Where the title came from

Some of you may be wondering, so here it is.

The title of this blog comes from the old Answer Table seen at many a store.

Answer Table
Answers ......................................................$1
Answers which require thought ...................$2
Correct Answers ........................................$4
Dumb Looks ...............................................Still Free!

And when I have the time I will post some items that just need dumb looks...

Corporate Citizenship, give them rights and responsibilities!

It is interesting that legally, corporations can be thought of as individuals or citizens.

This is a wonderful bit of legal fiction which I would propose to expand upon! Really make a corporation a citizen!

How would a corporation qualify for this? Well, obviously, it would have to be incorporated within the United States and have its Headquarters and all governing meetings within the United States. Its CEO and/or governing board must all be US citizens. For doing this, what does it get?

• First, it gets the franchise! It gets a single vote in the district where its headquarters is located!
• Second, it gets all restrictions upon individuals for campaign finance donations placed upon it, along with the reporting requirements of campaigns to report them.
• Third, it gets the income tax and eliminates the corporate tax code!

Now, because corporations can be so long-lived, they do need one little thing to keep them in line.

• Three-strikes law for corporations. If any corporation, its governing body or anyone acting in capacity of that corporation gets convicted of a felony while in such capacity, that is also considered a single strike against that corporation. After three strikes, the corporation is dissolved *entirely* and it may not be re-incorporated in any manner after it is dis-corporated. All holdings, goods, intellectual property and other items are sold at auction with the shares going to pay off all corporate debt, first, then the remainder divided amongst shareholders *exluding* the board and CEO and all governing individuals within that corporation. This would be put in place for all felony proceedings started after the imposition of this law.

Of course this will never go anywhere... but... mmmmmmm... large corporations would have to get serious about its wrong doings and a simple three felony of the "slap on the wrist in club-fed" kind becomes a death sentence for the corporation. That should soon get us 'responsible' corporations that take their viewpoints on citizenship and social responsibility seriously.

Intelligent? Design??

First off, I am a trained geologist who has studied some paleontology and did some class work on extinctions and life form selectivity. Still, I am willing to give any scientific idea a fair shake, if it can stand up to scientific reasoning.

Second, I continued keeping up with extinction theory and selectivity of life based on climactic conditions.

Finally, I am separating out the actual 'designed life' from the 'seeding of life' and the anthropic (or at least intelligence allowable) universe theory. Those latter two are either: a) begging the question, or, b) entirely philosophical in nature. What I am looking at is the entire 'life is so complex it needs to have been created' concept.

Got it?

Onwards and outwards!

Lets take a look at the premise of Intelligent Design:

• "The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID is thus a scientific disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary theory that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion. "

This concept is not a new one, and, in fact, Creation Biology was around far before evolutionary theory. The current idea of Irreducible Complexity is an attempt to say that there are some elements of organisms that cannot be reduced in complexity and are, perforce, designed. These are Teleological Arguments, that attempt to say that by defining one thing as wrong with an existing theory that the entire structure of existing theory must be wrong and need to be replaced. Indeed, William Paley made similar arguments to to the modern ones in the late 18th and early 19th century. By seeing end results, they can only see design work inherent in the end result. There are a few touchstones that are commonly used to put this theory forward, basically structural ones on the function and biological role of body parts.

The oldest argument comes from eye structure, arguing that all of the components of the eye work so well together that there is no way that they could have been independently developed. As an example the human retina within the eye is held out to be of optimal design. The gross arguments, however, boil down to optimally functioning eyes not to be in the mammalia but in the cephalopodia. Just by a gross structural analysis and comparison, the human eye has many deficits. Any good electrical engineer, when designing a photo-receptive device will put the wires to actually power the device behind the photoreceptive material so as to not block absorption of light. While cephalopods have this as a feature, humans to not, and we get a wonderful view of our blood vessels in sudden bright light. This would not happen if they were put behind the retina as any competent designer would do. Another point is the human blind spot, being the point where the nerve bundle feeds into the optic nerve. This is purely structural phenomenon and is not present in many insects and cephalopods, but is in humans. Just on a gross, operational viewpoint, if this was a designed structure, it would have to be graded as sub-optimal.

