<story><title>Anonymous message to NATO</title><url>http://circleof13.blogspot.com/2011/06/anonymous-message-to-nato.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nextparadigms</author><text>I can&apos;t believe the Government is actually trying to defend HBGary after all that has been revealed about them. Are they doing it because they hired them to do all that? I suppose it wouldn&apos;t be much different than how they reacted in the Wikileaks case then. They&apos;d do anything to protect themselves regardless of how ethical or unethical it is.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I also wonder if the way our democracy currently works has become obsolete. We vote for some people every 4 years and then they can basically do whatever they want, with the only repercussion being that their actions might be revealed to the press, and in some cases some scandals will be created, though rarely. If they&apos;re unlucky the people will vote for the other party on the next election. But does that truly matter if basically the parties are pretty much one and the same?&lt;p&gt;I think we&apos;ll eventually need a &quot;Liquid Democracy&quot; (perhaps sooner than expected). A democracy where decisions can be influenced by the people a lot more often than they are now, and the people can have a much more immediate impact on a politician&apos;s career or a Government if they screw up.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cjoh</author><text>The problem really is procurement. If there&apos;s any thing I wish this community would understand, it&apos;s that.&lt;p&gt;See -- big government contractors have things locked up. They make campaign contributions to members of congress who create regulations that make it so that they&apos;re the only ones who can compete in an open competition. At the same time, Government has effectively replaced a substantial portion of its operational employees with contractors. I&apos;ve met tech teams, for instance, for all major agencies, and have yet to meet an actual programmer that works for the government, with the exception of &lt;i&gt;some&lt;/i&gt; but very few, in the defense community. Heck, even the armed guards who control access to our federal buildings are contractors rather than civil servants.&lt;p&gt;A lot of our issues revolve around procurement. Why did whitehouse.gov cost 12 Million dollars when BarackObama cost $1.2? Procurement. Recovery.gov? 18Million. Why? Only a handful giant companies were allowed to bid.&lt;p&gt;Why isn&apos;t congress talking about procurement reform when they&apos;re all about budget cuts?&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://influenceexplorer.com/organization/lockheed-martin/5516ba695ba741ab9f6ff35627621297&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://influenceexplorer.com/organization/lockheed-martin/55...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://influenceexplorer.com/organization/lockheed-martin/5516ba695ba741ab9f6ff35627621297&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://influenceexplorer.com/organization/lockheed-martin/55...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://influenceexplorer.com/organization/general-dynamics/4438cca4c4ae4715b1bf348629b68cc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://influenceexplorer.com/organization/general-dynamics/4...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://influenceexplorer.com/organization/northrop-grumman/6a2f5a216da4454198a2265b4955ff5d&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://influenceexplorer.com/organization/northrop-grumman/6...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s a messed up system that makes it so that government has to spend $93 Million Dollars a year on SharePoint when, for let&apos;s say 10% of those cases, they could be spending $200/mo on BaseCamp.</text></comment>
<story><title>Anonymous message to NATO</title><url>http://circleof13.blogspot.com/2011/06/anonymous-message-to-nato.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nextparadigms</author><text>I can&apos;t believe the Government is actually trying to defend HBGary after all that has been revealed about them. Are they doing it because they hired them to do all that? I suppose it wouldn&apos;t be much different than how they reacted in the Wikileaks case then. They&apos;d do anything to protect themselves regardless of how ethical or unethical it is.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I also wonder if the way our democracy currently works has become obsolete. We vote for some people every 4 years and then they can basically do whatever they want, with the only repercussion being that their actions might be revealed to the press, and in some cases some scandals will be created, though rarely. If they&apos;re unlucky the people will vote for the other party on the next election. But does that truly matter if basically the parties are pretty much one and the same?&lt;p&gt;I think we&apos;ll eventually need a &quot;Liquid Democracy&quot; (perhaps sooner than expected). A democracy where decisions can be influenced by the people a lot more often than they are now, and the people can have a much more immediate impact on a politician&apos;s career or a Government if they screw up.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nodata</author><text>Mark Thomas&apos; book &quot;The People&apos;s Manifesto&quot;* suggests making political promises prior to entering elected office legally binding.&lt;p&gt;* &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People%27s_Manifesto&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People%27s_Manifesto&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>