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The State Department has pulled the plug, temporarily at least, on the print version of Hi magazine, which it launched in 2003 as part of the effort to push a message about American values to Arabic-speaking audiences. The department has spent $4.5 million a year to distribute 55,000 copies of the magazine to 18 countries. The Web version of the publication will stay active.

Susan B. Glasser and Michael Grunwald, Washington Post, Dec. 22, 2005: "To some extent, the [Homeland Security] department was set up to fail."

Anne Laurent, Government Executive, June 10, 2002: "The dirty little secret about the hastily and secretly composed Homeland Security Department proposal is that it is almost certainly doomed to fail. The sad truth is that it's all but a done deal."

The Patent and Trademark Office announced yesterday that it would launch a "hoteling" program, allowing hundreds of employees to work from home. Yeah, we knew that.

With Walter Reed Army Medical Center closing its doors, the General Services Admnistration has its eye on the site for use as office space for federal agencies, Federal News Radio reports.

Haven't our troops serving in the Middle East been through enough hardships? Now they must endure performances by the Second Amendments, a band made up entirely of members of the House of Representatives. The group will be touring Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Pakistan and Ramstein Air Base in Germany over the holidays, conducting fact-finding missions by day and performing at night. Click here, if you dare, to hear a snippet of the group doing grave damage to the memory of the Beatles.

The fascinating thing about following the workings of the federal government for any length of time is that you can scratch almost any Washington scandal and eventually you'll find somebody who says that it's all the bureaucracy's fault. Here's Byron York in National Review Online on why President Bush bypassed the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to order electronic surveillance of communications between Americans on U.S. soil and persons overseas.

In short, it appears that he was trying to shake the bureaucracy into action. The September 11 Commission report pointed to a deeply entrenched it's-not-my-job mentality within the National Security Agency that led the organization to shy away from aggressive antiterrorism surveillance.

In case you didn't get one of those fancy White House holiday cards, OPM wants you to know that the president still has a message of goodwill for you. It reads, in part:

Federal service is a high calling and an expression of responsible citizenship. By working to improve lives, advance prosperity and protect our homeland, you strengthen our country and help many realize the promise of America. Your spirit of professionalism and dedication reflects the best of our society and contributes to the success of our great nation.

Congress is on the verge of passing legislation that would put a little treat in the Christmas stockings of NASA employees--or at least keep them from getting lumps of coal in the form of RIF notices. The agency's fiscal 2006 spending measure, still under debate on Capitol Hill, would prevent the space agency from laying off any employees until March 2007, the Huntsville Times reports.

Disregard the Scrooges: Christmas hasn't become an entirely artificial holiday. The National Agricultural Statistics Service reports that sales of fresh-cut Christmas trees have remained strong in recent years. More than 10 million trees were sold in 2003, up from 9.6 million in 2000. But sales of another Christmas standby, poinsettias, aren't keeping pace. In 2004, 61 million of the plants were sold, down slightly from the 2003 level of 61.5 million.

Black cumin: Exotic ingredient in Middle Eastern food, or exotic ingredient in Middle Eastern bombs? Apparently, both.

The House has voted to ease the transition for military service members to adopt children. Under a provision in the fiscal 2006 Defense authorization approved Monday, military service members who are primary caregivers will get up to 21 days of paid leave immediately after placement of an adopted child in their home. Defense already provides up to $2,000 per child and up to $5,000 per year to help cover adoption expenses.

Wolf Blitzer really knows how to burst a person's bubble. Witness this exchange with Condoleezza Rice on CNN yesterday, after Blitzer pressed the Secretary of State on whether she would run for president in 2008.

Rice: I think there are going to be great candidates in 2008 and you know where I'd like to be in 2009 or 2010 or so. See you in New York with the NFL.

Blitzer: I'm going to break the news to you. You're not going to be the commissioner of the NFL.

Rice: No? How do you know that?

Blitzer: Maybe I don't.

