(2003-07-04) Happy Independence Day

Remember the Declaration Of Independence! Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government. Do you still want an Open Society? Remember: The trick is to be independent but not let them know about it. (The Annoying Quote page includes a number of other ditties which seem particularly appropriate today.)

A good day to discover the MediaLab's GovernmentInformationAwareness/OpenGov site to assist in creating a Transparent Society. (I hope this will stay around forever, and not die out like most university projects. The data model smells like (All of the information submitted falls into two categories: An entity or a link) RDF, so maybe even if the project dies they'll distribute the data for others to use.) The related projects page is worth noting.

I'm intrigued by the Vote Smart site, in light of the coming Presidential Election. I've checked roughly a half-dozen candidates, and none of them filled out the NPAT survey . (The site has lots of voting record and interest group rating data, though, which is cool. Though that generally applies only to Congress, so it doesn't do much good for evaluating governors who will run.)