Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

Daily Archives: July 18, 2018

Citizens Against Government Waste Releases 2018 Pig Book Detailing Government Waste

“The Congressional Pig Book is CAGW’s annual compilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget. A “pork” project is a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures. To qualify as pork, a project must meet one of seven criteria that were developed in 1991 by CAGW and the Congressional Porkbusters Coalition….It should come as no surprise that the dam burst on earmarks in fiscal year (FY) 2018. Congress had set the stage for a significant increase in every category of spending when the Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) of 2018 was approved on February 8, 2018. This legislation obliterated the spending caps set in the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA) and increased spending by $143 billion, or 13.4 percent, in FY 2018 compared to FY 2017…”

Features: Summary | 2018 Database
Historical Trends | Order a Copy | PDF
Pork Hall of Shame

Is the Library Card Dying?

The Atlantic – Sara Polsky: “..Serious library-card collectors approach the pursuit more systematically than I do. A high-school freshman in California, for example, maintains a collection of more than 3,000 cards. A librarian in Nebraska scans valid library cards from all over the world and posts the images online. The retired librarian Larry Nix maintains… Continue Reading

Coastlines around world boast hints of ancient humans who gathered traveled along edges of world where land meets sea

Hakai Magazine – Where Our Human Ancestors Made an Impression: “Human tracks encode a startling amount of information, enough for scientists to create a brief, but illuminating, biography of a person or group of people. The average person takes an estimated 224,000,000 steps over the course of a lifetime. When preserved, footprints are a library… Continue Reading

New tool helps you find 48,000+ open Amazon S3 buckets

The Daily Swig: “Hundreds of thousands of potentially sensitive files are publically available through open Amazon buckets, a new online tool can reveal. The free tool, created by software engineer GrayhatWarfare, is a searchable database where a current list of 48,623 open S3 buckets can be found. Amazon’s S3 cloud storage, or Simple Storage Service,… Continue Reading

Court Vacates Injunction Against Publishing the Law

EFF – Win for Public Right to Know: Court Vacates Injunction Against Publishing the Law – Industry Groups Want to Control Access to Legal Rules and Regulation: “San Francisco – A federal appeals court today ruled that industry groups cannot control publication of binding laws and standards. This decision protects the work of Public.Resource.org (PRO),… Continue Reading

MOU on information-sharing relationship between LC and Peace Palace Library in The Hague

“July 19, 2018 – Two of the world’s most comprehensive international law libraries, the Law Library of Congress and the Peace Palace Library based in The Hague, Netherlands, have agreed to form an information-sharing relationship to exchange information and better serve library users. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed today in a ceremony at… Continue Reading

House Cmte panel approves bill to expedite fed firings

FCW.com: “The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee advanced a bill that would make it easier to fire federal employees. The Modern Employment Reform, Improvement and Transformation Act, introduced by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), would allow the head of an agency to remove a federal employee “if the head determines the performance or misconduct of… Continue Reading

CRS – Private Activity Bonds: An Introduction

EveryCRSReport.com – Private Activity Bonds: An Introduction June 9, 2006 – July 13, 2018 “The federal tax code classifies state and local bonds as either governmental bonds or private activity bonds. Governmental bonds are intended for governmental projects, and private activity bonds are for projects that primarily benefit private entities. Typically, the interest earned by… Continue Reading