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NASA Administrator Michael Griffin may need to brush up on his Hatch Act. The Houston Chronicle reports that in a recent speech in the city, Griffin said of Rep. Tom Delay, R-Texas, "The space program has had no better friend in its entire existence.... He's still with us and we need to keep him there." A NASA spokesman says Griffin's statement did not constitute a political endorsement of DeLay, who along with other House members, is running for reeelection this year. We'll see if the Office of Special Counsel agrees with that assessment. They're conducting an investigation.

According to estimates presented at a National Institutes of Standards and Technology conference, the world now generates new digital information equal to the entire collection of the U.S. Library of Congress every 15 minutes. That's about five exabytes (five quintillion bytes or five billion gigabytes) a year. NIST is trying to figure out how to keep much of that data from simply disappearing, or becoming "as incomprehensible as the markings on Babylonian cuneiform tablets."

Metropolitan Washington is the best teleworking city in the country, according to a survey released Thursday. The results of the survey, published by the Intel Corp., will come as no surprise to those who have watched the steady increase in teleworking in the federal sector for several years.

The “Best Places for Teleworking” study ranked 80 cities based on the potential benefits that working remotely would offer residents. Following Washington in the “very large metro area” category were Boston, Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco. The top “large metro areas” were San Jose, Calif., Baltimore, Denver, San Diego and Indianapolis.--Daniel Pulliam

In his appearance yesterday at a meeting of Freedom House, an organization that promotes democracy around the world, President Bush was a regular stand-up comedian. The transcript of the event is riddled with references to audience laughter. But it's a little hard to tell exactly what was so funny:

Q: I have a question. I am from Mali. A couple of years ago, the Millennium Challenge Account was created to help countries that were already on the path to democracy. Looking at a country like Mali in West Africa, where just yesterday we celebrated 15 years of freedom, we haven't seen any money yet. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: I like a good lobbyist. (Laughter.)

Q: Are you now confident that Charles Taylor, the recently recaptured Liberian warlord, will stand trial?

THE PRESIDENT: I am much more confident today than I was yesterday. (Laughter.)

Q: Mr. President, I'm from the Public International Law and Policy Group. I'm also from Egypt and I aspire to one day go back there and join Egyptian politics. So my question is --

THE PRESIDENT: Go for President. (Laughter.)

Q: Good afternoon, Mr. President. I'm glad to see you here speaking today. I have a question about the immigration issue that's going on right now. And I'm just curious -- the Senate will probably pass a measure, the House has already passed a measure. And I'm curious what kinds of components are you looking for in an immigration bill that you can support? And how do you reconcile a guest worker for undocumented residents who are here, versus those who are on line and in the system waiting five and 10 years to get here?

THE PRESIDENT: No, that's a great question. Thanks. It's obviously topic du jour. (Laughter.) Pretty fancy, huh? Topic du jour? (Laughter.) I don't want to ruin the image. (Laughter.)

I've been over this ground before, but it's worth noting when the head of the IRS acknowledges once again in public that the effort to use private agencies to collect tax debts will, without question, cost more than simply hiring federal employees to do the job. These days, Defense and Homeland Security agencies get to add employees, and other agencies don't. The issue of what makes sound business sense simply doesn't factor into the equation.

If you've been in government for 30 years--or maybe if you just want people to think you have--this Craigslist seller has an opportunity for you.

If you're one of those federal employees who OPM officials keep telling us are going to be heading into retirement in droves in the coming years, here's a headline you don't want to read: "Soaring Housing Prices Put Federal Retiree on the Street." (The street in question--well, a city park actually--is in Honolulu, but still.)

USA Today reports that "the Homeland Security Department is losing top managers and rank-and-file employees in a brain drain that could affect morale and the nation's safety." Hmm, where have I read that before?

Here's what OPM's Linda Springer said today at a House Government Reform subcommittee hearing on the subject of what she would tell prospective federal employees about the Bush administration's proposed 2.2 percent federal pay raise for next year:

We think the 2.2 percent is in line [with the performance of the economy], but if it turns out it’s not, the U.S. Congress will take care of it for you.

President Bush on today's Cabinet meeting:

My Cabinet officials obviously have got many responsibilities in their agencies, but we talked about their need to assume additional responsibilities, to make sure that we're using every element of national power to win the war on terror and to secure the peace.

