Open source, procurement, and gov tech.
In the New York Times, Carl Hulse writes of the debt ceiling debate: [I]n the House Republican majority…distrust of the Obama administration runs deep and warnings of economic Armageddon do not seem to be moving lawmakers toward a compromise. Instead, many Congressional Republicans seem to be spoiling for a fight, calculating that some level of …
Continue reading ““Federal default might be what it takes to right the nation’s fiscal ship.””
I was surprised to see that a group of professional geologists are backing uranium mining in Pittsylvania County. These are the people who I’d anticipated opposing this Canadian company’s proposal. The name of the organization rang a bell. The American Institute of Professional Geologists. I’ve heard that name. Oh, right, here’s where: In August 2009, …
Continue reading “These geologists who support Virginia uranium mining are familiar.”
A pet peeve of mine: Politicians who insist on talking about what “the American people” want, and what “the American people” think. Every politician who says that believes that—in a striking coincidence—what the American people want happens to be precisely what said politician wants. Never noticed this? You will now. You can hear an example …
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued an advisory opinion on firearms on campuses (PDF) a few days ago. Before I even read it, I knew I’d be torn about his conclusions, whatever they would prove to be. I own a few firearms (long guns, not handguns), and I paid close attention to Heller a few years …
A little project that I started a year ago now has been eating up a lot of my time, especially in the past eight months or so. I decided that, as Richmond Sunlight improves the display of legislation, I should create a new site to improve the display of the state code. It could hardly …
In perhaps a misguided effort, I started work a few months ago to create a site to round up all of the APIs for government data in Virginia. That inglorious website is Open Virginia. It’s easy to catalog all of them, because right now, I know of exactly two: Richmond Sunlight’s legislative API and my …
Yesterday I went to the White House and got a nice award from them. They have an award called “Champions of Change” that they give out to a few people every week. The White House describes it as “a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our …
The Republican Party of Virginia, February 2010: If it’s cold, there’s no such thing as global climate change. It’s very hot, therefore global climate change is real. Just a reminder of the logic brought to you by the Republican Party of Virginia.
My favoritest RPV chair ever, Jeff Frederick, is running for state senate! (Or, apparently, he and some friends will be sharing the seat, because in his e-mail to supporters, he wrote that “we’ve decided to run.“) This is for the 36th district, Toddy Puller’s open seat. I don’t know the dynamics of the district well …
Claudia Tucker is running for state senate. Does that name ring a bell? RPV executive director Ed Matricardi fingered Tucker in the Republican eavesdropping scandal, back in 2003, rolling over on her and four other Republican leaders as having orchestrated and participated in the illegal monitoring of DPVA phone calls. (After serving prison time, Matricardi …
Continue reading “Claudia Tucker, Wilkins’ eavesdropper, is running for senate.”