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All the News About Google in Government
By Tom Shoop | Thursday, November 30, 2006  |  02:00 PM

Google has made no secret of its efforts to increase its reach into the federal government's "deep Web." Now comes a new publication devoted entirely to Google's work in the government arena: the Google Government Report. The publication is the brainchild of Stephen E. Arnold, who says he "has the distinction of getting into an enthusiastic 'argument' with Google’s founders in 1998 over truncation and lemmatization"--whatever that means.

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Fed Goes Nuts Over Guacamole
By Tom Shoop | Thursday, November 30, 2006  |  12:28 PM

Brenda Lifsey, a federal employee who lives in Los Angeles, has a beef about guacomole. A guacamole-flavored dip from Kraft Foods, to be exact. Lifsey, the Los Angeles Times reports, made a three-layer dip last year using Kraft Dips Guacamole, then found out that it "just didn't taste avocadoey." That's because the dip contains less than 2 percent avocado, the key ingredient in guacamole. Calling such a product guacamole is just fraudulent, Lifsey says, so she sued the company. Kraft says it's not deceiving anybody, but has decided to change the label on the dip to indicate that it's just guacamole-flavored.

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Nuke Lab's Security 'Seriously Flawed'
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 29, 2006  |  11:27 AM

The fact that a worker at Los Alamos National Laboratory was able to remove classified documents later discovered at her home during a drug bust shows that security at the agency is "seriously flawed," a new inspector general report has concluded. Security policies in a number of areas weren't followed, which the IG characterized as an "especially troubling" development given the tens of millions of dollars that have been spent to upgrade the lab's security in the wake of recent scandals.

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The Lost Immigration Files
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 29, 2006  |  09:27 AM

111,000: That's a lot of immigration files to lose. But that's how many GAO says U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services can't find, the Washington Post reports.

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No iPods for Dictators
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 29, 2006  |  09:14 AM

The Bush administration has come up with a novel policy on international commerce: trade sanctions that are designed purely to irritate a country's leader -- in this case, North Korea's Kim Jong Il. The administration is pushing an effort through the United Nations to deny the North Korean dictator access to many of the popular consumer products -- many of them high-end luxury items -- that he favors. The list, AP says, includes the following: iPods, plasma televisions, Segway electric scooters, cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, Harley Davidson motorcycles, personal watercraft, music and sports equipment.

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Judge: Money is Illegal
By Tom Shoop | Tuesday, November 28, 2006  |  04:44 PM

A federal judge has ruled that U.S. currency is illegal because it discriminates against the blind. By making all bills the same size and texture, the Treasury Department makes it impossible for blind people to tell them apart, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman said Tuesday. He gave Treasury officials 10 days to begin figuring out how to fix the problem.

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Social Security Phishing Scam
By Tom Shoop | Tuesday, November 28, 2006  |  12:43 PM

Here's a tip for those of you looking forward to the 3.3 percent cost-of-living increase in Social Security and other federal retirement benefits next year: Don't be too quick to respond to alleged requests from the Social Security Administration for personal information to update your account. If such a request comes in the form of an official-looking e-mail, it's bogus.

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Rumsfeld's Record in Jeopardy
By Tom Shoop | Tuesday, November 28, 2006  |  10:04 AM

Robert Gates may deny Donald Rumsfeld a Pentagon record. If Rumsfeld stays in his job until Dec. 28, he'll be the longest-serving Defense secretary ever. (If you combine his previous 1975-77 service under President Ford with his current tenure, he just beats out Robert McNamara.) But the Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to take up Gates' nomination to replace Rumsfeld next week, AP reports, and the full Senate may vote on it the following week. That would put Gates in position to be sworn in well before the end of the year.

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Architectural Intrigue at GSA
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 27, 2006  |  11:23 AM

Who knew that the promotion of a career employee to be the new chief architect at the General Services Admininstration could be fraught with such intrigue? The Chicago Tribune reports today on GSA's decision to name Les Shepherd, an 18-year agency veteran, to its top architectural post. Apparently, earlier reports that the agency was set to appoint Thomas Gordon Smith, a professor of architecture at Notre Dame, to the position, set off a controversy. Smith, it seems, is a classicist, and some modernist architects argued that his appointment would set back recent efforts at the agency to improve federal design. Though denied the top post, Smith was named to a new "federal architectural fellowship."

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OPM Changes Charity Regs
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 27, 2006  |  10:58 AM

This summer, the Office of Personnel Management issued draft rules that would change the way the government's workplace charity drive, the Combined Federal Campaign, is run. Among the proposals was a recommendation to drop the requirement that charities spend 25 percent or less of their total revenue on administrative and fund-raising expenses. Last week, the agency reported that a "significant majority" of the 415 comments it received on the proposed regulations opposed such a change. Nevertheless, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reports, OPM has decided in final regulations to ditch the requirement, saying it "caused an administrative burden on OPM staff." So you're on your own to figure out if your charity of choice is wasting money.

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OPM Exec Becomes Medicare Maven
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 27, 2006  |  10:04 AM

Great piece in the New York Times today about Abby Block, a career federal executive who ran the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program before being recruited to help manage the implementation of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. Best part:

Ms. Block, a 75-year-old civil servant, is director of the Center for Beneficiary Choices at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. While some officials toured the country as cheerleaders for the drug benefit, Ms. Block stayed at her desk in Washington and made it work.

In the story, everybody from Block's former bosses at OPM to the head of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association raves about her accomplishments.

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Reopening Midway
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 27, 2006  |  09:48 AM

Right now, there are only three ways to get to Midway Atoll, site of a critical World War II battle in the Pacific: take a cruise from Asia, grab a ride with one of the U.S. government employees who work there, or volunteer for three months of environmental duty on the island. But now, AP reports, the Fish and Wildlife Service is working on a plan to reopen Midway to tourism. Access to the island, which is 1,250 miles northwest of Honolulu, was largely cut off after a tourist operator stopped running trips there in 2002.