Not a federal agency, but maybe it oughta be: The Bureau of Workplace Interruptions. (Thanks, Rocketboom.)

The Fish and Wildlife Service has partnered with 16 Art Institute schools in cities throughout throughout the country on a project designed to "introduce urban youth to the wonder of natural wildlife within its own habitat." In the project, students will develop animated one- to two-minute public service announcements featuring a cast of characters that will include National Wildlife Refuge creator Teddy Roosevelt and his sidekick, Puddles the blue goose.

Oh, I don't see this ending well. Designated Scapegoat Brown is going to guest on Comedy Central's Colbert Report. Just watch what Colbert recently did to Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., and you'll see why this is probably not destined to be one of Brown's better decisions.

The folks at The Smoking Gun doubtless were hoping for more than they got when they received a document listing Vice President Cheney's requirements for "downtime suite" accommodations at hotels when he's on the road. After all, the site specializes in exposing the hilarious demands of rock stars for their dressing rooms (bowls of M&Ms with all the brown ones picked out, etc.) By comparison, the Cheney demands are pretty tame: Various newspapers, decaf coffee, and Diet Sprite aren't exactly the stuff of scandal. The best part: A demand that all TVs in the suite be tuned to Fox News. What, he can't even endure a few seconds of CNN before turning the channel?

The New York Times reports today on a joint military command at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, which is dedicated to finding and identifying the remains of Americans from all wars. About 88,000 military personnel remain unaccounted for--most of them believed lost at sea in World War II. The Hickam-based command painstakingly identifies the remains of about 75 people per year.

Just in time for tax season, the Internal Revenue Service’s Web site has received its highest customer satisfaction ranking ever. As more and more taxpayers file their taxes from their home computers, the quarterly American Customer Satisfaction Index found that user satisfaction of the IRS Web site jumped 7 percent to a score of 73 out of 100. The number of taxpayers filing on the site rose nearly 17 percent from the same period last year. (Click here for an Excel spreadsheet of the survey results.) Overall, citizen satisfaction with agency Web sites dropped by 0.5 percent, the first decline in the overall federal government score compared to the previous year.--Daniel Pulliam

The grand reopening of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum this July will showcase the completed renovation of the old Patent Office Building, now known as The Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture. Praised by Walt Whitman as "the noblest of Washington buildings," it is the third federal building built in Washington. Various agencies besides the Patent Office have called the building home, including the Interior Department and several military departments.

In a press conference Thursday, Marc Pachter, director of the National Portrait Gallery, said he believes that the opening of the renovated building will be "one of the most spectacular occasions in the cultural life of Washington for many years to come."--Daniel Pulliam

About half of all FBI employees don't have official dot-gov e-mail addresses, the New York Daily News reported this week. An FBI spokesperson said all employees would be provided such addresses by the end of the year. Also, the agency's New York office recently was informed that its pilot project to provide BlackBerry devices to help agents communicate with state and local officials would be eliminated. Funding was restored only after New York officials complained to headquarters. Still, only about 100 agents have the devices.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal detailed the allegations of 71 women at the U.S. Mint in Denver, alleging rampant sexual harassment. Their charges, which are now before an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission admnistrative judge, are not pretty:

Stashes of sex magazines. A secret attic room where male employees could hide out to peruse them. The "fresh-meat syndrome," wherein new female employees faced crudely suggestive comments about their appearance. A manager who often addressed one woman as a "fat bitch."

A survey conducted at the Information Processing Interagency Conference earlier this month found that conference attendees have shrinking confidence in the General Services Administration and would rather give up eating carbs than lose their BlackBerries. (Click here for a PowerPoint version of the survey results.)--Daniel Pulliam

Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have made a lot of political hay lately accusing the Bush administration of incompetence. Is it too much to ask that before these guys start throwing stones, that maybe they could take care of little details in their own glass house, such as making sure they pass the same piece of legislation before they send it to the president for his signature?

It's worth parsing President Bush's effort yesterday at his press conference once again to blame "bureaucracies" for Katrina-related problems, as though federal agencies are somehow outside of his control as leader of the federal government. First, it's important to note that Bush's comments came in the context of praising his own White House staff:

I've got a staff of people that have, first of all, placed their country above their self-interests. These are good, hardworking, decent people. And we've dealt with a lot. We've dealt with a lot. We've dealt with war, we've dealt with recession, we've dealt with scandal, we've dealt with Katrina. I mean, they had a lot on their plate. And I appreciate their performance and their hard work and they've got my confidence.

