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 …
Tag Archives: government
Links for May 10th
IBM Many Bills: A Visual Bill ExplorerIBM is doing some really interesting work with legislation here. In my own work on Richmond Sunlight, I've long treated the text of the bill as a black box, doing very little with the text of bills. IBM demonstrates here that there's actually some valuable data to be gleaned …
Links for May 5th
Snopes: Obama Lends $2 Billion to Brazilian Oil CompanyHeard the one about how the President Obama is spending billions on offshore drilling…in Brazil? Snopes rates it “mostly false.” This is another case of conservatives getting riled up about something that's not true and dates from President Bush's time in the White House. ThinkProgress: Exxon Makes …
Links for April 28th
Los Angeles Times: Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles belies its nameTwo member of the famed chorus have come out as straight. To the credit of the chorus, they have been very accepting. asymco: If Cash is King, Apple’s is an EmperorIf Apple didn't take in another dime, their current cash on hand is enough …
Links for March 25th
The Washington Post: Shining some sunlight on $200 million in Virginia tax breaksDelegates David Toscano and Lee Ware propose some more stringent criteria for providing new tax credits. The annual tax credits that Virginia provides to the coal industry alone come to $100M/year, or $15/year/citizen. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: So, How Do We Put Elizabeth …
Links for March 15th
FOIA.govWoot! It's not just open government—it's open government about open government. Virginia needs one of these. Virginian Pilot: Va. House members back redistricting planThe state's House of Representatives delegation have agreed on a redistricting plan that would protect all incumbents. Let's all pause and put on our best surprised faces. Griffith's district grows to take …
Links for February 16th
New York Times: 30 Steps To Better GovernmentAmidst all of the flowery rhetoric about making government more efficient, this op-ed by Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro seems wonderfully concrete. He describes some of the GAO's successes thus far, and where they see improvement is necessary. Auditing oil and gas leases seems promising. Right now, we …
The cost of infrastructure is infinite.
Here’s a thought that hit me recently: In the long run, the cost of building infrastructure approaches free, while the cost of maintaining it is infinite. Roads are a prime example. Since the advent of paved roads maintained by the state and federal governments, roads haven’t gone away. Virginia never says “Hey, listen, this four …