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Long Video of Straight of Hormuz Incident
The pentagon has posted a link to a long version of the Straight of Hormuz incident on page with the transcript of the Cosgriff press conference of January 7, 2008.
- Video - Long version (Three U.S. Navy Ships Approached by Iranian Boats)
[Hosted by a commercial service, feedroom.com, not a .mil or .gov site]
Unfortunately, the Defense Department has chosen to provide this video a Flash video format embedded in a javascript and SWF files so that there is no direct link to the video. In other words, you can watch, but you cannot download. The tools I have tried to cirmument this have not worked. If anyone does successfully download the video, please let me know.
See also: Documenting the Government -- Strait of Hormuz edition.
Thanks, and a Tip of the Hat to Steven Aftergood!!
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All about Earmarks
While this short article doesn't have everything about earmarks, it should be of interest to anyone who does reference work on Congress, particularly legislative histories and spending. It provides an interesting bit of history while describing some practial details and laying out some of the past and current polital battles over "congressional provisions directing that funds already authorized be spent on specific projects" (Wikipedia definition of political earmarks). Did you know, for example that some earmarks "are listed in the reports accompanying spending bills, rather than in the text of the laws themselves"? Or that "airdropping" is "the practice of including earmarks in spending bills after they have passed either the House or Senate"? Yikes!
- Congress Braces For Potential Anti-Earmark Executive Order, By Peter Cohn, National Journal's CongressDaily, January 15, 2008 AM edition. [subscription required]
And, for those interested in current politics, it has insights into the current climate as Congress braces for a potential executive order by President Bush directing agencies to ignore spending earmarks:
"This is about more than earmarks; this is about moving decisions from Congress to the executive branch," one former senior congressional aide said. "I'm not sure what the strategy here is, maybe just an opportune time to grab power away from that meddlesome Congress. ... It should be more than just appropriators that care about this."
See also: CongressLine by GalleryWatch.com: The Earmark Reality By Paul Jenks, September 28, 2007 LLRX.
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My OpenCongress
The Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation have announced My OpenCongress (registration page).
You can create a personalized view of all the information you want about the laws being made in Washington, track any bill, senator, representative, or issue area and much more.
See these suggestions that they put together on how to get started.
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Update on EPA libraries
The Special Libraries Association Government Information Division has an article on EPA Libraries Budget Info on its blog.
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Improving Declassification
The Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB), an advisory committee established by Congress to "promote the fullest possible public access to a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of significant U.S. national security decisions and activities" has released a report with recommendations on improving declassification.
- Improving Declassification, A Report To The President From The Public Interest Declassification Board December 2007.
What can be put off is put off; what can go to the end of the queue goes to the end of the queue....
What appears to be missing is a common understanding of the public interest and a common approach to effectuating it....
The tasks ahead remain daunting, and the resources needed to meet existing deadlines and workloads will never be sufficient and are under constant threat of reduction.
News story:
- Panel Urges More Openness, Less Secrecy, by Pete Yost, Associated Press, Jan 9, 2008.
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