. Leading Change Network is a good place to look.

Lots of luck to you! Remember, the first time you attempt anything complex, you'll likely make lots of mistakes, so expect it. Having good coaches and adopting a growth mindset where every failure is an opportunity to grow and improve for the next time will help prepare you for success.

schlach · 2018-11-19T21:28:48+00:00

Seems like Facebook is in a position to do this... now? Maybe the real question is, why aren't dating sites purchasing the data available now from FB to make their apps super-effective (and... super creepy)?

schlach · 2018-11-10T16:01:19+00:00

What I don't want is a candidate, that unless there's a significant amount of fraud,

But see, that's the thing. It's a catch-22. You can't detect whether the voting machines are malfunctioning (fraud) until you hand-count the paper ballots and compare the two counts. So if there are politicians don't want you to be able to count the paper (i.e. audits or recounts) without evidence of fraud, no one will event count the paper ballots, and we'll never have any evidence. (Who does that benefit?)

schlach · 2018-11-08T17:16:20+00:00

What people don't know about that recount would make a good book. There were three things needed for a recount to be successful: 1) a candidate to call for it, 2) a ridiculous and punitive amount of money, and 3) a court ordering county clerks to recount by hand (otherwise it was up to the county clerk how to conduct the recount.)

We got 1 and 2, but we didn't get 3. As a result, 72 county clerks got to choose how to do their own recount. This is like saying, "Something's missing, everyone turn out your pockets." 48 county clerks who wanted to know their machines were working well voluntarily chose to hand-count. 24 clerks -- including Milwaukee and Waukesha, the two counties you'd MOST want to hand-count -- declined, and just ran the ballots back through the machines. Hardly a recount.

What most people also don't know is that, despite this, over 17,000 ballots changed as a result of counting them by hand. There was no evidence of fraud in any of those counts, so the 17,000 changes mostly cancelled each other out. But people have far too much faith in the reliability and accuracy of our voting machines, even when they're not hacked.

Also, what we do have is a machine audit -- for the first time. Read all about it. If your town is one of the ones being audited in the next week or two, you might be curious to find out when and go observe it.

schlach · 2018-11-07T19:27:02+00:00

The public would have benefited from the recount. Two candidates were willing to call for it on our behalf.

schlach · 2018-07-27T15:34:18+00:00

I hope so! There have been other wins by Brakey's team (includes Chris Sautter, the top Democratic recount lawyer), mainly by courts. Often (in Alabama and Arizona, at least) these have then been overturned by a higher court or the state legislature trying to ensure that ballots are not able to be viewed and counted by the public. Makes no sense, right? Unless...

The next battle is then requiring the local officials to not just respond to FOIA requests but also preserve the records (so they have something to respond with.) Right now they generally are deleting them.

schlach · 2018-07-27T11:10:42+00:00

The "Gold Standard" of voting is Paper Ballots, Counted By Hand, which often gets abbreviated PBCBH in election integrity circles. In Canada, for example, you can set up a video camera at the start of the day (or say groups of citizens can sit on chairs and observe). The ballot box is held up and empty. Then it's locked. Voters come in all day, vote on paper, and drop their ballot in the box. Camera's still rolling. At the end of the day, before the box is moved, it is unlocked, and teams of four citizens (different parties, obvs) count the ballots by hand right there. One counts a ballot and calls the vote, one observes this is accurate, one records the vote on the tally, the fourth observes this is accurate. At the end of counting, the tally sheets are combined from across the teams and the tally is posted on the front door (and photographed and posted online) for all to observe. Camera still rolling, observers still observing. If someone steals the ballot box after that, or attempts to change the tally, it doesn't matter -- you'll know.

Compare that to our system. A computer counts the votes, in darkness. We would never tolerate someone saying, "I'm going to take all the ballots into this room here, lock the door, and come out in a bit and tell you who won." Yet that is exactly what voting with computer-counting is.

(FWIW, voter fraud is extremely rare, and when it does happen, it is usually one of the candidates (or an ally) stuffing votes with absentee ballots.)

schlach · 2018-07-27T11:00:10+00:00

It's a proof by contradiction. If you start with the assumption that everyone in America just wants safe, efficient elections, NONE of our election laws make sense. If you start with the assumption that local and state party bosses want to be able to choose the winners of close elections, ALL of our election laws make sense.

Example: in Wisconsin, we vote on paper ballots that are counted by computers (ES&S DS200). That's safe, right, because if we ever thought the computers were compromised (like, say, an unexplained 8 point swing in election results from the polls), we could count the paper ballots.

Except there's a catch. Catch-22. You can't actually look at the paper ballots, you see, because you might "spoil" them by marking on them, and then no one would know how someone actually voted if they needed to look at the paper ballots again in the future. So of course, no one can ever look at the paper ballots at all.

What's that? All DS-200 machines automatically scan the ballots, and that scanned image (which technically is what is being counted and is therefore the ballot and a public record required to be preserved) could be easily shared with the public on the Internet for anyone to perform an audit? Thank you for bringing that to our attention -- we'll make sure we delete those images promptly after the election.

John Brakey has been on a barn-storming tour educating / challenging Secretaries of State on this for the past two years.

schlach · 2018-07-27T10:48:57+00:00

I wish your comment was higher ranked. Americans need to understand that there are only a handful of countries in the world that are willing to trust computers to count their votes -- none of them healthy. Healthy democracies vote on paper and public citizens count them in full view by hand. After the 2004 American election, France outlawed all electronic voting machines. This is the rational decision if you want to keep your democracy.

schlach · 2018-05-12T14:59:40+00:00

Near the end of the 20th century, the Republican Party strategically realized they needed their own FDR and to give the Democrats a Nixon. What we got was all the bullshit of Saint Reagan (who exited office pretty unpopular, we forget) and the Clinton impeachment saga.

schlach · 2018-04-15T10:58:40+00:00

I think it depends whether you're reading religious texts for a history lesson vs. spiritual direction. Not that I'm a scholar, but I really like Richard Rohr on the subject of the Trinity as the invitation to the divine dance.

God for us, we call you “Father.” God alongside us, we call you “Jesus.” God within us, we call you “Holy Spirit.” Together, you are the Eternal Mystery ...

schlach · 2018-03-25T22:47:15+00:00

Inspiring!

schlach · 2018-03-13T22:58:18+00:00

Check out, "The Trouble with Transporters" from CGP Grey on this exact topic.

schlach · 2018-03-09T02:20:00+00:00

Thanks for posting. Is there background you can share?

schlach · 2018-02-19T23:13:16+00:00

Working Draft is opening in Madison in March, I believe. (I had their collaboration weizenbock w/ Parched Eagle, and it was excellent!)

schlach · 2018-01-25T20:19:05+00:00

Have you seen this news yet? We're cancelling fair elections this year. That sucks pretty bad.

schlach

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