LaserJock

Edubuntu at Ubuntu Open Week

My good friend Jorge Castro asked me to fill the last slot for Ubuntu Open Week. I’m a big fan of Open Weeks and participated in a few of the first ones. This time I’ll be talking about Edubuntu, one of most interesting and potentially impactful projects I’ve ever worked on. The session is November 4th at 15:00 UTC so please stop by if you’re interested in education or looking for nice little community to make a difference in.

Edubuntu Meeting

Coincidentally, the day after the Open Week presentation we’re having an Edubuntu meeting on IRC.
Where: #ubuntu-meeting on irc.freenode.net
When: 18:00 UTC on November 5th
What: check the agenda, but it will be broad pre-UDS discussion.

This is a great opportunity to get involved with Edubuntu and shape the future of an exciting project.

Politics

As I promised Jonathan Carter, I finally wrote a post on why I’m voting for John McCain. He wanted me to do it before the election, and I’m just barely making it. I was meaning to do it a long time ago but I’ve been busy trying to finish off my dissertation/PhD.

So when Gov. Palin was chosen by McCain as a running mate I posted a little blurb about being excited about his pick. The response was somewhat predictable (“How could you!?!?!”, “That’s not very Ubuntu”), but overall not as negative as I expected. However, I did have a number of my Ubuntu friends ask me why in the world I would support McCain/Palin. Most of them are not from the US and I suspect that’s some of it. So, I promised Jonathan Carter that I’d do a full post detailing why I’m voting the way I am and that I’d do so before the election. So here it goes.

First of all, I really need to talk both why I’m voting for McCain and why I’m not voting for Obama. I’d like to focus on the pros of McCain rather than the cons of Obama, but in all honesty, I’m think I’m still voting against Obama more than for McCain at this point so I’m going to have to do it to explain my reasoning. Since I don’t have enough space/time to detail every issue I’m picking out the few that really effect me in my decision:

Economy

McCain supports the supply-side economics of Reagan where taxes a held low (especially corporate and top marginal rates) while lowering/reforming federal spending. Obama favors basically the opposite, “spread the wealth” by increasing the taxes on the “rich” and lowering them for the “poor”. Though I’m in the “poor” category and would love to get a nice check in the mail, I consider Obama’s plan “trickle-up poverty” and not a plan that will produce a strong economy. I don’t think it’s wise to punish people who succeed and the fact of the matter is that corporations and wealthy people are already bearing most of the tax load, invest in our economy, and provide jobs to millions of Americans.

Obama talks a lot about things he thinks the government should be doing, but the only thing I’ve ever seen him say about paying for it is that he’s going to tax the rich so he can “redistribute”. The federal government is already enormous and we need more than a “scalpel”, as Obama puts it, to make significant changes. I don’t want government hand-outs, I want to keep more of the money I earn. I can’t put it any better than a hero of mine:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price… Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it’s not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work–work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it. — Ronald Reagan, 1st Inaugural Address

As I’ve looked at the economic plans, record, and history of Obama and McCain it sure seems to me that McCain fits that vision much better. Obama, with his “spread the wealth” undertones and socialized health-care, seems to be the antithesis what I’m after.

National Security

This one is sort of a no-brainer for me. Obama has no consistent Iraq policy that I can see, seems to think we can’t win on more than one front regarding Afghanistan, and doesn’t seem to take threats such as Iran seriously. Mostly I’ve seen Obama just jump on to whatever foreign policy bandwagon seems to be working at the moment and then claim he was right all along. Biden is at least as bad, given that he should have the experience.

McCain’s strong-point is national security. He’s not only been on the ground defending our country and a POW, but also has fought for a winning strategy in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other conflicts. He’s neither a warmonger nor a weakling.

Abortion

Obama supports abortion-on-demand, including partial-birth abortion, and Roe v. Wade. He was rated 100% by NARAL on pro-choice votes. McCain is pro-life, voted to ban partial-birth abortions and supports overturning Roe v. Wade so states decide. He’s rated 75% by the NRLC. I’m firmly pro-life and believe adoption/abstinence/prevention should be promoted and supported as the alternatives. even though I’m not too fond of McCain’s embryonic stem-cell stance, McCain and Palin score big points here for me.

Balance of Power

Even though I’m a registered Republican I do consider myself fairly independently-minded. I’d have no problem voting for a conservative Democrat if they were the better candidate. However, the idea of having Obama, Reid, and Pelosi in charge is downright scary (especially if Reid were to get 60 seats). The Democrat-led Congress has been an absolute disaster, I don’t see why they should get any more power. The Democrats have caused one of the largest economic crises in American history, despite efforts by President Bush, Sen. McCain, and others to right the ship. I see no reason to give them even more chances to send us down a path that leads to a weak defense, economic hardship, and corrupt government. We are better than that.

Conclusions

My basic conclusions in these last few days before the election are:

• This election is important. We choose pseudo-socialism or capitalism, belief in government-rule or self-rule, placation of dictators/terrorists or diplomacy through strength. We will also see the future of the Judicial branch of government set for many years to come.
• All politicians suck, McCain just sucks less. (to play off mutt)
• The makeup of Congress is hugely important. As much emphasis as we place on Presidential races, it’s the Senate and Congress that basically make the rules.
• I can’t wait until this is over …

Lots of things have been contributing to me feeling “information overload” lately. I’m working hard on my dissertation right now so I don’t have a lot of time to “waste” keeping up with everything. As the election gets closer here in the US I’m also trying to get as much information as I can on candidates and what’s going on in the political scene. Couple that with all the various, and awesome, ways to get information these days and sometimes I feel like my brain is going to explode. There’s online news, blogs, RSS, YouTube, Twitter, identi.ca, IM, and that ancient thing called email. The American people basically DoSed the House website on Monday and following trying to get at information.

So a few questions:

1. How do you keep from getting overloaded with information?
2. Would increased governmental transparency (i.e. citizens getting at the raw information rather than the filtered stuff you get on the news) be a good thing? or would we just get collective information overload?
3. How can we, as “technologists”, balance innovation (new ways to generate and retrieve data) with helping people get just the data that they need and in such a way that they can keep their sanity?

Part of the problem with information overload is having so many sources. I for one feel like I’m getting technology-induced ADD. I’m doing work, watching Gwibber for the latest “dents” and “twits”, talking to 3 people on Jabber, watching the Yahoo news headlines, … It’s certainly not very productive, but how do we cut down on focus-snatching without losing “connection” with the world around us and the people we interact with?