The Florida Panthers aren't just a hockey team. The Fish and Wildlife Service has confirmed an Immokalee, Fla., resident's report that a panther killed his pet Chihuahua last week. Interactions between the panthers and humans or domesticated animals are rare, but in 2004,one killed two domestic goats and an emu near Ochopee, Fla.

Is the Bush administration's Office of Personnel Management doing its part to fight back against the forces waging a War on Christmas? And what about protecting the U.S. flag? Frankly, the holiday card we recently received in the office from the good folks over at OPM raises some questions:

First of all, you can see that just like President and Mrs. Bush, they've gone with the more generic "Happy Holidays," rather than the traditional "Merry Christmas." (Hey, it's a diverse workforce.)

And how about that flag-on-the-ornament motif? Cute. But take a look at Title 4, Section 8 of the U.S. Code. It says:

The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.

Also, the law states:

The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard.

I guess the card isn't exactly "advertising" OPM, but as pretty as it is, I think everybody who receives it will discard it eventually.

But hey, is this really the season to nitpick? I'll take the high road and say, I salute your patriotism, OPM, and a great big Happy Holidays to you, too!

Way to go, Associated Press. You've gone and taken all the surprise out of Christmas for those on Treasury Secretary John Snow's gift-giving list, by publishing a list of the gifts that he bought on a last-minute shopping spree at a bookstore and coffee shop near Treasury Department headquarters. Imagine the looks of feigned surprise on the faces of those members of Snow's Secret Service detail when they open their $10 Starbucks gift certificates.

Employees who work in an office building leased by the Education Department in Washington are getting an early and unwanted start on their Christmas vacation. The building, near the U.S. Capitol, is closed because a ceiling in its lobby collapsed on Sunday morning, AP reports.

NASA is getting into the aviation record-chasing business. As part of a pilot program to expand the use of Kennedy Space Center in Florida for non-NASA activities, the space agency is letting Virgin Atlantic Airways use the space shuttle's runway as the takeoff point for an effort by pilot Steve Fossett to fly solo around the world non-stop without refueling.

It made me very sad today to learn that John Spencer, who did such a terrific job on TV's West Wing, died suddenly of a heart attack Friday. Spencer played Leo McGarry, chief of staff to President Josiah Bartlet and vice presidential candidate this season. He was not only a great actor, he was a class act. Spencer graciously attended one of our Service to America Awards dinners a few years back, after which he hung around far longer than he needed to talking with guests. One of them was me, and Spencer humored me by pretending that he was actually familiar with a http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/westwing.htm>blog I used to write about the show. It made my night.

Wonder what life is like in Iraq for those folks toiling to support military operations and work on nation-building efforts? Check out Nancy in Iraq, a blog from a defense contractor chronicling the nine months she's spending at Camp Victory.

Man, it's nothing but bad news in the world of icebreakers this week. Now AP reports that the commander of a new icebreaker has been temporarily relieved of command after an accident in Lake Michigan dented the ship.

On the rare occasion when an agency or program gets a positive review from the Government Accountability Office, it usually goes something like this: "Federal Organization Apparently Not Screwing Up, But We'll Keep Watching Because We Can't Believe This Could Remain True Over the Long Haul." A case in point: A report released yesterday, entitled, U.S. Postal Service: Purchasing Changes Seem Promising, but Ombudsman Revisions and Continued Oversight Are Needed.

Get this: Manager at Labor Department orders 12 laptop computers, takes them home, and sells six of them. His staff starts to wonder what's going on, so he orders six more laptops with his personal credit card, has them shipped to the office, and declares that they're the missing machines. Whole scenario sounds fishy, inspector general becomes involved, manager is busted, and now he has pleaded guilty.

Former Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis., the man who arguably did more than anyone else to foster the modern image of the federal government as wasteful, bureaucratic and inefficient, died Thursday at the age of 90. In 1975, Proxmire created the Golden Fleece Award to highlight “wasteful, ridiculous or ironic use of the taxpayers’ money.” He issued the awards monthly until 1988. Programs highlighted in the awards, which drew regular attention in the news media, included a $27,000 study to determine why inmates want to escape from prison and a $6,000 17-page set of regulations for purchases of Worcestershire Sauce.

