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Monthly Archives: January 2018

The Business of Planting Trees

The Nature Conservancy: “Approximately 41 million trees are cut down every day—far faster than we are currently replanting them. The consequences of deforestation and other types of land degradation are severe, exacerbating climate change, biodiversity loss, and declines in ecosystem services that hundreds of millions of people depend on. In response, governments around the world… Continue Reading

Citizen Satisfaction with US Federal Government Advances to 11-Year High

American Customer Satisfaction Survey (ACSI) – Federal Government Report 2017: “Citizen satisfaction with U.S. federal government services improves for a second year, increasing 2.5% to 69.7 on a 0 to 100 scale. This uptick follows a huge gain in 2016, which was the biggest one-year improvement for government in nearly 20 years of ACSI measurement.… Continue Reading

Review – best free anonymous browsing software for Windows

TechRadarPro: “If you’re looking for the best free privacy software to help you browse the web anonymously, then you’ve come to the right place, as we’ve listed the top choices to help protect your privacy. There are plenty of legitimate reasons why you’d like to use privacy software to browse anonymously.  As well as preventing… Continue Reading

Banking Law: An Overview of Federal Preemption in the Dual Banking System

CRS report via FAS: Banking Law: An Overview of Federal Preemption in the Dual Banking System, Jay B. Sykes, Legislative Attorney. January 23, 2018. “Banks play a critical role in the United States economy, channeling funds from savers to borrowers and thereby facilitating economic activity. To address the risks of bank failures and excessive risk-taking,… Continue Reading

Metrics Toolkit provides evidence-based information about research metrics across disciplines

“The Metrics Toolkit is a resource for researchers and evaluators that provides guidance for demonstrating and evaluating claims of research impact.  With the Toolkit you can quickly understand what a metric means, how it is calculated, and if it’s good match for your impact question. The Metrics Toolkit provides evidence-based information about research metrics across… Continue Reading

This Land is Your Land Rotting cabins, closed trails: why we’re shining a light on US national parks

theguardian: This Land is Your Land Rotting cabins, closed trails: why we’re shining a light on US national parks. “Amid dangers from the Trump administration and climate change, sites including the Grand Canyon and Zion national park are facing yet another threat: ‘massive disrepair.’ As threat to America’s public land increases so does our coverage… Continue Reading

If you have an android device – read about Google’s Location History tracking

Quartz – If you’re using an Android phone, Google may be tracking every move you make [no this is not a Sting lyric]: “The Alphabet subsidiary’s location-hungry tentacles are quietly lurking behind some of the most innovative features of its Android mobile operating system. Once those tentacles latch on, phones using Android begin silently transmitting… Continue Reading

How High-Powered Lobbying and PR Firms Launder Influence for Foreign Governments

POGO – “When foreign governments need help navigating the DC swamp, there’s a whole host of high-powered DC lobbying and well-connected public relations firms eager to help them—for a hefty fee. Lax enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act or FARA, a law designed to shed light on when foreign actors are trying to sway… Continue Reading