Obviously, there's some times when government bureaucracies haven't responded the way we wanted them to. And like citizens, I don't like that at all. I mean, I think, for example, of the trailers sitting down in Arkansas. Like many citizens, they're wondering why they're down there. How come we got 11,000? So I've asked Chertoff to find out, what are you going to do with them? The taxpayers aren't interested in 11,000 trailers just sitting there; do something with them. And so I share that sense of frustration when a big government is unable to -- sends wrong signals to taxpayers.

Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff hasn't been getting a lot of good press lately, with highly critical evalutions of his department's performance in the Katrina response effort and in vetting the Dubai ports deal. Now he's starting to bite back at the media. Here's Chertoff at the National Chemical Security Forum today:

Chemistry is a little bit of a technical subject, and I read in The Washington Post this morning that I was being a little bit too technical in the words I was using when I spoke yesterday. This is a group that I think will understand big words. If members of the press need help in translation afterwards, I'll be happy to do that.

Condoleezza Rice has long said that her dream job would be NFL commissioner. But now that the job's open, she says she's a little too busy.

President Bush has a message for folks who trace their heritage to Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, India, and Central Asia: Happy Nowruz!

If you were thinking about cutting a few corners on your taxes as this year's deadline approaches, you might want to think again. The IRS reports that it completed more than 1.2 million audits of individuals in fiscal 2005, up almost 21 percent from the previous year's figure.

Who'd want to pretend to be a reporter? After all, there are few people Americans treat with more suspicion than members of the media. Apparently, though, identifying yourself as a federal employee working on behalf of the Bush administration is even more suspect. The Washington Post reported Saturday that the White House said it will reprimand two employees who went to the Gulf Coast to scout locations for a presidential visit, and initially told a Mississippi couple that they worked for Fox News. The men later claimed to be Secret Service agents, but the agency says that's not true, either.

Iraq is not in the midst of a civil war, Vice President Dick Cheney insists. Well, whatever the country is in the middle of, the Pentagon would like to get some of our troops out of it.

The Wall Street Journal reports today on the "odd corner of the federal bureaucracy" in the Food and Drug administration where names of new drugs are submitted for approval. The reviewers' job is to determine whether a proposed name is too similar to that of a drug already on the market. In more than a third of the cases reviewed last year, they decided that proposed monikers were insufficiently unique.

The Defense Department received 2,374 allegations of sexual assault involving military members last year--40 percent more than in 2004. What does that show? That "our programs are working," says Air Force Brig. Gen. K.C. McClain, commander of DoD's Joint Task Force for Sexual Assault Prevention and Response. Her take: The rising numbers show not a surge in sexual assaults, but an increased willingness to report such incidents.

More on Designated Scapegoat Carla Martin: Lawyer and writer David Feige argues in Slate that what she is accused of--coaching witnesses and telling them not to cooperate with defense attorneys--happens all the time. It's just that she was so clumsy in doing so that her actions drew the judge's attention.

Step aside, Mike Brown. We have a new designated scapegoat in town. That would be Carla J. Martin, the Transportation Security Administration lawyer who wasn't paying attention when a federal judge ordered her and other attorneys not to share testimony among witnesses in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. Federal prosecutors in the case are characterizing Martin as a lone wolf who took it upon herself to coach witnesses. Now the Los Angeles Times reports that Martin's lawyer says she worked closely with the prosecution team. For now, she's on paid administrative leave.

Looking for a little light reading? The Bureau of Reclamation has just published the first in a two-volume series documenting its history in developing the American West. The book covers the period up to World War II.

If you were thinking about getting a tattoo on your hand or the back of your neck, but were worried that it might keep you out of the Army, then rest easy. The service has revised its policy to allow such body art as long as it's not “extremist, indecent, sexist or racist.” (And in the case of the neck, as long as it doesn't extend beyond an imaginary line straight down and back of the jawbone.) Women can get permanent eye-liner, eyebrows and makeup applied to fill in lips, but it must "complement the uniform and complexion in both style and color" and must not be "trendy."