Now for a bit of deeper analysis into other aspects of Intelligent Design. By claiming that the design is Intelligent and more than just 'good enough to get along', those putting forth the theory are forced into a corner about genetic variation and inheritable diseases. Now, unless you are one to say that genetic diseases of the eye are some sort of retribution or 'test' of mere mortals, one is hard put to understand the function of these things for various body parts. The body, as a whole, has an immune system particularly apt to trip over itself and start attacking its own cells that still serve a useful function, and disregard others that have gone rampant. There are two broad disease classes for these. The first are autoimmune diseases, such as Type 1 diabetes, Lupus, Optic Neuritis (that wonderful eye again), and Multiple Sclerosis. The second is known as cancer. There are other diseases and classes that would fall into this area, but these two are a direct result of a poorly functioning immune system. If anything deserves to be damn well designed, it better be the immune system of an organism. A good encoding of an immune system would have it track and catalog known diseases, have some sort of checksum analysis of cells to determine if they are functioning well or not within a body and yet be flexible enough to attack new diseases as they evolve.

Yes, diseases evolve, even the Intelligent Design people admit that, having seen it demonstrated in laboratory conditions. Easy to breed strains of things that have lifecycles measured in hours. and by applying statistical analysis, one can come up with frequency of end results in nature. So the immune system has to be complex, stable, adaptable and yet still not attack the body it is protecting, save to clean up dead or misguided cells. Note that on the plus side of the design theory is the multi-layered structure of the immune system. A complex and adaptive way of keeping problems at bay. And yet there is interference between layers which can actually cause disease and disease-like problems. Further, against things like prions and malformed protein structures, it seems to be blind. So it has limits in its adaptability against problems already known in the environment. For such problems in structure, between layers within the structure, blindness to clearly present environmental dangers and actually being harmful to a statistically important number of individuals, the immune system clearly falls short of minimal design specifications of functioning properly for all individuals.

Now onto genetic variation. Perhaps different things like eyecolor and such are just random chance put in by a designer to offer interesting differences between individuals. And different structural components, say within the eye, are...? Well the eye is supposed to be optimally designed, and to have all the necessary components for functioning properly and be structurally sound. Something like the retina actually doesn't vary much from individual to individual, and surely there are no large changes in perceptual capabilities between individuals. Putting aside blindness due to structural malformation, which can naturally occur, we come to a more serious problem of individual with tetrachromatic vision and colorblindness.

Now, what sort of Designer goes about making something that goes awry either for the better or worse? And why would a Designer do so? Why isn't the damned structure set up so that in functional parts it doesn't vary? And of course if you remove something like the lens, say, vision will get worse... unless it gets better, which has happened in the case of colleague I met 3 years ago when I was looking into other forms of receptivity. Some sufferers of cataracts also have demonstrably better vision than they did before having cataracts. It would seem that the lens, so necessary for functioning, can be removed and actually *improve* the design. Intelligent? Design?

The quick course on scientific theories.

First off, a scientific theory must not only explain a class or group of phenomenon, but it must do so consistently across that class or grouping. Also, any new theory must not only encompass all previous work, but explain problems with that previous model and give a consistent and expanded view of those previous models.

• One of the prime examples of this is Relativity. Previous Newtonian mechanics, which had done a wonderful job of explaining such things as orbital mechanics of the planets and other celestial bodies, was showing problems on the large scale (particularly the orbit of Mercury) and when velocities were approaching those of half the speed of light. Relativity not only explained those problems and shifted the frame of reference, but included all of Newtonian work retaining its mathematical setup with provisos on where it breaks down and why. Relativity mathematics can be used for all of Newtonian mechanics.

Second, a theory must predict things that have not been measure or explain anomalies showing up in other areas of endeavor. In doing so, the theory will regularize its new framework across existing work and into new areas.

• Again, Relativity made prediction on how light acts in a gravity field, the dynamics of matter in very condensed states and gave a theoretical underpinning for why the speed of light is an absolute limit and what happens when masses approach that limit.

Third, a theory must be falsifiable. This means that it can be shown to have limits or can be tested under conditions in which the theory predicts one thing and the actual results show something different.

• The limits of Relativity have proven to be at the Quantum scale and in establishing a Grand Unified Theory of forces in the universe. Anything that supplants Relativity must not only take it into account, but fix the problems it has and expand the field of knowledge by making predictions within its framework that can be tested. If the tests do not run as predicted, then the theory would prove to be inconsistent and not explain things better.

