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Deadline For Data.gov Arrives, and Delivers
inKubus writes "According to a story carried by AP, as part of President Barack Obama's 'Open Government Directive,' the 24 major departments and agencies that make up the executive branch of the federal government had until Friday to release at least three 'high-value' data sets. Over 300 new data sets have been released on data.gov. There's a lot of interesting stuff on there and more to come." One of the departments required to release data is the office of the US Trade Representative. Wouldn't it be nice if they posted the ACTA negotiating drafts?
Wouldn't it be nice if they televised the entire health care bill debates on C-SPAN as they said they were going to?
Transparency my ass.
Love sees no species.
Indeed. Although I can't really say that anyone really feels nostalgic for the "transparency" of the Bush administration either.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Want to buy a bridge?
The portions that have been leaked (and not denied) do not confirm that as the reason. Citizen outrage appears more likely.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
After all, if the Health Care Bills were so wonderful, why would you need to bribe guys in your own Party to vote for them?
Anyone who has lived in a jurisdiction with corrupt officials will tell you that bribery occurs not because whatever you are being bribed to do is a bad idea, but because you have the power to withhold whatever the briber wants. Bribery is about power not goodness or badness of the behaviour you are being bribed to do.
We need a "+1 -- nice sig" moderation.
Republicans tax poor people by eliminating social services and giving tax breaks to the people who don't need them. Democrats tax rich people to pay for social services for poor people.
This was going alright - both parties have interests in the society, and there was a balance of power. Then the conservatives started losing ground, and had a miraculous conversion. Turns out there are 40 million Americans who will vote against their own interests at the drop of a hat, if you'll call yourself an evangelical. You may have to do a lot of embarrassing things - pretend you'll overturn Roe v. Wade, praise hopeless idiots like Pat Robertson, pretend that gay people are "evil", and so on. Corporations will give you the money to promote yourself this way, to defeat working class (or "union") money, in exchange for tax cuts at any cost, even during wars.
All of this is perfectly illustrated by the last decade of John McCain. If his VP running mate hadn't been so shockingly stupid, he would have given Obama a run for his money.
Sorry for the nuanced approach. I know it's terribly unpatriotic.
And the Beatles' music was based on American blues, pop, folk, R&B and rock'n'roll, so I'd say we're just getting back what was ours to begin with, albeit with poncy Brit accents and funny hairdos.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Obama made the promise, Congress is failing to uphold it. I don't see a problem here.
What I do see a problem with is that I contacted my Congressguy McConnell to let him know that my Crohn's disease leaves me deciding to live a relatively normal life with huge debt, or a debilitating painful existence, and his discussions will affect my own personal future far more than it will affect his personal career, and I would appreciate being able to follow it.
I got no response, from my rep, on the most important issue of the decade (to most Americans anyway - as bad as numbers seem, the financial meltdown, terrorism, and 9/11 combined don't impact a small percentage of those potentially affected by health care).
They're only doing what their corporate masters pay them to do.
Why do you think that every single lawmaker who's in office for more than 10 years leaves as a multi-millionaire? Certainly not on their congressional salaries.
Until we take corporate money out of politics, neither party will be any good, and our real incomes will continue to fall as they have for the past 30 years, since Ronald Reagan took office.
Transnational corporations love it when we spend more than we make. Then, we become more desperate to hang onto jobs no matter how bad the pay and working conditions, and thanks to easy credit, we continue to buy their goods and services. Admittedly, the whole system crashes and burns eventually, which we are seeing with the world economic crisis, but when it does, the corporations will have the resources to start over, and workers will be in an even worse position to negotiate fair wages and decent working conditions.
I'm betting that if you asked Slashdotters if the working hours and conditions at their jobs are getting better or worse, you'd see that they are universally getting worse while their credit card balances are getting bigger. And it's not just big-screen plasma screen TVs that are going on those credit cards, but basic necessities like health care, education, food and shelter. This system lets us think our standard of living is getting better, while we only fall deeper and deeper into debt to our bosses.
The citizens of america.com really do owe their souls to the company store. We should just change the name of our country to AmeriCo.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Because there is obviously a problem with making all these inaccurate data sets public as opposed to keeping them locked up.
I think part of the point is with more transparency in Government it makes it easier for the public to be aware of and fix what is wrong.
And...now I guess you expect somebody to list all the influences on blues, pop, folk, R&B and rock'n'roll from "outside" of US?
One that hath name thou can not otter