If you're determined to be a counterfeiter, it seems to me there are smarter ways to do it than trying to create bogus $1 billion bills. But apparently there are a lot of suckers out there. “You would think the $1 billion denomination would be a giveaway that these notes are fakes, but some people are still taken in,” says James Todak, deputy special agent in charge for the Secret Service in Los Angeles. (In case you're considering this line of work, the largest real bill ever produced was the $100,000 Series 1934 Gold Certificate featuring the portrait of President Woodrow Wilson.)

The El Paso FBI field office has apparently discovered that some U.S. military service members are affiliated with one of the most violent gangs in country.

Nice bit of reporting in the New York Times piece today on Transportation Security Administration lawyer Carla J. Martin, who is apparently responsible for undercutting the government's case against 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui by violating a judge's order against sharing testimony among witnesses in the case. The Times talked to Martin's mother to uncover the reason for the blunder. "She said she just didn't hear the judge," said Jean Martin Lay from her home in Knoxville, Tenn. Her daughter was in the courtroom when the judge issued his order, Lay said, but probably was concentrating on something else "instead of being mindful."

"The government functions better when government employees, not private contractors, perform its tasks," argued Moshe Adler, who teaches economics in the department of urban planning at Columbia University, recently in the Los Angeles Times. When a civil servant supervises a contractor, "the inclination to do an honest job may come into conflict with his personal interests," Adler wrote. So "the taxpayer is better off when the government fulfills its function with government employees instead of private contractors who are supervised by government employees."

This argument that makes sense, but only in a pretty limited way. After all, in the great majority of cases involving contract supervision, the inclination to do an honest job doesn't come into conflict with an employee's interests. Most employees either have integrity, or don't have a conflict of interest--or both. Besides that, just because an employee doesn't have a conflict doesn't mean that he or she will do the best possible job for the taxpayer. Indeed, when most federal employee teams are forced in A-76 competitions to devise "most efficient organizations" to compete against private firms for their jobs, they suddenly find ways to cut costs in their operations.

This is really an academic argument anyway. The horse has long since left the barn on the government performing all of its functions with its own employees. We as a nation have decided on a bipartisan basis that we don't want a large federal workforce to do the government's business.

Corn, chili peppers, beans, squash and sunflowers: That's what you'll find on the newest set of postage stamps, celebrating the native foods of America.

"Three years after the U.S.-led invasion," USA Today reports, "the war in Iraq is dominating George W. Bush's presidency and defining his legacy." Do you think?

Half a billion dollars. That's what the Justice Department IG says it might cost the FBI to complete its Sentinel project to upgrade its computer systems, the New York Times reports. As of January, the FBI office responsible for overseeing the project had filled only 51 of a planned 76 jobs. The report concluded that without full and capable staffing, "Sentinel is at risk." Meanwhile Government Computer News reports that the agency is on the verge of issuing a contract for the program, and that industry sources said it would go to Lockheed Martin.

Apparently working for the CIA is not as big a secret as it used to be. Chicago Tribune investigation, using a commercial online data service, turned up information about more than 2,600 CIA employees--some of them covert--50 internal agency telephone numbers, and the locations of some two dozen secret CIA facilities around the United States.

The military says most people in its pool of potential recruits couldn't cut it in the service, AP reports. Some of the reasons? They're too fat, undereducated, out of shape, on Ritalin or similar drugs, or have inappropriate tattoos.

Attention, federal purchasers of mobile equipment hydraulic fluids, roof and water tank coatings, diesel fuel additives, penetrating lubricants, and bedding, bed linens and towels: It's time to start giving preference to suppliers of bio-based items when buying this stuff, under the provisions of the Federal Bio-Based Products Preferred Procurement Program. (Actually, since there aren't yet two suppliers of bio-based water tank coating materials and bedding and towels, you don't have to start giving preference to bio-products in these categories yet. But still, it's time to start thinking about it.)

Congressional border posturing continues apace. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted yesterday to double the size of the border force, even though Border Patrol officials say it would be impossible to train all these new agents using existing facilities.

There is one advantage to working from home you won’t hear about from those who advocate for greater flexibilities in government agency’s telework policies. According to a recent survey, 10 percent of teleworkers worldwide work in the nude. Another 39 percent wear sweats when working out of their homes.

Are bumper stickers on federal employees' cars protected speech under the Hatch Act? Some Homeland Security agents in Boise apparently don't think so.

