732 results found
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Medical marijuana users are't criminals, stop prosecuting!
Honestly, I could care less if I ever got to smoke marijuana in my life, but I do care that thousands of people each year are being arrested after using the worlds safest and most natural drug for their illnesses including: cancer (chemotherapy), AIDS, nausea, fever, glaucoma, Crohn's, migraines, etc.
Medical marijuana patients are NOT criminals, stop wasting the justice department's resources by prosecuting and incarcerating those who use it.
Simply moving the drug to schedule II (even though I believe it has a very low chance of psychological dependence) would solve so many issues.
Marijuana does not cause cancer,…
14 votes -
Restructure the legal penalties for convicted drug offenders
Review and reassess the current policies regarding the failed "War on Drugs". Develop a comprehensive, federal guideline for sentencing that incoroprates rehabilitation, follow-up treatment and community service in place of prison time for convicted drug offenders.
14 votes -
direct all agencies to implement virtualization technology
The CTO should ensure that all executive agency CIO/CTOs consolidate hardware in their server and desktop environments, to the extent possible, and use virtualization software.
Under this plan, hardware costs could be lowered significantly and systems administration maintenance would be minimized.
14 votes -
50% Oil by 2025
Set up a man on the moon type mission to get to this goal. (NASA spent roughly $25 billion between 1961 and 1972 to put astronauts on the moon after John F. Kennedy issued his challenge.)
13 votes -
Bring Government IT Operations back "in-house"
Many, if not most, federal IT projects and their subsequent operation are handled by contractors and vendors. While the individuals managing these services are quite competent, the management overhead and inflexibility brought about by the contractor management process makes these operations very inflexible and slow to change.
Bringing these operations back in-house and building an engineering driven organization that can move quickly to provide serve the quickly changing technology needs could save billions in wasted money and time.
13 votes -
Secure the Networks used in the US
The Department of Homeland Security has failed to secure the network infrastructure of the US. We need to implement nationwide intrusion detection systems, trojan, virus, and botnet hunting mechanisms. This suggestion is similar to "Protect the internet by requiring ISPs to stop botnets". Just try to get the FBI to investigate a "pump and dump" cam. They need resources and they need help from the cyberwarfare center to do it. Make it a national priority, and save us millions of man hours and billions of dollars.
13 votes -
Free beer for all programmers
A federally-issued beer stipend for citizens aged 21 years and over would undoubtedly result in a surge in open source software development, increasing the likelihood of government entities transitioning to open solutions as they become more robust and secure.
13 votes -
Location Location Location
While its great to think about what the top priorities of a Obama administration CTO can be, the only way to achieve them is to make sure he or she is located high enough in the administration. Only with the ear of the President, and the authority to make sure the entire Executive Branch gets a 21st century reboot, will any of the suggestions on this list get any serious traction.
12 votes -
Bring back the electric car
If we are going to bail out automotive companies, then they should be required to develop electronic car technology to help this nation remove our dependence on oil.
12 votes -
Create a national registry of medical records.
A national registry of medical records will ensure that a patient's medical history is always available to clinicians, especially during medical emergencies. Safeguards will be used to ensure patients' privacy.
12 votes -
12 votes
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Connect UPC barcodes and the Internet
People shop frequently online, but the products they desire might be just a few blocks away. If there is a system for locating the item by essentially geo-tagging inventories using bar scanners one could locate anything with a UPC code. If UPC barcodes had a global management system people could reliably know how to locate any item by distance and even price. Possibly even know if the item is in stock.
This would be saving on shipping, help all merchants get visibility if they carry the product, and balance unfair pricing.
Pricing accountability is no different then online shopping --…
12 votes -
Establish a Geographic Information Officer
The Geographic Information Officer (GIO) simplifies graphic relationships of information using advanced spatial data analyses, creates business intelligence for programs so they can know where their business is...resources, workforce, facilities…in terms of jurisdictions, markets, partners…and explain why outcomes vary…or could be changed. The GIO improves government’s ability to detect, plan, prepare, and respond. The common data is graphical depictions of natural or manmade physical features, phenomena, or earth boundaries. The GIO develops geospatial business cases with customers. plans and coordinates geospatial information capacity, assist in geo-enabled data and decision structuring, reports and publishes geographic products and analyses, creates interagency geospatial…
12 votes -
be a proven systems builder, not an entrepreneur
Do we - as taxpayers - concentrate on seeding thousands of startups, and wait for our salvation to sprout in the form of a few wildly innovative winners? Or do we focus on improving our infrastructure by helping existing companies make their operations and supply chains more reliable and energy efficient? Otherwise said, do we trust entrepreneurs or system builders to help us make the step from a relatively simple, disconnected world to a very complex, highly connected one?
The challenges we face are so fundamentally global and systemic that we should hand the reins to the systems builders from…
12 votes -
use search engine results to track public health risks
The CDC should partner with search engine providers to compile and track data on disease-related search results. This data would allow sharper tracking of diseases as they move through the population and has been done well by Google tracking the flu already.
11 votes -
Support technical education
The nation's future is created by kids. I prefer smart, broadly-educated kids do this work versus narrow-minded, uneducated fools.
11 votes -
Encourage broadband competition in all markets
Without competition in broadband market, providers will have little impetus to expand speed, reliability, availability, or cost of services. Encouraging competition will foment technological improvements, expanded availability, and pro-consumer rates.
11 votes -
Extend range of Paratransit services past county boundaries
Disabled people are limited to commute within our county's Paratransit service borders, which limits us to job opportunities, and/or social activities to within our own county.
Paratransit services should extend into adjacent counties, and if a county within one state borders a county within another state, the disabled passanger(s) should be able to cross state lines in either direction with just one Paratransit service instead of having to transfer / make double reservations with another State and County Paratransit service (if it exists at all in the other state's county).
Life is difficult enough for people with disabilities; let's do…
11 votes -
Require ISPs to disclose all bandwidth caps and limitations
Require all internet service providers (ISPs) to make all information regarding bandwidth caps and limitations easily accessible to the general public. All limitations should be clear both before a user signs-up with an ISP and while the user is in a contract with the ISP.
Details of bandwidth limitations should include any special limitations that depend on the type of data, the protocol, or the remote website or network. For example, any special limitations for streaming video or torrents must be include. Any limitations of email messages or other messaging protocols must be included. Any limitations that are specific to…
11 votes -
Drive a transition to sustainable energy technologies
The U.S. currently derives about 83% of its energy from fossil fuels. The cost of energy is subsidized with tax dollars, with the majority going to fossil fuels. With sensible government policies and funding, renewable and sustainable energy sources, most notably wind and solar, could dominate the U.S. energy market by 2030, greatly reducing American's carbon footprint and alleviating the cost impacts of declining fossil fuel reserves. With no fuel costs to contend with, the main driver for sustainable energy costs is capital investment. With technologies still young, companies not fully capitalized and markets small, significant returns on investment are…
11 votes