what if we started a Peace Department?

Sure, I'm not the originator of this idea. But the SS Comfort sitting off Haiti got me thinking once again. What if our Navy fleet was mostly hospital ships and freighters carrying water and food? I mean, there's hardly any military in the world that can get close to coming against us. Can't we slice off, say, 20% of the military's budget and use it to prepare to help the next country that has an earthquake, tsunami or whatever?

Imagine us as a country known for helping people, with no recompense. Who would care to attack us?

Move your money to a community bank!

http://moveyourmoney.info/

A movement is rapidly growing to give up on the banks that are Too Big to Fail, and turning to community banks, where service and accountability still exist. I wholeheartedly agree with this idea. We can vote with our money for which type of banking system we get; one run by fat cats who only care about their bonuses, or local people who care about service and the local community. It's an easy choice.

does technology help protesters or the government more?

An interesting debate is going on between Clay Shirkey, whose book "Here Comes Everybody" I used in my research on Anonymous, and Evgeny Morozov, a writer who often covers Internet issues. I'll list the urls of the debate in order, I hope:

Morozov critiques Shirkey's sunny view of technology:
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/11/how-dictators-watch-us-on-the-web/

Shirkey responds:
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/12/the-net-advantage/

Morozov responds:
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/01/why-the-internet-is-failing-irans-activists/

I'm on Shirkey's side here, but it's an excellent point to add that the government can just as easily use new technology as any protest that forms.