"Laura Bush, Condoleezza Rice Awarded." To whom?

I'm a fan of Bill Simmons, who writes the "Sports Guy's World" column for ESPN.com. I'm also a fan of the TV show 24. Recently, Simmons has been giving actor Sean Astin a hard time for his portrayal of a feckless bureaucrat on the show. Well, this week, "Brett" from Williamsburg, Va., wrote to Simmons (scroll about three fourths of the way down the page to find the letter) to say his critique is off base. I can't resist quoting an excerpt:

Having spent my entire career working in the military and various other government bureaucracies, I can assure you that Astin's portrayal of an anal-retentive, micro-managing, hotshot career bureaucrat with a Napoleon complex who takes out the shortcomings in his personal life on his subordinates is spot-on. I've worked at every level for bosses so eerily like his character that I start having flashbacks whenever Astin is onscreen. I wouldn't be surprised if Astin interviewed some of my old superiors in preparing for his role.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page weighed in yesterday on Defense civilian personnel reform. Not suprisingly, the page's editors aren't happy with Judge Emmet Sullivan's decision overturning the labor relations aspects of the new system. But their criticism is a little over the top. The editorial offers this summary of the judge's ruling: "The Defense Department can have a new personnel system, but only if it's identical to the old system."

Well, no. The judge only overturned the labor relations portion of the system. The pay-for-performance aspects can go forward--and are. On Monday, Patricia S. Bradshaw, deputy undersecretary of defense for civilian personnel policy, noted that 11,000 DoD civilians will join the new system in late April.

Perhaps it's not surprising that the Journal's editorial page editors didn't quite get the nuances of the judge's decision, considering that they apparently don't fully understand how the current Defense personnel system works. They argue that labor leaders shouldn't be concerned about personnel reforms, because "Defense officials will continue to negotiate with unions over pay and benefits..." No, they won't, because those things aren't subject to collective bargaining now. I'm guessing union officials would be a lot more happy with the personnel reforms if they could bargain over pay in the new system.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing Hooters--and no, not for the reasons you think. The agency says the restaurant chain discriminated against a waitress with multiple sclerosis.

If you join the Marines, you better be prepared to go to war. Thirty years down the road, they're still hunting down Vietnam-era deserters, USA Today reports.

The military is placing teams of Special Operations troops in embassies in unstable parts of the world to try to gather intelligence on potential terrorist missions, the New York Times reports. The forces report to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, not National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

Here's House Majority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, in the Washington Post on the move to set up a vote next week on legislation to kill the Dubai ports deal, despite the fact that the administration has agreed to a new 45-day review of the deal:

"There are two things that go on in this town. We do public policy, and we do politics. And you know, most bills at the end of the day, the politics and the policy kind of come together, but not always. And we are into one of these situations where this has become a very hot political potato."

Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson school has opened another front in its effort to fight off a lawsuit filed by major donors who charge that the school has failed to fulfill its obligation to try to place graduates in federal jobs. The school has launched a new initiative, "Scholars in the Nation's Service," with the Partnership for Public Service (which also happens to work with Government Executive on the Service to America Medals).

The effort, modeled on the Rhodes and Marshall scholarship programs, will take students starting in their junior year in college and put them on a track to join the government. It will include a summer internship at an agency, two years of federal service after college, and then a master's degree in public affairs from the Wilson School. The idea is "to ensure that a wide range of Princeton undergraduates, and eventually undergraduates at other colleges and universities, appreciate the range and impact of positions available to them in government service," the two organizations said.

Leaders of labor unions representing Defense Department employees are calling for a vote of no confidence in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld because of the department's impending appeal of a judge's ruling overturning the labor relations portion of the new Defense personnel system.

So are they saying that up to now they've actually had confidence in Rumsfeld? If so, they have a funny way of showing it.

An alert DOE reader points out at least a partial--and, now that I think about it, fairly obvious--explanation for why FEMA has only a limited number of jobs listed on its Web site, while agency officials say they're trying to fill hundreds of openings: Some of the postings advertise multiple jobs.

With spring break just around the corner, the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs has some tips for students heading abroad in search of good times: Becoming intoxicated in public places, driving drunk and taking drugs is generally a bad idea, and could land you an extremely unpleasant trip to a foreign jail. Oh, and the bureau also notes, "disorderly or reckless behavior is to be avoided."

