Reminder: Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks August 12

Perseids will be at their peak just before midnight on Sunday August 12th until dawn.

You dont need to find the radiant to enjoy the show, but just in case -- Perseus will be above the horizon before midnight. You can find it here:

See more from EarthSky for details.

On campaign contributions and lobbying

We all know that politicians are bought and sold by special interests. No matter what party affiliation a politician is, someone is dropping that campaign contribution money into his/her "war chest", and that someone expects results to go a certain way once a politician is in office.

Now, I have a crazy idea. There are lots of details to be polished, but here it is in a nutshell: in order to prevent lobbying, finance federal elections from a federal budget. Sounds like another initiative that prolongs government waste, so prevalent in this country, doesn't it? But let's look at it closer.

1. Each contender gets an equal budget, say 50 million. (Small print -- there has to be a clause that says who is eligible for this and how). That way all contenders have an equal financial start.

2. Allocated budget is only available for EFTs, no cash withdrawals and funny stuff.

3. How they choose to direct that money is up to them, but of course, each penny of that money should be publicly tracked.

4. All hard and soft money donations from individuals, corporations, church groups and any other entities become illegal with severe civil or criminal penalties.

Wouldn't that reduce (I'm not hoping for removal) lobbying influence on politicians? If a Senator or President doesn't have to "bring the dough home" once elected, who knows, maybe he'll spend some time being useful to the country.

If you think 50M per candidate is a lot of money, consider the totals. Say we have 5 candidates in each big party's primaries, that's 500M, and say we're generous and give each primary winner another 50M to contend in national elections (say there are 5 parties). That's 750M total, once every four years, which is peanuts compared to tens of billions of tax dollars wasted on giving back to the contributors.

Or is this too crazy?

Однажды шёл домой, шатаясь...

Однажды шёл домой, шатаясь.
Был пьяный я и сильно злой.
Под деревом пройти пытаясь,
Я больно стукнулся башкой.

И ветку, что росла так низко,
Решенье принял - отпилить.
Поскольку дом был уже близко,
Пилу пошёл я раздобыть.

Домой придя, в шкафу порывшись,
Жену спросил я: <Где пила?
Она ж, глазами округлившись:
<Ей-богу, Коля, не пила!

Умом всех женщин Бог обидел.
Быть может, дело всё в еде?
Хоть я ответ уже предвидел,
Спросил я снова: <Пила где?

( Read more... )

Courtesy of zhazhda