president-elect obamamania

check out "change.gov, the office of the president-elect"----i guess we can all be cynical about it, but you know how it is with ol' hopie---

they have a "citizen's briefing book," where people submit their ideas and they get voted up or down, just like on the teevee!!!

anyway there are some good ideas, most of which have already been discussed

We should pony up a few tens-of-billions -- or mare -- toward the development of new energy sources. This could include the effort to create successful nuclear fusion; the development of cheap, environmentally friendly fuel cells; research into more efficient photovoltaic cells; significant subsidies for homeowners who want to get off "the grid" by using geothermal, wind and solar power; investment into new, non-grain-based renewables such as switchgrass and industrial hemp; replacing diesel buses with LNG buses (short term), and, ultimately, light rails (longer term).

and, with almost as many votes:

Every city has countless pockets of real estate activity: a seperate area for residential space, another for commercial. You drive past miles and miles of stores before you see anywhere to live. Or past subdivision after subdivision before you see any retail. And far too many cities have 4, 6, or 8 lane highways with no way for pedestrians or people on bikes to cross without treat of death.

It's time to charge higher taxes for any developments that don't include mixed use spaces: let's stop encouraging developers to build spaces that are only good for one thing, and require us to drive miles for anything else. There are countless cities in Europe where people don't even need a car, because they can walk or take a train or bus. Americans deserve the same.

then we can take away their cars and their guns and make them live in ecologically friendly public housing and serve the state, don't you know---