That is the short and sweet of scientific theories. So, is the concept of Intelligent Design rigorous enough to not only encapsulate all of Evolutionary theory, but expand upon it and make predictions that have not been looked for or otherwise be falsifiable?

On the first count, Intelligent Design, by not properly encompassing variation within populations nor the propagation of such variations does not pass the first test of encompassing Evolutionary theory. Problems in structural design of organs, overall use of body-wide systems and explaining the utility of multiple copies of genes in a genome are not well covered by Intelligent Design, but easily so by Evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory explains why certain genetic traits are retained and others not over time. In particular, genetic analysis of life forms is proving out how genes and genetic material move within groups to cause species to occur. By including an inheritance mechanism and making it a part of Evolutionary theory, we gain understanding of commonality between species in families on the tree of life. This has spurred development of such things as Cladistics, which does an excellent job of tracing common ancestry through speciation events and pointing to genetic factors as the underlying causes.

On the second count, Intelligent Design, by not encompassing problems in Evolutionary theory and incorporating such things as genetic analyses, conservation of some genes over others and variations does not expand the basis of knowledge nor offer areas into which new predictions can be made. Evolution is testable via morphology of species, genetic testing within groups of similar species and by explaining differential heredity of mutations over time. By offering mechanisms by which this things happen and why they happen, Evolutionary theory both answers and explains such things and predicts that this is an ongoing process that can be understood and measured. Intelligent Design must, perforce, encompass areas ranging from basic chemistry and biochemistry, inheritance mechanism, explain how inherited traits are expressed, explain how variations arise in species populations, offer a means and methodology for how speciation occurs, take into consideration environment and habitat, and, most of all explain anomalies in the current theory while encompassing it and making it a subset of this new theory. From that new theory it must offer testable insights into genetics, mutations, inheritance, biochemistry, environment and speciation events.

Finally, Intelligent Design must be falsifiable in its predictions. As it stands Intelligent Design offers an answer (i.e. species were intelligently designed) without an explanation that offers insight into scientific areas of knowledge. Further, by not stating what that Intelligent Design actor actually *is*, it does not offer falsifiability. What is the nature of this Designer? That must be clearly stated, be it a Deity or set thereof, space aliens or some blind thinking force within the universe. It must give mechanisms for how that Design work is carried out, how and why it changes over time and, finally, make testable predictions on how to better understand and duplicate such work. It must also make predictions on future changes based on the understanding of its work. Intelligent Design must do *all* of that and *still* retain Evolutionary theory as a subset of itself or offer a better set of understandings for why evolution happens.

If Evolution is an "illusion", then Intelligent Design needs to step up to the plate on biochemistry, genetics, inheritance, speciation, extinction, morphology, and variations within populations and environmental response of all of that to a changing environment. It must, basically, supplant all knowledge in those areas with something a damn sight better than Evolutionary theory. And *still* be testable, verifiable, predictable and falsifiable. Intelligent Design may be a philosophy, but it is not science by those standards. Evolutionary theory is a science by those standards.

Some random thoughts on ghost hunting and hauntings

It is interesting to live in the modern era and see such things as A Haunting, which gives you a weekly dose of haunted places, people, things and other para-phenomena. I particularly love seeing folks hauling old reel-to-reel tape recorders and large bulky equipment around with them, while having a laptop in front of them capable of running some relatively low-end software that would put most tape recorders to shame. For all the advances in technology, going after things as the Cornish or other proverb describes them: "From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!", still seems a pretty low-tech affair. I mean in this era of disposable cameras, web cams, parabolic sound enhancers, Fourier transform analysis and noise cancellation, easy to obtain non-visual spectrum cameras... we still get people clunking around with flashlights, in dark basements!

