tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19429639756877845302024-09-27T18:40:31.656-07:00"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government. Whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." - Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-41338830019720215282010-02-12T09:00:00.000-08:002010-03-02T21:56:21.439-08:00

For anyone trying to positively influence U.S. foreign policy, knowing the "caste" of the person you're talking to can make all the difference.  It also explains the why the State Department section of your rolodex changes so insanely often.  (more after the jump) The first questions I got asked when meeting anyone at the Department were to place me in one of about four types, or

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com2Mount Shasta, CA, USA41.3098746 -122.310566641.2776386 -122.3689316 41.3421106 -122.2522016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-19199741301710640392010-02-08T09:00:00.000-08:002010-02-08T09:00:03.595-08:00

I think it's important to remember how far we've come in the past year.  The Sunlight Foundation does a great job at pushing transparency reforms on the national level, and assisting with local groups' efforts.  Here's a neat, short video listing last year's accomplishments.

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-53232022151132337982010-02-05T09:00:00.000-08:002010-02-05T13:21:12.356-08:00

Despite repeated unprofessional behavior documented by his bosses, those same bosses rated Hasan "outstanding" and "best qualified" just before graduating him and sending him to work at Walter Reed.  Just when you thought grade inflation was a victimless crime, there are 13 bodies at Fort Hood to prove you wrong... (more after the jump) Now, some folks are upset that the official

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-12330779662969878102010-02-04T09:00:00.000-08:002010-02-04T09:00:04.063-08:00

California is electing a new governor, this year.  Jerry Brown used to be governor of California.  The records of California governors are sealed for 50 years.  Jerry Brown helped pass and uphold that law.  Jerry Brown is running for governor, again, 25 years later. Now, we can't get access to records of what Jerry Brown did the last time he was governor, without his written

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-80147480861673376522010-02-02T09:00:00.000-08:002010-02-12T00:59:05.111-08:00

San José officials have taken a definite step forward by opening up their personal phones and email accounts to scrutiny. But fear not, my lobbyist friends! They left themselves a tiny loophole just big enough to slip a delete button through. San José's City Council has moved a step toward adopting regulations that require the mayor, the council members, and their staffs to "make messages

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0Sunnyvale, CA, USA37.36883 -122.036349637.300616500000004 -122.1530791 37.4370435 -121.91962009999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-4162559707275719782010-01-31T11:03:00.001-08:002010-01-31T11:06:55.973-08:00

Harry Shearer gets partial credit here. We ought to rationally compare tech solutions like full-body scanners against lower-cost options like bomb-sniffing dogs, regardless of the power of the security-tech lobbies. Another example of tech failure against terrorism is the unencrypted Predator drones, which opposition forces have been able to hack http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator_drone#Iraq

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-55524285939386174012010-01-29T09:00:00.000-08:002010-01-29T09:00:00.772-08:00

The worst part about folks being crippled and dying from medical radiation accidents is that no one is keeping track of how many there are.  This isn't just gradual radiation poisoning; in one case, a linear accelerator accidentally burned a hole in a woman's chest. “I just had a big hole in my chest,” she would say. “You could just see my ribs in there.” Details of these cases, says the

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0Sunnyvale, CA, USA37.36883 -122.036349637.300616500000004 -122.1530791 37.4370435 -121.91962009999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-90734037017247154662010-01-12T09:00:00.000-08:002010-01-18T11:39:04.870-08:00

Would you rather have paroled sex offenders live closer to you and your local schools and know where they live, or would you rather they be homeless, and more likely to re-offend?  Is there a neighborhood-watch app that could help us out of this dilemma? (more after the jump) This is the fundamental question posed in a recent Merc article, which finds: More than 2,200 paroled sex

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-1040320249468220162010-01-07T09:00:00.000-08:002010-01-07T09:00:00.842-08:00

Ever since my Fellowships at the U.S. State Department and the Department of Energy, I've fielded calls from friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers, all looking for more information about my time there, how I got those gigs, and how those beasts actually function. Harry S. Truman Building, headquarters of the U.S. State Department since 1947. Courtesy AgnosticPreachersKid.

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0Sunnyvale, CA, USA37.381463 -122.02963137.347357499999994 -122.08799599999999 37.4155685 -121.971266tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-30737458412591367852010-01-01T18:50:00.000-08:002010-01-01T18:52:20.559-08:00

I like to think I was into transparency before transparency was cool.  Even Secretary Clinton trotted "transparency" out for the Copenhagen climate talks.  Apparently, now it's passé: Word "czars" at Lake Superior State University "unfriended" 15 words and phrases and declared them "shovel-ready" for inclusion on the university's 35th annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-91635854895395778532009-12-11T06:00:00.001-08:002009-12-11T06:00:10.217-08:00

The Merc issued a smart editorial today demanding that arbitration hearings that affect taxpayer money should be opened to the public. I cheered them on, with the below statement.  Enjoy. Access to the public is exactly appropriate for any arbitration hearing that affects the public's money. We should go further, however, and demand that all negotiations that affect public funds, such as

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-6370564342375340222009-12-10T09:00:00.000-08:002009-12-10T09:00:02.391-08:00

Today's scientists are effectively public servants, and should start behaving accordingly.  The public has a right to know what scientists do and how they do it.  To prevent scandals like Climategate, scientific correspondence, critiques, and even data manipulation must be done in public.  The University of East Anglia and associated climate scientists didn't understand that. I'm

