alex_mennen

Why or why not?

I know Pete Stark is the only openly atheist member of Congress. Are there any other atheist elected officials in appointed offices, state executive offices, state legislatures, etc.?

I've heard that Harry Reid put together a group of 10 democratic senators (5 liberals and 5 moderates) to negotiate a health care compromise. Who are the senators in this group?

With smooth water and an average car, how fast would it have to go? How awesome would it be if it worked?

I realize that realistically, there will not be a civil war in America in the foreseeable future. I'm just trying to come up with an at least semi-plausible explanation for the purposes of writing fiction.

Also, how do you think such a civil war would play out?

Do you think that the health care bill will be implemented through budget reconciliation? What would need to be done to get that to happen? Do you think that using budget reconciliation to implement a health bill is wrong?

Major candidates:

Gavin Newsome (D)

Jerry Brown (D)

Meg Whitman (R)

Steve Poizner (R)

Tom Campbell (R)

Who should each party nominate and who should win? Why?

I've been wondering what the difference between a head of state and head of government is, and I did some research, but I'm still a little confused. Here's what I found so far:

In presidential systems, like the U.S., the head of state and head of government are the same person. In parliamentary systems, like the UK, the head of state is a symbolic figurehead (usually a king or president), and the head of government has most of the executive power (usually a prime minister). In a "semi-presidential" system, the head of state and head of government are separate and both of them have some political authority.

So what exactly distinguishes head of state and head of government? Typically, in a government with both of them, how are each of them elected or appointed, what roles do each of them fill, how does the rest of the government interact with each of them, and how are clashes between them resolved?

I cannot view the site from my computer. I've tried from another computer on the same wireless connection and it worked. However, I cannot view it on my computer on any network.

I have no idea whether any of this is relevant, but in case it is, I'll mention it: My wireless network connection was labeled "not connected", even though it worked just fine for every other site. A while later, the wireless network connection indicator disappeared entirely. I rebooted, and now it admits that it is connected, but I still can't access the California government website. Can anyone give me some sort of clue what's going on or how I can fix it?