Today, President-Elect Obama announced a New Deal-like economic stimulus plan with the priority of increasing jobs. The video below is the announcement. His plan includes making government buildings more energy efficient, building and improving roads and bridges, modernizing schools, expanding broadband internet access, and increasing the adoption of electronic medical records.
Boys’ Life magazine is now using WordPress open source software for their website. Boy’s Life is the monthly magazine of the Boy Scouts of America.
Slashdot links to a BusinessWeek article that introduces open source and reports on companies using open source to save money. Some popular software they list as cost-conscious include Linux (operating system), Apache (server), MySQL (relational database), Firefox (web browser), Xen (virtualization), Pentaho (business intelligence), OpenOffice.org (full office suite), Drupal (content management system), Alfresco (content management system), SugarCRM (customer relationship management), and Asterisk (telephone switch/PBX).
USA Today reports on declining city budgets and the cuts made in response. Doesn’t look great, especially for those working in local government (like myself).
Rather interesting news, the FBI has released a new widget that shows their Top 10 Most Wanted, among other information.
TechCrunch covered this, and you can see the FBI page for the widget here. The FBI used the Clearspring widget network to design and host their widget, which looks like an iPhone.
This is just another instance of governments beginning to use internet technology, new media, and web 2.0 to spread information.
It’s nice to see a post in one area cross over to other subjects. Leo Babauta at Zen Habits writes about reducing bureaucracy. Leo makes clear that he isn’t using the term bureaucracy to mean only government bureaucracy, but I think all public administrators do need to remember these lessons as we go about our daily work. I don’t think we should ever get so complacent as to accept the status quo with no thought as to why our organization is doing x the way we are.
Nick Saban goes Mike Gundy. If you don’t care for the S-word, don’t watch.
FoxSports has a great story on Chad Knaus, the crew chief for Jimmie Johnson and the #48 Lowe’s Chevrolet Impala SS. And Chad even has his own website. *UPDATE* And Knaus wins the Crew Chief of the Year Award.
This evening, while enjoying the Checker Auto Parts 500 on ABC, I switched the channel during a red flag commercial break. When I switched back, the NASCAR race was no longer on, and instead I was watching America’s Funniest Home Videos. I kid you not.
It seems that because the race was running long (there were several red flags, including one for rain), ABC preempted the last 30 or so laps of the race to America’s Funniest Home Videos. But only in the Eastern and Central time zones, where certainly a majority of all NASCAR fans live (probably more like 80%).
What irked me most about the decision was that ABC moved the broadcast of the last laps to ESPN2, a channel that I do not have. In the past when races have run long, I’ve seen the race end on the scheduled channel and then post-race coverage switched to a cable channel. But not tonight. America’s Funniest Home Videos was more important than the finish of the next to last race of the NASCAR season and the Chase to the Sprint Cup.
This news article has winner Jimmie Johnson and car owner Rick Hendrick’s response to the channel switch, but it also contains ABC/ESPN’s rationale:
“After two red flags, rain in Phoenix and 4 1/2 hours on ABC, we were still 34 minutes from the end of the telecast as it turned out,” said George McNeilly, ESPN senior director, communications, in a statement. “We told fans in the East and Central from the second red flag on that the race was moving to ESPN2. ABC’s entertainment viewers and NASCAR fans were both well served in a tough spot, and we are fortunate to have ESPN2 among our networks to serve the fans.”
“ABC’s entertainment viewers and NASCAR fans were both well served”. Yeah, right. There is no telling how many viewers watched four and a half hours of the race and then could not watch the last laps. Bad decision.
*Update – November 12, 2008*
NASCAR Chairman Brian France’s comments on the channel shift:
“There were lots of circumstances that they had to consider. I don’t have to agree with each one of those, but they had their own issues that they had to manage around. We, unfortunately, got the short end of that. We are working with them to hopefully eliminate that happening in the future.”
… “What’s important is ABC’s and ESPN’s and NASCAR’s – our interests are aligned,” France said. “That doesn’t mean that we always see eye to eye on every issue. They want to do what’s in the best interest of the NASCAR race fan, which they serve week in and week out in lots of different ways.
“They did not like the idea of having to pull off of ABC and operate the way they did on Sunday.”