Blogging for 2 Branches of Government and Assorted Beltway Bandits

This is glaringly obvious, but one of the more interesting things about blogging in the DC area is that, just by participating in the local blogging community (even for a dilettante such as myself), means the potential for getting a bunch of hits from a lot of interesting government domains.

For example, from having a blog entry featured on dcblogs.com last weekend, I saw referrers* from:

* house.gov
* fanniemae.com (okay, it's quasi-governmental. But my Irish friends always blush or blanche when I say "fannie", so I work it in wherever possible.)
* doe.gov (Department of Energy)
* census.gov (Bureau of the Census)
* voa.gov (Voice of America)
* treas.gov (Executive Office of Asset Forfeiture)
* dhs.gov (Dept. of Homeland Security)
* eop.gov (FEMA -- apparently EOP is Executive Office of the President or some such)
* Department Of Veterans Affairs
* ita.doc.gov (Dept of Commerce, Int'l Trade Admin)
* nasa.gov
* fed.us (USDA Office of Operations)
* Dept. of Labor OSHA
* Dept. of Health & Human Services
* FAA

This is in addition to your usual gaggle of defense contractors, think tanks, lobbying groups, non-profits, and other Beltway bandits whom I recognize from a past life.

What does it all mean? I'm not a political blogger, so it goes more to geography (which, let's not forget, still matters) than anything else.

It also means that, if your blog entry gets featured on the DCBlogs feed or main page (to say nothing of, say, DCist, The Express or [shudder] Wonkette), you'll get a lot of attention from the Executive and Legislative branches of government (the Supreme Court is noted by its absence, at least in my case), and a lot of eyeballs looking at your stupid blog entry about lunch thieves.

*This is just a list of domains; I didn't copy IP numbers, so no one needs to get subpoena my records or black-bag my house or anything.

Tags: dumb things, glaringly obvious, dc blogs