The deteriorating condition and advanced age of Coast Guard icebreaking ships in polar regions are jeopardizing both scientific research and national security, according to the National Research Council. Long-term maintenance on two of the most heavily used vessels--which have been on the seas for almost 30 years--has been deferred in recent years. Hey, maybe if we keep putting it off, global warming will take care of the problem.

Over at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, a salt-shaker-sized cylinder emitting enough gamma rays to kill 40 people got stuck in a pneumatic tube, causing warning sirens and flashing lights to blare for 21 days. Leaders of the facility called in a team from Sandia National Laboratories, who brought in a robot to try to solve the problem. Still, it took several trips to Home Depot and Lowe's to rig the robot--which was designed for bomb dismantling--to dislodge the radioactive cylinder. The heroic robot's name? Homer Simpson. Just kidding. For some reason they actually called it "M2," for Mighty Mouse.

Forget about Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's, even Martin Luther King's birthday. Over at the Census Bureau, it's never too early to start celebrating Valentine's Day.

As the Pentagon seeks a leaner budget through its Quadrennial Defense Review, scheduled to be released early next year, the question arises: Cut people, or weapons systems? The answer, the AP reports, appears to be people.

Score another one for the Do-Not-Call team at the Federal Trade Commission (who won a 2004 Service to America Medal). Yesterday, DirecTV agreed to pay more than $5 million to settle charges that telemarketers it hired violated federal regulations.

If you're looking to get one of those knockoff bootleg designer handbags for that special someone on your Christmas list this year, you may be out of luck. Last month, as the holiday shopping season kicked off, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized more than $11.4 million worth of phony designer clothes and bags in New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Miami and other ports of entry.

Michael Socolow, who teaches journalism at the University of Maine, has this choice anecdote today in an op-ed piece in the Boston Globe about the day 64 years ago when Germany and Italy declared war on the United States:

At some point on that day, President Roosevelt told press adviser Stephen Early that the government needed to acquire one of the national radio networks. Now that America was at war, the government's requirement for unmediated and direct communication was essential. Early telephoned Federal Communications Commission chairman James L. Fly and ordered him to speak to David Sarnoff, NBC's chairman. Fly and Sarnoff were "to work out, confidentially for the time being, ways and means by which the government can utilize the [NBC] Blue Network for the period of the war." Roosevelt, Early told Fly, suggested that the government could "rent the Blue Network facilities for the duration of the war and for the use of such time as the government needs in order to disseminate its own information."

Ultimately, federal officials thought better of the idea. Still, as Socolow points out, the story shows that government's interest in bypassing the media and taking its message directly to the people is nothing new. (Thanks, A.L.)

Courtesy of the Families and Work Institute: "Older Workers are More Likely to Stay on the Job When They Have Control Over Hours, Workplace Flexibility, Job Autonomy and Learning Opportunities." Yeah, the rest of us don't care about any of those things. (This headline, by the way, narrowly beats out my second favorite of the day: "Sugar Does Not Cause Obesity!")

This story won't get as much play as the doom-and-gloom reports from earlier this year about shortfalls in military recruiting, but in November, all of the services exceeded their recruiting goals.

Attention baby boomers! Instead of obsessing over how you're about to turn 60 and the economy (not to mention the operations of the federal government) won't survive when you retire, the Corporation for National and Community Service has another suggestion for you: Become a volunteer. To get things started, the agency announced at the White House Conference on Aging yesterday that it would award $3.9 million in "challenge grants" to six national nonprofit organizations to engage baby boomers to help in hurricane relief efforts.

Here's my vote for stale story line of the week: Washington freaks out whenever a snowstorm hits--or even is predicted to hit. This used to be true about 10 years ago, when it seemed that the snow-removal policy in the D.C. metro area could be summed up in one word: melting.

Times have changed dramatically, however.

