Congress, I'm Watching

I can't wait to get this set up on my blog. "Congress, I'm watching" is the latest widget created by Open Congress to encourage citizen awareness and interaction with Congress. You can display your support or opposition to any bill, and it provides a quick link to the bill's page on OpenCongress.org, so you can quickly find out if there's been any activity. They also provide RSS feeds, if you use a reader, that allow you to track the bill, as well as news or blog coverage about it.

On an unrelated note, while trying to find an option that would allow me to put JavaScript in my blog so I could paste their sample in, I clicked "Post Options" where the default was set to disallow comments. That might explain why I haven't had a soul comment on my blog in months, though I know I've got at least one or two readers out there. *sigh*

Keep an Eye on 'Em!

Thanks to Widgetbox and Open Congress, I now have an easy way to keep an eye on what my representatives are doing.

Widgetbox allows you to submit the URL of any blog and create what's called a Blidget. Open Congress has a feed for all of the Senators and Representatives, so all I had to do was join Widgetbox, which I'd already done. Then click "Submit Blidget", and paste the RSS feed link from the representative's page on OpenCongress. Out came this:


I've made Blidgets for
Senator Bennett,
Senator Hatch, and
Representative Matheson, or you can create your own. You can see mine on the right side of this blog, if you scroll down a bit, and there's a link by each of them if you'd like to add them to your own blog.

If anyone wants to make one and needs more help, just let me know.