So, here are some advancements I would like to see in the haunting investigation business:

1) Real time audio enhancement allowing direct conversations with those... whatever. This may take a little bit of time, but really it should be possible to give people headsets so that when they speak their voices are automatically cancelled out and responses can be analyzed. Put on a damper to keep noises from getting too loud. Adjust the sensitivity up and down the audio spectrum. And get some basic answers to these questions:

• Are these spirits speaking in the normal, human vocal range? Is it just a matter of sensitivity of the microphones? Perhaps two parabolic microphones with a bit of offset could help not only in sensitivity but in direction. Add auto tracking capability. Let the equipment track the noise sources as they move.
• If speaking outside the normal vocal range, adjust and find out if they are speaking at a normal amplitude outside of it. What *is* the exact frequency and amplitude of these voices? What does that indicate for the actual generating of such sounds? Is the sound diffuse generation over an area or point generation as in actual mouthed words? Two sets of the above parabolic apparatus will help pin this down.
• In the era of the iPod, check for PORTABLE EQUIPMENT! It is all very nice and spooky to be in a Alien arrangement, but do remember that was supposed to be a lash-up of components not commonly kept on-board such a vessel. My guess is that a quick search of Edmund's Scientific will start anyone off well in this. And remember that Google is your friend!

2) Spectral analysis! Ok, you have all these wonderful and inexpensive cameras available, but these could be added to by such things as infrared cameras or scopes. I mean we have the entire non-visual spectrum to deal with and all we get to see are these extremely faint images or dots of light. How about a good digital video arrangement? How about a real time IR scope with digital feed off of it? These things are not only available, but they are coming down from the stratosphere to the hobbyist range. Some things I would like to see as results of a real set of optical and non-visual spectral cameras:

• What is the emmissivity of these spirits? Is it in infrared? UV? Above or below? Even a broad spectrum detection system will at least give the possible range for such. Do they emit anything at all?? If so, do for these emission sources as done for audio: two cameras in a stereo vision arrangement and auto-tracking capability. Does the emission source track with the audio source?
• Are spirits passive reflectance sources? If so what is their range for absorption and reflectance? Use multiple cameras with emission sources for that camera type and pin this down. Yes, the standard human visual equipment is nice, but limited. If they reflect mostly in IR or UV or up or down, then how about putting some emitters and cameras more well tuned to such things?
• Visual enhancement software has come way, way, way down in price. Motion detection and changes in video frames are pretty easy to catch and enhance in real time. So how about it?
• Many webcams are also pretty good IR cameras. If this is the part of the spectrum that spirits and such emit or reflect in, then putting up a 3D coverage of a home room-by-room becomes relatively inexpensive. Other parts of the spectrum, save visual, are not so easy to do at this point, but more specialized rigging may help on doing a partial scanning and sweeping.
• If these things are mostly in the visual spectrum, then how about filters? There is an entire host and technology dating back to the earliest era of film technology available to work with. Haven't *any* experts been contacted in this?

Working with the above the goal is: a real time tracking and recording system to get the best visual and audio enhancement of spirit tracking around. Spirits don't seem to be too in tune with laptops, digital cameras, iPods and the such like, and don't seem to mess with them. Duplicates of same make it really, really hard to take them all out at the same time without other setups tracking that.

Now, once you can get good real time audio and visual enhancements, add headset and tracking goggles which allow direct sight but overlay the enhancements. Ta-da! Now you can *see* and *hear* what these things look like to a close approximation of what they really are.

Next up, the not easily perceived stuff.

How about magnetometers? Just to see if there is a magnetic field associated with these things? Even such things as a simple compass could help and cheap ones distributed over a room or other space would help to track changes. There must be better out there than that, and I leave it up to the interested parties to look them up. The basic point is that you want to classify as much about these spiritual phenomena as possible. And as oh-so many of these hauntings are regular or at least frequently episodic in nature, spending some time in putting a good set-up will pay dividends very quickly.

Note that IR cameras will do a good job of detecting changes in temperature. Is this a subjective (i.e. only felt subjectively by an individual) or objective (i.e. real temperature changes in the air) phenomena? Some of those insty-temp directional sensors would be a huge help here. Like the audio and video equipment do a stereo arrangement and auto track. Get amount of changes in temperature for a volume of air. This indicates the amount of energy being expended for that volume. Or is it a point source? Inquiring minds want to know!

These two alone will give the amount of energy being expended for thermal and electromagnetic phenomena and start to put real energy values on spirits for these things. Visual absorption/reflectance and emmissivity amounts further lets us know the energy budget of spirits. What are we looking for here?

