More IRE Tips

There was a lot of emphasis at IRE on knowing programming languages to help you scrape the Web. Perl, Ruby, Python.
Pardon? If they are not fashion trends, then I can't be bothered.
What I did find helpful are Web sites that help you find people through social networking and white pages. One woman said she backgrounded a date using the Web. Did he have a criminal record? Who are his friends? What kind of music does he download?

www.pipl.com
www.123people.com
www.spokeo.com
search.twitter.com

When Googling, don't just Google. There are search engine aggregators like.

www.jux2.com

Search blogs.

www.icerocket.com

For the truly nerdy, Openkapow.com allows you to build your own services (called robots) and run them for free. The robots access Web sites and let you use or mash up data from various sites in any way you like.

The government wants you to think Recovery.gov has everything you need to know about stimulus spending. It doesn't. Contracts are starting to be posted online through the Federal Procurement Data System and USA Spending.
Even the Census Bureau has a single audit database that's supposed to have more later on.

Another broad place to search is earmarks. Essentially, 535 people in Congress are passing billions of dollars around. Taxpayers for Common Sense is a D.C. group that has worked with reporters. They have a database of all earmarks for 2008 and 2009.
A prime example is Rep. Charlie Taylor of North Carolina who was building all the roads around property he owns.
David Heath of the Seattle Times tracked a company that gave generously to members of Congress, who forced the Navy and Coast Guard to buy the company's useless boats. The boats have since been donated, including one to the sheriff's in Oakland.

Finally, a little bit about math. Numbers can be meaningless. Numbers can be powerful. What comes to mind when I say 308? Nothing. How about 308 million? Population of the United States.
We know that California's deficit is $24.3 billion but how much is that? It's bigger than the size of North Carolina's budget. It's a quarter of the California's budget.

The best tips I got from IRE Baltimore

BALTIMORE _ Crab cakes and comupter-assisted reporting were all the rage at this year's Investigative Reporters and Editors' conference, where an estimated 700 journalists got their egos stroked, groveled for jobs and found solace in knowing there are others still fighting the good fight in these dark times.

Indeed, there were the rock stars of the journalism world, from Bob Woodward of the Washington Post to David Simon, who created The Wire. Then there were those inspirational few who simply made you swoon _ but not in the Brad Pitt or George Clooney way. Eric Nalder, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter now with Hearst Newspapers, has a knack for getting people to talk. He reminds us to be skeptics, not cynics. Challenge the belief system. Don't believe in anything, be a seeker. If the Legislature has always had cars, why should they get cars?

If a person doesn't want to talk about your story, start talking to them about something else. See a picture of a poodle, ask them about their poodle. If they're fearful of telling you something, interview them about their fears. Nalder's tips on "Loosening Lips" is a must read.

Bernie Kohn, formerly of the Baltimore Sun, found hundreds of people were losing their homes because they missed payments to the people who owned the ground beneath their houses.
"Don't just follow the money. Know who is making it and how," he said.

Jon Hilsenrath of the Wall Street Journal said reporters should be probing for documents that track misspending. "When someone makes a mistake, where does that get written down?" he said. Once you find those answers, T. Christian Miller, now of ProPublica, provided useful tips on how digitizing your documents and making a timeline can help you tell the most powerful investigative story.

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Garance Burke also contributed to this report, in between crab cakes.

Tax hikes working? Ca revenues projected to fall to 11.1b from 12.5b.

Cheering for Lakers w mom at Palms. Grandma at the slots.

The Lin family conquers bargain shopping at Best Buy!

Waiting out the wind

I'm waiting for the first of 10 flights and already there's an hour delay. Is this how my long-anticipated vacation to New Zealand and Australia will be? Say it ain't so. Southwest should set up an airport bar so I can use my drink tickets while I wait.

I've been so excited to hike the Fiordlands on New Zealand's south island and dive the Great Barrier Reef that now I'm just tired. In fact, that airport massage bar is really tempting right now. I wonder how you can relax when you know other passengers are starring at you as someone kneeds your back?

I am bringing with me the most obvious girly travel accessories: a copy of the teen hit "Twilight" and Professor Layton and the Curious Villiage puzzle game for my Nintendo DS.

cracked open a foturne cookie that taught me to say "still single" in Chinese.