Something New

So, I was reading one of the blogs that I am following and I got a little bit confused. They were talking about some award that they give out. Apparently, it is for the best Capital Hill sites. The award is called the “Gold Mouse Awards”. They did mention that unlike the Golden Globes, these awards do not appear to have been affected by the ongoing writers’ strike. If you don’t watch a lot of TV you may not have heard about that. I, on the other hand, will admit that I was upset that so many shows were cancelled by the strike. The writers were mad that they did not make money off the shows that they show over the internet. So, they went on strike. Anyway, back to the Gold Mouse Awards. This is something I have never heard of before. The blogger says, "Despite some bright spots, overall the quality of congressional Web sites continues to be disappointing," CMF says in its new report. "The most common letter grade earned by congressional Web sites in 2007 was a 'D' -- the same as in 2006. A full 41.6% of sites were substandard (D) or failing (F)." Are these websites really that bad? I am probaly not the best judge, but if they are really that bad then why do they even give out this award. Normally, awards are given to something that is the best. The interesting thing was that they did not blame the members for the websites being so bad. They blamed the outdated Congressional Rules which limit their use of the web. The really interesting thing that I read was the fact that it is against the “rules” to post YouTube videos. Is that weird or what? The blogs that I follow now use YouTube videos a lot. YouTube is practically the main source for videos today. Tons of people use YouTube. This just seemed very unusual to me. Of course I really don’t know what an official Congressional Website looks like, but according to the blogger it would be very boring.