• Do these phenomena follow the Laws of Thermodynamics? Every known and measured phenomena does so along with Entropy, and getting the idea of the actual energy being used and an overall energy budget will help determine just *what* these spirits actually *are*. There are all sorts of speculations out there, and they remain speculations because no one has bothered to do a real job of analyzing the phenomena. Are these static waveforms being supplied by seismic phenomena? Are these 4D manifestations of some higher order of being? Please, please, I do not want *spookiness* or 'Secrets Man Was Not Meant To Know' sorts of answers. Real energy budgets and reasoning as to how they are processing such energy, please.
• When these phenomena exert kinetic energy (poltergeisting) they use up energy. There is a transference of potential energy to kinetic energy. Moving a 70kg object (a woman say) 5 meters with a resistance of drag involved gets you an energy expenditure. That energy does *not* come from nowhere! Its source may not be obvious, but tracking it, categorizing it and understanding it will help to sort out just what that source may be. Once that list can be made, crossing things off the list becomes a Holmesian search.
• Finally tracking when such events happen may be able to sort out ties to other phenomena. Why, oh why, do they mainly happen at night? Is it due to the state of the observers? Or is there a good *reason* behind it? Most people are not at their sharpest at night and getting a good evaluation of events from people in a near-sleep state is not reliable. Time to get the wooly thinking out, and the measured phenomena in.

Finally the spiritual nature of these things. What *exactly* happens during an exorcism or other ritual to spiritually remove such a phenomena from a place/person? And just where, exactly, *are* the psychiatrists in all this? Damn rare, it seems... Can we possibly get some real evaluations on the individuals involved and the phenomena itself?

Ok, last idea on all of this... since it *is* the Discovery Channel... how about crossing in another show with this? A couple of men who have a great background in lashing up equipment, not minding physical discomfort and willing to do some very strange things on the fly? Like, oh.... Mythbusters?

Until someone gets real about all this, I will remain in the 'open to persuasion, but generally skeptical' camp. And save the stories for the campfire.

Getting the representation back into representative government

One of the stumbling blocks is Article 1, Section 5 of the US Constitution which says, in paragraph 4:

"Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting."

And Article 1, Section 6, paragraph 1:

"The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place."

But these occur after Article 1, section 2, which says in part:

"The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative."

And finally, Section 2 of Amendment XIV:

"Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,* and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State." *Changed by section 1 of the 26th amendment.

Public Law 62-5 which fixes the size of the House of Representatives is codified under 2 USC 2 by 37 Stat 13: "Section, act Aug. 8, 1911, ch. 5, Secs. 1, 2, 37 Stat. 13, 14, fixed composition of House of Representatives at 435 Members, to be apportioned to the States therein enumerated. For provisions dealing with reapportionment of Representatives and manner of election, etc., see sections 2a and 2b of this title."

Ah, now what am I getting at with the above? Well the 1:30,000 rule is the point. Others have pointed this out before, but it does bear repeating that the Size of the House of Representatives is set... by the House of Representatives! I notice that the folks that are trying to move this forward have an empty section on their website for what the size of the House should be. The arguments for a representative House come from the representational language and intent of the Constitution. By having the House set its own size, it effectively disenfranchises fractional accounting of population in each State of the United States. And that is not what representative government is all about as put forth in the Constitution. But size, that is always the catching point, isn't it?

And the follow-on language indicates that there shall be a physical *place* for each House. But I also notice that the House currently uses an electronic voting system that does *not* require Representatives to actually be in the physical *place* to vote. That physical place is one where arguments are made, administrative work accomplished and many a speech made to an empty chamber performed. For ceremonial events that *place* is used and fully packed, but beyond that the full House rarely sits in attendance to carry on its work. In other words, for the transactional business of the House of Representatives you must have a *place*, but the actual voting can take place from *anywhere* so long as there is validation and security of the voting system.

Now, the way things have gone I don't believe that anyone has actually tested the constitutionality of the current system the House of Representatives has in place. A quick court case could easily find this out and my guess is that the courts would rule that the constitution gives leeway to the House to decide how to run its day-to-day operations. So, I will take that for a given.

The current 2000 census roundup for the USA can be found here: 293,655,404.
So divide the population by 435 and you have: 675,070. Yes, in theory each Representative in the House of Representatives in the USA (on average) represents 675,000 people.
Lets have a look at the number of staff for the 435 Representatives: "Representatives' staff allowances can be used to hire up to 18 permanent and four non-permanent aides divided between the members' Washington and district offices." (From the Congressional Deskbook) Now each committee is allowed a staff of 30, but that is needed to keep them going, not individual Representatives. So you end up with a maximum staff of 22 for Representatives or 9570 staffers.

