Take Me To Your Leader

First off, I'm so glad to see the ball rolling at the Yahoo! group! Yeah, that looks weird, doesn't it? But it is Yahoo! and I'm excited! Hence, the double exclamation points!!

Anyway, today's pre-task will take you on an internet search. It shouldn't take too long - twenty, thirty minutes - tops, after which you can get back to your coffee, tea or appletini.

Head on out into the interwebs and locate the name, mailing address, email and phone number of every elected official who represents you. Or claims to, at least. Put that information in a Word document or other spot for quick future reference. You'll need it for the some of the challenges that lie ahead.

I know some of the information will change in the near future. Life is like that. It changes. You need to keep it updated. For Christ's sake if you can waste an hour each week mining for information about "Survivors" on far away islands, or checking which basketball team is going to the finals, you can certainly find one hour a year to update a document that lists the people who have the ability to spend your tax dollars.

I'll even give you some jumping off points:


US Citizens:

http://www.votesmart.org/

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/



Australian Citizens:

http://www.aec.gov.au/



Canadian Citizens:

http://www.elect.ca/



British Citizens:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/UKgovernment/index.htm


Well, according to my webstats, that should about cover it. If I missed you and your nationality, please leave a note in the comments! Also, if you find any other good resources, please feel free to list them either here or at the Yahoo! site.