EconomicRecovery.Gov
www.EconomicRecovery.gov is a resource for the American people to find help to keep their homes, find jobs and protect their savings. It is a multi-agency site supported by the White House, Treasury, Commerce, USDA, Labor, HUD, SBA, and the FDIC. The url redirects to http://www.commerce.gov/NewsRoom/EconomicNews/index.htm?er=true and I found that the site seemed busy and loaded slowly... Continue reading
What to Expect When You’re Electing
We are only one week away from Election Day, and with record turnout expected, there are no doubt still a number of people that have no idea where their polling place is or exactly what will be on their ballot. Campaigns and PACs pay large sums of money to vendors that sell information on district boundaries, and even the US House of Representatives uses a commercial vendor to provide the data that powers their "Who is my Representative?" service. There is no reason why this information should be this difficult to obtain. Google recently announced a project to help voters find their polling locations that makes use of data that a group called the Voting Information Project has asked all states to provide. The Voting Information Project encourages Boards of Elections to standardize and share their voting information including what is on the ballot, where the polling locations are, and the boundaries for all the various jurisdictions. So far only a handful of states (Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, and Ohio) as well as Los Angeles County have published the requested information. Voting information is some of the most important information to help the average citizen participate in our democracy, and the Voting Information Project is doing important work to ensure that this information is as open and widespread as possible. The states already participating should be applauded and the remaining states should be sure that by the time the next election season rolls around, they too are participating fully in the Voting Information Project. For more information on the efforts of the Voting Information Project: visit their website. Continue reading
Harvesting .gov
Harvest time, By William Jackson, GCN, 10/27/08. A nice article about the end-of-administration web harvest. See also: Library Partnership Saves Government Sites. Continue reading
Bailout Banks Grows to 26
ProPublica is keeping a running list of banks that are getting money from the Treasury Department bailout:
- Bailout Banks Grows to 26, by Paul Kiel, ProPublica - October 27, 2008
Which banks are getting the Treasury Department’s billions? As we noted earlier today, a slew of regional banks have signed up for the government’s capital injection program, but the government is not saying which banks are getting taxpayer money. Based on news reports and press releases, we’ve cobbled together a partial list, totaling 26 banks at an overall investment of approximately $160 billion.Continue reading
Government & Social Media @ USA.gov
Your opinions are needed! Head on over to USA.gov's Gov Gab Blog and read their latest post on Government and Social Media. They want you to take this survey and let them know what you like in regards to social media (web 2.0) and the government. USA.gov is working on a "strategy to use social media tools to better engage in conversation with the public and to deliver information and services the way you want to get it". So give them feedback and spread the word! Continue reading