We had about three inches of slushy snow late Thursday and early Friday, and the response was completely rational: schools in much of the region were closed, the federal government opened two hours late, and many people obviously took the day off entirely. The plows were out overnight, and the major roads were treated and cleared by rush hour. Traffic in suburban Virginia moved even faster than it does on ordinary days. I'm guessing that very few people made panicked trips to the grocery store to stock up on milk and bread (but not toilet paper--that's always been a myth.)

In short, people reacted to the small amount of snow in exactly the way they should have. Sure, it's a pain for us parents when schools close or open late, but when there's even a little snow or ice on the roads--especially the smaller neighborhood streets--it's really not a good idea to have school buses ferrying children around. And sure, for those of us who grew up in the Great White North, it's irritating that some people lack experience in winter driving and can't figure out the first rule--slow down. But these are relatively minor things, and they don't change the bigger story--that Washington is getting better and better at handling the snow.

The Air Force has a new mission statement, and it includes taking on the enemy on the battlefield of networked computers. Here's the full statement:

The mission of the United States Air Force is to deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests -- to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace.

Think space travel is endlessly exciting? Here's a short list of tasks undertaken by Bill McArthur and Valery Tokarev on the International Space Station this week:

• Replaced fuses


• Cleaned smoke detector


• Cleaned air ducts


• Installed mufflers on fan in sleeping compartment


• Took out trash

Last week, officials reopened the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, one of the areas of the city hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. One reason they were finally able to do so was because returned Peace Corps volunteers--who have stepped up to work in the first of the agency's "Crisis Corps" units ever deployed within the United States--helped make sure that a disaster recovery center was up and running to serve residents.

Parents of young children, you owe a word of thanks to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The agency has arranged the voluntary recall of 144,000 plastic siren whistles distributed by Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant chain.

The Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, Miss., delivered some bad news Wednesday: 130 employees will lose their jobs in a reduction-in-force effective Feb. 18, 2006. The problem is that the hundreds of residents who lived at the facility were relocated to Washington, D.C., after Hurricane Katrina hit, reports WLOX TV. Officials say the Gulfport facility eventually will reopen, and RIFed employees will have first crack at their old jobs.

The New York Daily News has a whopper of a rumor: Donald Rumsfeld will leave his post as Defense Secretary early next year, and will be replaced by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.

Here are some of the topics on which the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection has the responsibility for developing policy: consumer product safety, product liability, motor vehicle safety, regulation of travel, and cybersecurity. Oh, yeah, and the burning national issue of whether or not college football should have a playoff system.

The bad news is that the cost of mailing a first-class letter is scheduled to go up to 39 cents on Jan. 8. The good news is you can now get pretty two-cent Navajo jewelry stamps to add to your 37-cent stamps when the increase goes into effect.

Call him the Santa of Weed: U.S. Customs and Border Protection busted an 18-year-old Los Angeles man last week trying to cross the Mexican border with 133 pounds of marijuana in the trunk of his rented Chevy--all of it nicely gift-wrapped in festive Christmas wrapping paper.

Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, likes Bono. I mean, he really, really likes Bono. As in, "in the history of celebrity, no one has used his stature for greater social effect than this Irish songwriter and performer." As in, Bono's a "supernova advocate" and "enormous artistic talent" with "profound observance capacity." (What is he, a telescope?) Check out Leach's tribute to the singer Tuesday in the Congressional Record. Read carefully, though, or you may have trouble understanding the congressman's triumphant last sentence: "The world is obligated to take note of this hooker with an international conscience."

The Homeland Security Department says more than 14,000 federal employees have been deployed to the Gulf Coast region in connection with Hurricane Katrina response efforts. But one of the employees who was working in the region before the storm struck refused to leave, and became one of the nearly 1,300 victims of the disaster.
Helen White, 54, who worked for the Small Business Administration in its New Orleans District Office as a disaster loan specialist, drowned in the attic of her home in the Ninth Ward after she and her sister decided to try to ride out the storm, Federal News Radio reports today.

High fives all around: Researchers from the Energy Department’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory recently joined an international team to shatter the world network speed record. The team of high energy physicists, computer scientists and network engineers, led by the California Institute of Technology, took first place in the SC|05 Bandwidth Challenge by transferring physics data at a rate of over 150 gigabits per second. That's the equivalent of downloading more than 130 DVD movies in a minute.

