These days, it’s pretty common to hear that we’ve lost sight of what the Founding Fathers intended. A frequent criticism is that Congress is guilty of “overreaching” into areas more legitimately the province of states and localities or the federal executive branch. So it’s interesting that some lawmakers are willingly relinquishing one of the powersRead… Read more »
Ever gazed longingly at an advertisement for an app competition, thinking “if only I knew more about computer programming, I could win that thing”? You’re in luck. A new contest called the NYC BigApps Idea Challenge, which will be live for the next month, was created for people like you. What sets it and similarRead… Read more »
California Gov. Jerry Brown has eliminated 44 percent of all state-issued cell phones in what Government Technology’s Brian Heaton describes as “just the first round of cuts.” It’s part of Brown’s plan to reduce the number of state-issued phones in California by half, to lower costs for the budget-strapped state. Evan Westrup, a spokesman forRead… Read more »
The decision by President Obama to request that FBI Director Robert Mueller be retained beyond the end of his 10-year term has stoked new complaints by some agents about a policy Mueller put in place shortly after 9/11. Jerry Markon of the Washington Post writes: The FBI’s policy, which is unusual among law enforcement agencies,Read… Read more »
Yesterday I had the chance to sit in on a hearing by the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia. It was titled “Inspiring Students to Federal Service.” I took some notes and thought I’d share them in the form of brief summaries of each of theRead… Read more »
Could this be the future? Brian Heaton of Government Technology wrote Wednesday that at least one local government will soon be offering online training to educate citizens on how to use their new and improved website. The Community Digital Forum, to be held Wednesday, June 29, will feature hands-on instruction on how to navigate theRead… Read more »
Between a GOP debate, a Stanley Cup final (and ensuing riots in Vancouver) and a Senator resigning in disgrace, one disturbing story has gone relatively overlooked. The Washington Post’s Walter Pincus is reporting that at least 85 American clinics in Iraq are suffering from X-ray radiation leaks… and have been for the past four years.Read… Read more »
We’ve all heard the story of the flight attendant who saved her airline $40,000 by recommending one less olive be used in every salad, right? It’s a question of optimization — the money saved outweighs the value the customer received from getting that one extra olive to enjoy. These days, governments are dealing with theRead… Read more »
Some of you may have seen that the White House recently conducted a (non-scientific) survey of its Facebook fans and Twitter followers. The results are now in. In case you were curious about what can be found out from something like this, you can read about it here. A few noteworthy findings are… 50% ofRead… Read more »
UPDATE 2:05 p.m. Well, it turns out the afternoon session is closed to the press. It also turns out that I’m considered one of them. So I won’t be bringing you any more updates. But hey, I hear the morning speakers were more interesting anyway. 12:20 p.m. We’re done for the morning. Thanks for reading.Read… Read more »