Saying of the day: 4/4/13
“Science has become a branch of the Democrat Party.” — Rush Limbaugh
A Citizen’s Guide to Greece 2015
Center. Period.
A soon-to-be-released book by Charles Wheelen called The Centrist Manifesto is described thus on the web site of amazon.com. “A vision—and detailed road map to power—for a new party that will champion America’s rati...
Saying of the day: 4/3/13
“There are two Rules of Holes in politics. The first rule is well known: ‘When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.’ The second rule is less well known: ‘When you stop digging, you are still in a h...
Send an SMS to your Congressman
We all know the expression, “Send a letter to your Congressman.” A company in India has just launched a Short Message Service (SMS)-based grievances redress mechanism in India, essentially to do just that. There is ...
How frequently do we use opengov services?
A nice chart below on the top online tasks carried out by frequent users in the UK. Note the lag in opengov service use relative to such tasks as reading the news, making purchases online, or engaging in some form of entertainm...
The injustice of the Greek justice system
Politis asked EU law expert Anna Maria Konsta for her comments on a recently published review of the Greek justice system compared to other EU member states. Here are her remarks. “Even if these data date back to 2010, th...
What is the public value framework?
“[T]ransparency, participation, and collaboration are best viewed as instrumental to the accomplishment of democracy in that they enable citizens to enact their various roles as citizens. That is, transparency is not an e...
Unemployment: this is no joke
This is, unfortunately, not an April fools joke. “Greece’s record 27 unemployment rate – which some analysts said could soon hit 30 percent – could even undermine the government if social unrest increases because 60...
Saying of the day: 4/1/13
“So what does it mean when a company institutionalizes altruism? It means more students are mentored and tutored, more afterschool programs funded, more books read, better grades and test scores, and more poor fami...
Nextdoor: a Facebook for your neighborhood
Alexia Tsotsis has written an engaging review in TechCrunch of the neighborhood social media service Nextdoor. The platform is a de facto neighborhood support group among subscribers. Nextdoor now serves some 10,000 neighborhoo...
Saying of the day: 3/31/13
“Obama is very possibly a world-historical political figure, and until those who oppose him come to grips with this fact, they will get him wrong every time.” — John Podhoretz
Greece: mostly not free
2012 World Map of the Index of Economic Freedom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2012_World_Map_of_the_Index_of_Economic_Freedom.PNG).
Saying of the day: 3/30/13
“… we still have a system that treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent.” — Bryan Stevenson
A poor excuse for a country?
From today’s Greek Reporter, a story on how Greece ranks next to its EU partners in terms of relative poverty. “Greece is one of the poorest countries in the EU according to a research published today by a German th...
Saying of the day: 3/29/13
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” — John Kenneth Galbraith
The long and the short of the Cyprus deal
The Economist has published this excellent assessment of the aftermath of the Cyprus deal last weekend. More might be said of the political fall out, which will surely be felt more intensely as the economic situation in Cyprus ...
The evolution of political discourse
Politis is keen to understand how we talk about citizenship and politics. Our friends over at The Week have come up with this essential lexicography of early 21st-century Washington-speak. snollygoster — A politician who will...
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