News lead of the day, courtesy of UPI:

A former federal employee in Missouri who moonlighted as a prostitute received probation for unauthorized intrusion into a LexisNexis data base.

Candice Smith, a payment recovery specialist for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Kansas City, used the database, which contains personal information about U.S. citizens, for her job. But she also "gathered information that helped her with her side business," UPI delicately reports.

The Baltimore Sun's Siobhan Gorman (formerly of National Journal, GovExec's sister publication), reports today that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wants to "re-engineer" the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The overhaul, Chertoff said, will use just-in-time delivery systems used by large private companies as a model. Sounds fine, but I'd be more excited if not for two things:

• Chertoff immediately fell back on management cliches in describing the endeavor. "I have told people they should really think out of the box," he told the Sun. "They should not be afraid to propose radical solutions."


• He ducked the critical question of whether or not the lines of responsibility between federal, state and local authorities in disaster response will be redrawn, saying only, "this is one of the great challenges in terms of how we go forward."

Planting trees in temperate regions to absorb some of the carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels sounds like a good way to cut down on global warming, right? Actually, it may make things worse over the long haul, according to researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. All those trees soak up sunlight, causing the earth's surface temperature to rise.

Attention beneficiaries of federal food assistance initiatives, such as school breakfast and lunch programs, nutrition programs for the elderly and emergency food assistance services for victims of natural disasters: Hope you like cherries. The Agriculture Department has agreed to buy up to 15 million pounds of tart cherries for Food and Nutrition Service programs. That's up from 1.6 million pounds in fiscal 2004 and 3.5 million pounds in fiscal 2005.

It's not just FEMA that is advising its employees in New Orleans to stop wearing gear identifying them as employees of the agency, out of concern for their safety. The Army Corps of Engineers is doing the same thing, Federal News Radio reports.

The good news for passengers from TSA: Previously prohibited items, such as small scissors and tools, will now be allowed on aircraft. The bad: Not only will passengers continue to have to pass through metal detectors and have their carry-on and checked baggage screened, they will now be subject to additional random searches, including explosive screening of shoes, hand-wanding, enhanced pat-down searches and inspections of carry-on bags.

As part of the overall effort to beef up homeland security, the Defense Department has been deploying "land mobile radios" to military installations across the country. But, GAO reports, it turns out those radios operate in the same frequency range that many garage door openers have used for years. Homeowners near military bases have complained, but, GAO notes, because the garage-door openers are unlicensed devices, their users must simply live with whatever interference they experience from authorized users of the same spectrum.

Hey, Iran: Stop developing nuclear weapons! And while you're at it, quit trying to dump your pistachios on us!

Some Air Force career fields are overstaffed, while others are experiencing shortages. In an effort to balance the force, officials asked more than 3,000 airmen in overstaffed fields to submit their choices of shortage career fields they would most like to retrain into. Three hundred of them were allowed to switch or leave the service. But that wasn't enough to solve the problem. So now, nearly 800 airmen will be involuntarily retrained, the service reports.

The folks over at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility know how to get off a good zinger. Here's PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch on the Park Service's proposal to allow corporate sponsorship of some park projects and facilities:

What will be allowed stops just short of licensing ads for ‘The Official Beer of Yosemite’ or ‘ Old Faithful, Brought to You by Viagra.’

The Drug Enforcement Administration announced yesterday that its "Operation High Step" had uncovered a sophisticated new wrinkle in the heroin trade. Drug traffickers concealed bricks of the drug in the porcelain frames of paintings, then shattered the them to retrieve the drugs for sale. So far, so cool. But then DEA Administrator Karen P. Tandy had to go and take the metaphor and drive it over a cliff:

Behind the allure of artwork lurked the poison of heroin. Heroin promises anything but beauty -- forcing addiction, pain, and devastation on its users. Operation High Step shows that traffickers are working hard to get their poison onto our streets, but DEA is relentless in keeping it where it belongs: out of the picture.