Science Addiction

A dormant blog by Devanshu Mehta

Tag: money

November 11, 2008

Change Watch: Aggressive Rules Against Lobbying

Here are new rules put in place by the Obama transition team:

  • Federal Lobbyists cannot contribute financially to the transition.
  • Federal lobbyists are prohibited from any lobbying during their work with the transition.
  • If someone has lobbied in the last 12 months, they are prohibited from working in the fields of policy on which they lobbied.
  • If someone becomes a lobbyist after working on the Transition, they are prohibited from lobbying the Administration for 12 months on matters on which they worked.
  • A gift ban that is aggressive in reducing the influence of special interests.

In all, good news. [via Jonathan Martin]

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October 22, 2008

Change Congress

The Change Congress project has been trying to compile a comprehensize database on the positions of members of congress on the subjects of earmark reform, lobbyins money and PAC money. There are two ways people can help.

  1. Pester Your Member of Congress: ask them to tell C-C where they stand on the issues.
  2. TAG a politician: If you find an article or a resource that talks about a particular politicians position on the influence of money in politics, tag them on the C-C web site.

That’s it! It’s a simple, but powerful way to assemble a scorecard.

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October 17, 2008

Seasons Givings: 2008

A few years ago, this blog made the front page of Slashdot with a list of “geek” charities and projects that I thought were worth my donations.

For this year, I have a shortened list- a couple of old favorites and a couple of new favorites. Let me start with the new:

DonorsChoose.org
In their own words:

DonorsChoose.org is a simple way to provide students in need with resources that our public schools often lack. At this not-for-profit web site, teachers submit project proposals for materials or experiences their students need to learn. These ideas become classroom reality when concerned individuals, whom we call Citizen Philanthropists, choose projects to fund.

Proposals range from “Magical Math Centers” ($200) to “Big Book Bonanza” ($320), to “Cooking Across the Curriculum” ($1,100). Any individual can search such proposals by areas of interest, learn about classroom needs, and choose to fund the project(s) they find most compelling. In completing a project, donors receive a feedback package of student photos and thank-you notes, and a teacher impact letter.

This is fantastic- and you can select a school close to your home if you want. They funded over $6.4 million worth of school projects in 2008.

Kiva

Kiva lets you make loans to the working poor- you will be repaid, but without interest. You can fund real people, with real small business projects. They partner with expert microfinance institutions in the regions where you lend money. I’ve been lending small amounts of money to projects all over the world for a couple of years now- it works, the money has always been repaid.

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And then there are a few old favorites- no surprise if you read this blog regularly.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

If you believe in any of the things I write about here- defending your rights in the digital world- then EFF is fighting for you. Just today, they announced that they are challenging the constitutionality of the law granting telecom immunity to the companies that helped the government in its domestic illegal wiretapping.

Creative Commons

For an idea about why I support Creative Commons, check out my article about why this blog is CC licensed. I joined the Creative Commons network a couple of days ago- if nothing else, it gives you a free, privacy-protected openID profile.

And a few honorable mentions:

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