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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?
Meanwhile, back in reality...
guardian.co.uk: We gave the US the Beatles and all we got back was this lousy data.gov site...
When their bosses find out the information they have spent months hacking for is on data.gov.
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.
that type of data is wheelie useful
rewriting history since 2109
The Bush Admin was transparent. Many people could see right through their plans.
rewriting history since 2109
Republicans hide the truth, Democrats just flat out lie. It always amazes me to watch each new generation hit their 20s and think 1 party is going to fix all the evil of the other... only to find out 8 years later they had the same plan all along. Tax the fuck out of you and hold onto power. They have no other goal.
If that's all it was, they'd have been delighted to televise the debate, since it would have made the Republicans look really bad.
Personally, I believe they didn't televise the debate because they really didn't want to show the House and Senate leadership bribing their own side to vote for the bills. 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?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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.
I've consulted with major research firms who use government data. Universally we find that the data haven't been verified and a little work shows massive inconsistencies therein. When recovery.org was showing jobs in zip codes that don't exist, etc., I wasn't surprise - it's par for the course.
I'll reserve judgment, but making data available is one thing; collecting usable data is something entirely different.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
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.
Which makes the Democrats (the Party of the People) look even worse. You're not doing the work of "the People" when you require a bribe to do your job....
Note that this is not meant to imply that the Republicans don't take bribes. Though I don't recall a case where a Republican majority leader had to bribe his own guys to get them to vote for the Party's bill.
Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, just that I've never heard of it.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Chinese hackers.
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