Weekly Round-up March 18, 2011

Gadi Ben-Yehuda Juice Your Blog! Federal Computer Week’s Michael Hardy details how to write a great government blog. He covers a lot of the points that I try to bring up! Coincidence? Is Bad Data Worse than No Data? Andrea Di Maio and the Center’s Dan Chenok argue open government may have unleashed streams ofRead… Read more »

Vino, FARA guru, big asks, anti-tea news, and other political law links for today

IN-KIND VINO VERITAS. Roll Call reports. “Since 2001, donors attending [Mike Thompson’s] parties and other contributors have given the California Democrat more than 800 gifts of wine worth about $340,000, according to a CQ MoneyLine study of campaign finance reports.” EARMARK REQUESTS. Mike Thompson is also noted in this story about earmark requests. LAWSUIT OVERRead… Read more »

Complications of Recipient Identifiers in Government Databases

In her recent testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, suggested that the U.S. government must establish system-wide identifiers in national database systems. Such identifiers would be “like checks in a checkbook…different databases tracking the same information will have the same data, like whenRead… Read more »

Public Affairs Cuts in the DoD Budget Efficiencies Memo (UPDATED)

The long awaited budget cutting efficiencies promised by Secretary of Defense Gates were outlined in a decision memo signed on Monday, 14 March, 2011 and now making its way around the Pentagon much to the chagrin of many in the building. I did a quick pull of the specific hits in the public affairs andRead… Read more »

It’s Red Nose Day

My youngest son has been asking all week “is it red nose day yet?” – well today is Red Nose Day, if there was ever a good reason to do something funny for money then today is that day. My kids school are doing lots of silly things today and should raise quite a bitRead… Read more »

New Strategic Direction for ANU

Greetings from the Manning Clarke Centre at ANU where Professor Ian Young, the newly appointed Vice Chancellor is discussing the preparation of a new strategic plan for ANU. The current plan is entitled “ANU by 2010”. It was decided not to revise this until the new VC arrived. He is outlining a process where staffRead… Read more »