brooke maury » obama

Open Government

brooke — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 07:04:04 +0000

The differences between the old administration and the Obama administration will be many and massive. One difference that I hope becomes most striking is the relative transparency of the two administrations. As citizens, we deserve deep access to the decision making apparatus in the White House. The last administration was notorious for it’s opaqueness. Hopefully the Obama administration will follow through on its commitment to be bring unprecendented transparency to government.

If the new White House website is any indication, they are moving swiftly and boldly in the correct direction. Via various sources, compare the ‘robots.txt‘ file from the old site, to the new site:

Bush:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /query.html
Disallow: /omb/search
Disallow: /omb/query.html
Disallow: /expectmore/search
Disallow: /expectmore/query.html
Disallow: /results/search
Disallow: /results/query.html
Disallow: /earmarks/search
Disallow: /earmarks/query.html
Disallow: /help
Disallow: /360pics/text
Disallow: /911/911day/text
Disallow: /911/heroes/text
…. (x 2,400)…

Obama’s:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /includes/

That’s it! An encouraging, if small, indication of where we are going. Of course, this also illustrates a more elegant design that perhaps precludes the need to disallow crawling on 2,400+ different locations. Either way, it’s so nice to see smart work coming out of the highest office in the land. On a side note, nice work to all the folks who put this together! Congratulations.

President Elect Barack Obama

brooke — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:26:28 +0000

Practice saying it. President Elect Barack Obama. Has a ring to it, no?

Powell endorses Obama

brooke — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:20:35 +0000

I never thought I’d have a video of Colin Powell on my blog, but these are strange times. This is a remarkable statement by Colin Powell. His endorsement isn’t shocking given his statements over the last few months, but his frankness and honesty are stunning. I was really moved watching this.

John Edwards Endorses Obama

brooke — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:49:44 +0000

This is the best news I’ve read all day. Via tailrank and The New York Times, John Edwards has endorsed Barack Obama’s candidacy! This is big news for several reasons, among them: the “white, working class” vote that Hillary has been bragging about, Edwards’ solid domestic policies, Edwards’ 19 delegates that will likely go to Obama now, and another high profile super delegate going in Obama’s column. This was a coveted endorsement. Great news for the Obama campaign. Next up, Al Gore?

The Audacity of Theo

brooke — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:03:26 +0000

There’s nothing like relaxing in the afternoon sun with a good book.

Yes We Can

brooke — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:14:01 +0000

“There is a moment in the life of every generation if it’s to make its mark on history, when that spirit — spirit — has to shine through, spirit that says we are casting aside our fears, and our doubts and our cynicism… when we embrace the difficult, daunting task of remaking a nation…” – Barack Obama 2007