Bureau of Labor Statistics RSS feeds
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics now has a page of "Latest Numbers" RSS feeds. There are feeds available for: BLS Principal Federal Economic Indicators, Business Employment Dynamics, Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National), Consumer Price Index, Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey, Employment Cost Trends, Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Productivity and Costs, Mass Layoff Statistics, Import/Export Price Indexes, Producer Price Indexes, and regional statistics. Continue reading
Where is that official government information?
According to a press release, the Committee on House Administration has adopted new rules that "permit Members to post content on outside websites so long as the content is for 'official purposes'...." On the one hand, this is a welcome relief from the rules the House was using, which seemed more appropriate for the nineteenth century than the twenty-first. On the other hand, it will it make the job of identifying, authenticating, and preserving official government information that much more difficult. John Wonderlich reports that the new rules say that Members of the House may post "official content" outside of .gov:
In addition to their official (house.gov) Web site, a Member may maintain another Web site(s), channel(s) or otherwise post material on third-party Web sites.With official government information migrating to YouTube and other dot-coms and without deposit of official government information in depository libraries, even web harvesting projects will have little hope of being comprehensive. Continue reading
Welcome James Turk, blogger of the month for October, 2008!
Wow it's October already! And that can only mean one thing: Polls are open in Ohio!! Ok, I guess it means 2 things: It also means we've got a new guest blogger to introduce. So without further ado, let's welcome James Turk to the podium. James comes to us from the Sunlight Labs (full bio here), makers of such fine projects as Visualizing Earmarks, Capitol Words, Fortune 535, PoliQuiz and of course PublicMarkup.org. We're really excited to read what's on James Turk's mind. Take it away James! We'd also like to thanks Starr Hoffman, our guest for September. Starr started a number of good conversations (see below) all while juggling classes, work at University of North Texas and myriad other things. You're a Rock Starr!! Continue reading
James Turk: BOTM for October, 2008
James Turk is a Web Developer for Sunlight Labs. The focus of his work is web application development, including distributed research projects such as EarmarkWatch.org, he also maintains the Sunlight Labs API (http://services.sunlightlabs.com/api/). He earned his Bachelor of Science in computer science from the Rochester Institute of Technology where he also studied Political Science and Public Policy. Before joining the Sunlight Labs, he also spent time working at Project Vote Smart. He spends a good part of his time, both at work and elsewhere hacking away at government data of all types. Continue reading
Senate Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
Sunlight Labs is posting the new economic bill at PublicMarkup.org.
Gabriela Schneider of the Sunlight Foundation says:In order to facilitate a conversation about the specifics of the Senate's new proposed bailout legislation (included within a 451-page document filled with additional provisions), we're parsing the bill's text, and have completed the first part, "Division A: the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008," posted on PublicMarkup.org at http://www.publicmarkup.org/bill/senate-emergency-economic-stabilization-act-2008/ for your review and commentary.And the PublicMarkup site says:
Unfortunately, because Congress has yet to enter the 21st century by publishing legislative data -- instead of PDF files of bills -- we cannot present the entire bill section by section, for you to review and comment on. (However, if you notice, the file name on the top of the PDF they published shows that the bill originally was an XML file.)Continue reading