GovernmentExecutive.com

Federal employees are rarely represented on prime-time TV, but Tina Fey’s sitcom 30 Rock, normally devoted to the backstage lives of the cast and crew of a sketch comedy show, ended its second season Thursday with two executives played by Matthew Broderick and series star Alec Baldwin desperately trying to find a way out of political appointments with the Bush administration.

Baldwin’s character, exiled GE Executive Jack Donaghy, the newly minted "Homeland Security Director of Crisis and Weather Management," brightens up Broderick’s drab existence when he convinces the House Appropriations Committee to provide the department pens with actual caps. "I haven't felt this energized at work since the two weeks when they tried to teach us Farsi," Broderick enthuses.

But their enthusiasm is short-lived. Broderick explains sadly to Baldwin -- who is desperate to flee back to New York -- that "my boss wouldn't let you resign. They don't want people leaving here any more." So the two concoct a scheme of Lurita Doan-esque proportions to get themselves fired. FedBlog doesn’t post spoilers, but needless to say, the end result is a doozy. Check out the full episode on Hulu or the show’s site on NBC.com.

By the way, if you think this is a farfteched plot, consider this: Yesterday President Bush announced he would nominate Thomas D. Cairns to be the new chief human capital officer at Homeland Security. Cairns' previous position? Senior vice president with NBC Universal, responsible for human resources and labor relations. --Alyssa Rosenberg

Many federal employees lead double lives, doing something in their off hours that has nothing to do with their civil service work. But NASA aerospace engineer Mark Branch may have the coolest second life.

By day, Branch works as the technical lead in the electromagnetic test engineering section of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the Washington Post reports today. But at night, he becomes "DJ Scientific," cranking tunes at some of the hottest clubs in the Washington area.

"I may be the only rocket scientist hip-hop DJ in the country," says Branch. "My colleagues at NASA find it hard to believe that I spend my nights deejaying at nightclubs. The people I meet at the clubs can't believe that by day I supervise people testing instruments for satellites."

Ever feel like you just don't want to get out of bed? NASA is prepared to pay you $17,000 if you'll agree to stay in the sack for 90 straight days, Wired Science reports. It's all part of a program at the Human Test Subject Facility at Johnson Space Center to study the effects of microgravity on the human body. But you have to be willing to spend the whole three months with your body slightly tilted downward toward your head -- at least most of the time.

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Here's Robert A. Sturgell, acting adminstrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, in the New York Times on the new air traffic control system the agency is installing:

"This is not your grandfather’s FAA.”

That suggests it just might be your father's FAA, which is not exactly encouraging, is it?

By the way, the Times story concludes that the root of the agency's current problems is that it's having trouble deciding whether it should be a tough regulator of the airlines or their partner. In that respect, the FAA can join a long list of agencies plagued by the difficulty of balancing those two roles.

School bus driver and amateur artist Steve Kreuscher of Zion, Ill., is going to court in an effort to legally change his name to "In God We Trust," the Daily Herald of suburban Chicago reports.

That's first name "In God" and last name "We Trust."

Kreuscher says he wants the new moniker because God has protected him through some difficult times. Also, he's worried that atheists will succeed in getting his chosen namesake phrase taken off U.S. currency, and wants to provide a contingency plan to keep it alive.

"Those words are an endangered species," Kreuscher said. "You might take it off the money, but you can't take away my name."

(Hat tip: OhMyGov!)

The Federal Aviation Administration has missed more than 100 top-to-bottom safety reviews of airlines in recent years, the Wall Street Journal reports today. The reviews are supposed to be conducted at least once every five years, to make sure airlines have the systems in place to identify safety issues and deal with them.

Acting FAA Administrator Robert Sturgell told Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that "inadequate resources" may have been a factor in the missed assesments. The agency says it has completed most reviews, and is developing a system to alert top officials when they are overdue.

Under a 1999 law, the head of the Patent and Trademark Office has the authority to appoint administrative judges to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. And PTO chiefs have done so 46 times since the law was passed.

There's just one problem, the New York Times reports today: Apparently, the law granting the authority is unconstitutional. That's what John F. Duffy, a professor at the George Washington University Law School, discovered and described in a recent paper.

At issue is Article II of the Constitution, which gives the president the power to appoint ambassadors, Supreme Court judges and certain other public officials, and says that in regard to additional federal positions, "Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments."

The PTO chief, of course, doesn't head a department. He's an undersecretary of Commerce. One could argue that patent administrative judges aren't the kind of "inferior officers" that the Constitution envisioned, but apparently the Supreme Court has made it pretty clear in previous decisions that they are. Even the Justice Department isn't challenging Duffy's interpretation. And that means that thousands of decisions involving patents stretching back several years could be in question.

(Hat tip: BoingBoing)