IRS Director Mark Everson has a message for all of last night's lucky Oscar winners (and even those who went home empty-handed): enjoy the goodie bags handed out backstage at the ceremony, but remember that their contents count as taxable income and must be reported on your 1040 form. We're not talking chump change here, either: The trinkets the stars receive are reportedly worth as much as $100,000.

The Office of Personnel Management issued a statement Friday saying that the agency's director Linda M. Springer, had "issued a friendly challenge to the largest federal employee union: 'Help us build a contemporary, flexible workplace that will accommodate the 21st century career patterns of a diverse talent pool.' " But Springer issued her challenge to the National Treasury Employees union, which while being the largest independent federal labor union (that is, not affiliated with the AFL-CIO), is not the biggest labor organization overall. That honor belongs to the American Federation of Government Employees, by a fairly wide margin.

Just about everyone in the defense world was happy last month when both the Quadrennial Defense Review and the fiscal 2007 defense budget recommended a boost in funding and personnel for U.S. Special Operations Forces. However, Sean D. Naylor’s piece in the latest Army Times indirectly raises an interesting question: If the money and manpower comes through, does anyone in the Pentagon know who’s ultimately going to be responsible for their use?

Re: The item yesterday on FEMA hiring. A couple of people have e-mailed to ask a relevant question: Why, if the agency has hundreds of job openings, are only 71 jobs listed on the agency's Web site if you search for all open positions across the country?

Labor organizations at Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania collected donations last year to support an effort to keep the depot off the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure list. Now that Letterkenny has survived the BRAC process, Chambersburg Public Opinion reports, union officials have decided to use $2,500 in donations that are no longer needed for another cause: helping firefighters and federal employees affected by the Gulf Coast hurricanes last year.

The Army has a message for its civilian Senior Executive Service members, according to a Washington Post report: Don't expect to spend your whole career in one job or in one office.

FEMA is under the gun to hire nearly 800 people to staff new "surge teams." But the agency can't even fill the vacancies it already has.

We're in that part of the year where authorizing committees on the Hill invite agency leaders up to the Hill and are shocked, shocked to discover that the budget requested by whoever happens to sit in the White House just couldn't possibly cover everything they should be doing. Two cases in point from yesterday:

• Sen. Joseph Lieberman led a bipartisan group of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs members in saying Homeland Security needs another $8 billion next year. "There is no cheap way to be better prepared," Lieberman said. "It takes money."
  
• House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said the Air Force can't possibly be expected to maintain its current fleet and develop new aircraft at current funding rates. "We may be at the point where we simply have to get more money if we're going to modernize," he said.
  

Re: The Bush Katrina briefing video obtained by the AP yesterday. Is it just me, or is Designated Scapegoat Brown starting to look like the only guy in the administration whose hair was on fire as the hurricane approached? From AP's story about the video:

Video footage of the Aug. 28 briefing, the final one before Katrina struck, showed an intense Brown voicing concerns from the government's disaster operation center and imploring colleagues to do whatever was necessary to help victims.

"Go ahead and do it," Brown said. "I'll figure out some way to justify it. ... Just let them yell at me."

In 1999, the Army began the process of developing a vast network of new weapons systems. In 2003, product development began on what by then was known as the Future Combat System. So what's missing from the project -- whose costs could total $200 billion -- at this stage? Oh, only "the elements of a sound business case -- firm requirements, mature technologies, a knowledge-based acquisition strategy, a realistic cost estimate and sufficient funding," says GAO's Paul Francis. Other than that, everything's great.

This was inevitable: As the Senate Rules and Administration Committee debated ethics and lobbying reform yesterday, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., made the case that any "revolving door" restrictions on lawmakers' post-employment activities should apply to the executive branch as well. "We must ensure that if we are really going to change the culture of corruption, then we need to clean house and do it from top to bottom,” said Nelson. “If we’re going to stop the revolving door on the hill, then we need to stop it in our federal agencies..."

This just in from the Office of National Drug Control Policy: "Parents Pivotal in Keeping Teens Away From Drugs, Reveals New Data." (The subhead on the release is even more illuminating: "Drug, Alcohol, Cigarette Use and Sexual Activity Prevalent in U.S. High Schools.")