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-18549322872616856642009-12-08T06:00:00.003-08:002009-12-09T13:54:02.884-08:00

Ever wonder why you get the particular advertisements you see when using tools like Yahoo?  Most of the time, the ads relate to the content you're accessing at the time, like ads for pet services when you spend all day looking at cute pictures of kittens instead of applying for jobs like you promised you would. But even if you're not logged in at sites like Yahoo!, Google, or Facebook,

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-69802333361546373062009-09-30T10:04:00.000-07:002009-09-30T10:04:00.697-07:00

Even the Chinese don't trust Chinese statistics, and they have the catchy phrases to prove it. Apparently Science Magazine's Letters section is the only venue to pick up the Xinhua News Agency article on the new regulation issued by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, which clarifies the penalties and procedures for prosecuting statistical corruption. The letter, by Junguo Liu and

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-54317386660530856162009-09-27T23:34:00.000-07:002009-09-27T23:34:41.282-07:00

Thomas Jefferson's words are heavily censored in his own memorial in Washington, DC.  Consider this passage from the Declaration of Independence, inscribed on the interior of the memorial: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-89856560756684206362009-09-15T08:05:00.000-07:002009-09-15T08:05:00.266-07:00

Over the past few years, I've become something of a transparency nut. One of the problems with transparency as movement is that very few people even recognize the term, much less know what it is. Once they see an example of transparency, they're often quite supportive.I'm taking a different tack. I'm going to outline why privacy is bad for you. Bad for you, bad for your health, bad for your

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-51194631719840609192009-09-14T08:20:00.006-07:002009-09-14T09:37:36.811-07:00

After over a year of silence, I'll be writing in this space again. (For some of the reasons I've been out, see: New Job, and Possible Radio Silence.)I'm excited to resume writing about transparency, and I have lots and lots in the hopper to share. I'm also looking for paying work in the Bay Area as I move to Sunnyvale, CA, in October. The job search is tough, but it does allow me some time to

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-43321099885065627422008-09-09T18:30:00.005-07:002008-09-13T05:39:36.186-07:00

Wow. I would really hate to be a corrupt bureaucrat in India right now. I have a feeling those guys are about to have their butts handed to them.And it's about time.Anti-corruption superhero and tireless transparency advocate Shailesh Gandhi was recently appointed to the Indian Central Information Commissioner. Though I have seen reports that he has been named as the Chief Information

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-35524179569962638292008-09-01T13:32:00.010-07:002008-09-01T14:14:48.894-07:00

I couldn't really think of a better title than the original one of this report from the Center for American Progress. They did a quantitative review of major news outlets and show how workers are systematically ignored in favor of business sources, even on news issues that workers and unions know a lot about!They found:Overall, representatives of business were quoted or cited nearly

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-36808083591904202452008-08-31T05:09:00.013-07:002008-08-31T20:48:41.043-07:00

I'm about to start a new job, and that may delay my future posts a bit.For the past two years, I've been an AAAS Science Policy Fellow working at the US Department of Energy's Office of Science. More details on what I did there can be found here.On 2 September 2008, I'll start my most intriguing position yet. Again I'll be a Science Policy Fellow, but this time I'll be working at the US

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-57097709044272625222008-08-25T07:52:00.010-07:002008-08-27T22:16:27.629-07:00

The cars of two UCSC scientists and their families were firebombed earlier this month, reportedly by an animal-rights group. In response to these detestable attacks, some scientists have proposed internet censorship as a method of preventing this violent harassment. More than simply ineffective, this measure would be counterproductive. There is another, more transparent way that we should pursue

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-76708199296959538402008-05-31T22:01:00.005-07:002008-08-06T17:17:55.812-07:00

I got thinking about the gold standard again thanks to Alexey, who always forces me to reconsider my assumptions.  We were most recently chatting about systemic inflation of the money supply, caused to a great extent by the Federal Reserve (central bank) system of controlling the US currency.  He most recently pointed me to this C-SPAN interview of economist Joseph Salerno who describes in a

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-43138541343304040032008-05-30T16:30:00.002-07:002008-05-31T21:59:41.407-07:00

Rahul from Ponticulus Indica posted a criticism of a recent article in Seed magazine by Paul Roberts on the future of sustainable meat production, or lack thereof. Briefly, Rahul summarized Roberts's argument thusly:Seed Magazine printed his article titled Carnivores Like Us, wherein he attempts to build the case that we need to shift the discussion from meat vs. no-meat to ‘how to make meat less

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-19472699322242598362008-05-03T10:23:00.009-07:002008-05-05T19:54:10.912-07:00

One of my great joys in life is holding forth, pontificating on issues with no expertise. (But you knew that, didn't you?) What follows is my attempt to defend Noam Chomsky's existence to a group of friends without actually getting my hands dirty.What's truly sad is that, in this crowd, I'm the only one who could pass as both "far-left" and "intelligentsia". (Apologies to both groups.) As such

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1942963975687784530.post-32999029433639712062008-03-25T18:55:00.001-07:002008-03-25T18:57:05.310-07:00

I don't know if you've heard about the guest worker strike, but many of these Indians are marching to DC this weekend to protest their poor treatment in Louisiana and Mississippi. They are in need of translators. My Hindi sucks, but even I'm volunteering – it's got to be better than nothing.KohlBegin forwarded message:From: Aparna Kothary Date: March 25, 2008 3:31:11 PM EDTTo: amritawassan@

Kohlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15360931813861288674noreply@blogger.com3