The US presidential nomination and election system is profoundly undemocratic. The primary problem is money aka corporate power or capitalism.

The primary/caucus process varies greatly by state and the differences are HUGE. Delegates can be directly chosen by the primary, or there can be a process which requires a county convention followed by a state convention. Delegates can be bound (required to vote for a candidate) or completely unbound.

The Democratic nomination process is more democratic than the Republican one as it makes greater use of proportional voting.

Occupy Philadelphia is having a ten-part series on Dissecting Capitalism. It is organized by the Education and Training committee.

Zillow.com is an incredible website for anyone who is considering buying a house in the US, a renter who wants to understand the rental market, or just wants to know how much their house might be worth.

A realtor will have access to a database that includes more information (notably a more detailed history of the listings and sales for a property), but Zillow still has an amazing level of detail.

There is an amazing website Urban Research Maps that lets you see how racial demographics have changed on a block level over the past ten years - between the 2000 and 2010 census.

It has data for only part of the United States, but this data includes PA, NY and several other major states.

My neighborhood in 2000

A first edition of a new publication about the Occupy Movement: Occupy Theory

Read it!

I strongly recommend reading Seven Weeks of Occupy Santa Rosa. So far this is the best case study I've seen of an Occupy Movement.

(Note: this article is currently being written. It is a draft! Added Campus Activism events analysis section on March 20, 2012.)

How much do social movements depend on good weather for their success?

Will the Occupy Movement be able to survive the winter? If so, when will it come back a full-strength?

To answer these questions, I examine several indicators of social movement strength over time. I focus on the United States as it generally (outside of Hawaii, some territories, and parts of the West Coast) has a strong variation in temperature between summer and winter.

Late Tuesday night I was hanging out in my kitchen and I mentioned to one of my roommates that there was a significant peak in Twitter rumors that the police were going to evict Occupy Philly.

I took it with a big grain of salt. After all it was Twitter, the rumors fly like crazy, and people love to say that you cannot predict when the police will come!

I finished cooking, went back to my computer and as I ate my food I realized that there was an eviction in process. I then biked down to the Occupation and marched around for the next three hours.

Most participants recognize that the Occcupy Movement needs to evolve. The question is how?

A Tactic is NOT a Strategy
We should be flexible with our tactics, while we continue to work for the same set of goals (economic equality, democracy, and justice for all).