Now through all of this, what does one get the feeling of happening at the House of Representatives? Each Representative (except those At-Large representing a single state) is unlikely to ever meet even a fraction of their constituents. Second, you, as a taxpaying citizen, are more likely to get flacked by a staffer for any inquiries and generally be handled by that staff and not get personal attention. Third, and most importantly, the individual Representative is insulated from the actual people being represented.

This is definitely *not* what the founders intended, nor is it a very good way to run a representative democracy. Something feels severely out of whack, here... until you do the final calculation. Add the number of Congressmen (435) to that of their staff (9570)(total 10,005) and divide that result into the population of the USA (293,655,404) and you get: 1 per 29,351! Yes, the good old 1:30,000 rule that the founders set up looks dead on to me, save that most of those folks are staff, not Congressmen. My guess is that you are now piecing it together.

So, first off, lets say that there is a short and sweet Constitutional Amendment to change Article 1 Section to read: "The Number of Representatives shall be (replacing 'not exceed')one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative." Further add in that Representatives will not be appropriated money for individual staff members save for the current Committee Staff size for the 109th Congress.

This would increase the total number of Congress up to: 9789 (give or take a few). Yes the amount of space needed for this Congress would be SMALLER than its current size for members and staff included. The staff for each member of Congress: 0. Yes, a goose egg! If that member can not keep in touch with 30,000 people and learn to network with his or her colleagues, then perhaps those people should vote in someone who can effectively use electronic capabilities. As these folks can currently vote electronically this New House can very well pass a rule to allow a member all rights and privileges due them from an office in their home or apartment. Finally the new Congress can designate either a way to attend official functions by lot and can be sworn in on the grounds of the Capitol building if need be. In dire emergencies they might very well designate a sporting or events arena if the whole House needs to meet.

The benefits of this Amendment have been discussed elsewhere, but let me put in some of the less than obvious ones:

1. Smaller and easier to understand legislation. In the age of Google, one should be able to go through the entire Federal budget pretty quickly. But, for any bill to have a chance of actually *passing* it will need a majority that will not want to be bothered with huge, pork laden bills. The interrogative is: How many Congressmen does it take to reveal pork? The answer: 1. Out of 9789 what is the chance that absolutely all of them will just give 'a wink and a nod to pork' spending? Then answer: 0.0000% A huge House of Representatives spells the end to Omnibus spending packages. If a member or group of members cannot clearly and easily set out a bill so as to be quickly understood by their peers, it is likely to fail.
2. The Federal Budget will actually get some oversight. With this many Congressmen it becomes relatively easy to sign up one or more to oversee the budget of a particular Agency within a Department. While seniority may still account for something, there will be so many Congressmen that it will be nearly impossible to concentrate power in a few committees. Take 19 committees and divide that into such a Congress and one soon sees the general committee members as purely functionary to keep things moving while the real budget work is done by individual members. Any Agency that cannot clearly and easily explain line items to a member of Congress will soon find such line items struck out. And every two years, the entire thing gets shaken up as Senior members will soon run through their positions and need to give them up to more junior members. Hiding something in the budget becomes a near impossibility.
3. The Senate will dread reconciliation bills. And any Senator that seeks to use their privilege to stop things up or amend bills from the House, will be faced with a pretty large group staring him or her down. Congressional pet projects will face the scrutiny of 10 or 50 or more Congressmen.
4. Lawyers may get swept off the streets in the first Congress or so, but there will also be a number of ordinary individuals that are not lawyers, who are respected by their communities and will carry their voice to Congress. As soon as that number becomes noticeable, say 10%, and consistently votes against complex or over-lawyered language, the challenge to simplify language and concepts will be a functional necessity.
5. Give each member of Congress 10 pages of the Tax Code to review and markup. Have such markups put on a general website with reasons behind them. Give members a month to review the Tax Code. Expect it to drop from 68,000 pages very quickly. Or expect Congress to enact a simple Tax that everyone can easily understand.

I wish I had the health to get involved in something like this!

As it is, just another idea that I am expanding upon, but really can't do much about.