Social Security Death Index

The Social Security Death Index is searchable for free!

Center for Housing Policy Report

This 12 page report researched by the Center for Housing Policy examines housing affordability trends for working households. Even though housing prices are falling, affordability is going in the other direction.

This report defines - severe housing cost burden - as spending more than 50 percent of income on housing costs, including utilities. The number of working households that spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing rose from 18 to 20 percent in the past 3 years.

Charity Navigator

Charity Navigator uses a numbers-based rating system to assess the financial health of over 5,000 of America's best-known charities. Each charity receives a rating of one to four stars. At their web site they now have up their Top 10 lists. You can also search their database by keyword or charity name.

Accessing a million pages

Govpulse allows you to use filters, search and respond to the mounds of documents that the federal government releases. Browse the Federal Register from 1994.

More research material on Google Scholar

You can now find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts using Google Scholar. Click the button, Legal opinions and journals, and type in a subject. The search seems to be full text searchable. The "how cited" link gives you list of other opinions that cite a particular opinion. The major cases are there as well as lesser known ones.

Mark your calendars

Sunshine Week celebration has been set for March 14-20, 2010. The N.C. Open Government Coalition will host a workshop on Tuesday, March 16th in Greensboro at Elon Law.

North Carolina's Creative Industry

According to a recent study prepared by the Policy, Research and Strategic Planning Division of the N.C. Department of Commerce,  North Carolina has a $41 billion creative industry that employs almost 300,000 people or more than 5 1/2 percent of the state's total employment.

The creative industry includes arts, design and entertainment and new media.