The internet supposedly has a permanent memory, but opinion polls on an Australian Republic are exceptionally difficult to find. The Pandora Archive has some from
an archive of the Australian Republican Movement website
. But they aren't specific on whether people want to vote for the Head of State or not, and how they want the Head of State to be elected. This is one problem with making the Republic popular, the other is what to do with the powers of the Executive.
So what do people want? Polling is the best means to determine this, and there isn't that much information at our fingertips to see what resonates with public opinion. Do people want to elect the Head of State (I am guessing yes)? What do they want the Head of State called? How do they want the Head of State to perform their duties?
This is the area where public opinion needs to be tapped for the wisest, and most popular outcome.
The other problem, which is probably better done by specialists, is what to do with the Executive. By specialists, I mean *not politicians*, their role in this would be too selfish.
We have several problems in our system. The Constitution is supposed to be a reflection of the will of the people and set the limits on legislative authority. Courtesy of Griffiths, Barton et al, we have crap constitution which has not been able to restrain federal excess, or legislative tyranny.
A Bill of Rights is a necessity in Australia to place legislative limits on the House and Senate.
The other is that we have poor separation of powers. Government is divided into three arms, Executive, Legislative and Judicial. The legislative makes laws, the executive executes or enforces those laws and the judicial interprets the laws.
In Australian Parliament, the executive and legislative are both contained in the House. The Prime Minister can make a tyrannous law, fund the enforcement of that tyrannous law and then oversee its enforcement. Between a weak constitution and poor separation of powers, we have seen parliament abuse their authority blatantly and with devastating social effect in the past.
The question of what to do with the executive, especially if the people want to be actively involved in the process of selection and election of the Head of State are going to have to be answered.
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