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Turkey Time
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 22, 2006  |  02:16 PM

Fedblog -- and GovExec as a whole -- are taking a little Thanksgiving break. We'll be back on Monday, Nov. 27. Happy Thanksgiving!

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Get Over Yourself: Join the Army
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 22, 2006  |  10:45 AM

The Washington Post weighs in today on the debut of the Army's new "Army Strong" ad campaign. But they miss out on the best part of the new ads: how in a subtle way they're a reversal of the previous short-lived slogan, "Army of One." The new TV ads say implicitly that the Army's not about you, and, explicitly that one advantage of Army life is that it provides the "strength to get over yourself."

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Get Off the Phone and Drive the Bus
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 22, 2006  |  10:08 AM

Here's one for the "duh" files: The National Transportation Safety Board wants to ban bus drivers from using cell phones while they're driving.

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Education Chief in 'Jeopardy!'
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 22, 2006  |  09:47 AM

Man, this is just too good to be true. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings finished second on "Celebrity Jeopardy" to one of the guys from Spinal Tap.
Spellings, though, is declaring a moral victory. The winner, actor and writer Michael McKean, has been on the show before, she told AP, so he had and advantage in working the hand buzzer that contestants use to indicate they know the answer to a question. Spellings also got in a little joke at the expense of her boss's father's vice president. "I didn't want to be the education secretary who didn't know how to spell potato," she said.

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Better Pick Up That Passport
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 22, 2006  |  09:33 AM

Homeland Security has set a date for requiring all passengers who enter the United States by air--including U.S. citizens--to present a passport, AP reports. It's Jan. 23. The new system won't be foolproof, but it will boost security, says DHS chief Michael Chertoff. "Could James Bond and Q come up with a fake passport?" he asked the news service, then answered his own question: Yeah, because "nothing is completely perfect."

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The Sweat Smell of Money
By Tom Shoop | Tuesday, November 21, 2006  |  10:46 AM

You know that distinctive smell of money or other metallic objects? You might never have wondered exactly where it comes from, but researchers at Virginia Tech working under a National Science Foundation grant did. And they found out that the scent doesn't come from the money itself, but from metal-free chemicals released into the air when substances like sweat interact with metal.

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A Million Reasons to Get Audited
By Tom Shoop | Tuesday, November 21, 2006  |  09:30 AM

Hey millionaires: Better be careful. Your odds of being audited by the IRS just went up.

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Peruvian Village Splurges on Erotic Park
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 20, 2006  |  11:13 AM

Peruvian federal officials thought they had a brilliant idea in 2001: create autonomous regional governments, then take advantage of rising prices for gold, copper, zinc and other minerals by increasing mining taxes and sharing the wealth with municipalities. It worked great, AP reports, until the village of Huayre decided to spend its windfall on an erotic sculpture park in the center of town. The village still lacks other more mundane items, like paved streets or a sewer system.

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Presidential Dollars
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 20, 2006  |  10:50 AM

Are you ready for the Millard Fillmore dollar? Or the Rutherford B. Hayes buck? Well, get ready, because they're coming. Next year, the U.S. Mint will begin issuing new dollar coins featuring the images of each of the presidents, in the order they served. The series starts with Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison in 2007, and will finish in 2016.

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Investigating NASA's Chief Inspector
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 20, 2006  |  10:16 AM

The Orlando Sentinel has gotten its hands on a probe into the activities of NASA Inspector General Robert Cobb. Investigators from the Housing and Urban Development Department, who were called in to conduct the investigation for the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, have looked at 69 allegations against Cobb, most of them centering around charges that he has lacked independence from NASA's political leadership. Career employees in Cobb's office say he's in the habit of putting his feet up on his desk in their faces and reminding them that "I'm a [expletive] presidential appointee." In the two years before Cobb's arrival at NASA, the IG's office issued an average of 51 audit reports annually. Since then, the office has averaged only 26 reports per year. A special PCIE committee will now decide what, if anything, happens to Cobb, who disputes the charges and says they come mostly from disgruntled former employees.

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Honoring Management Excellence
By Tom Shoop | Friday, November 17, 2006  |  08:23 AM

Congratulations to the five agencies honored this week by the Office of Personnel Management with this year's Presidential Awards for Management Excellence. They are:

• Education Department, for Budget and Performance Integration (Innovative and Exemplary Practices)


• Health and Human Services Department, for Expanded Electronic Government (Innovative and Exemplary Practices)


• Labor Department, for Expanded Electronic Government (Agencywide Performance in the Governmentwide Management Initiative)


• State Department, for Strategic Management of Human Capital (Innovative and Exemplary Practices)


• Transportation Department, for Budget and Performance Integration (Agencywide Performance in the Governmentwide Management Initiative)


• Transportation Department, for Competitive Sourcing (Agencywide Performance in the Governmentwide Management Initiative)

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Free Money from the IRS
By Tom Shoop | Friday, November 17, 2006  |  07:59 AM

The IRS is looking for more than 95,000 people who haven't claimed their tax refund checks. The checks, totaling more than $92 million, couldn't be delivered by the Postal Service and were returned to the tax agency. Click here to find out if you're on the list.

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Headline of the Day
By Tom Shoop | Friday, November 17, 2006  |  07:38 AM

"Voodoo Practitioner Tries to Jinx Bush." Umm, I think the Democrats already took care of that.

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Our Neanderthal Cousins
By Tom Shoop | Thursday, November 16, 2006  |  04:53 PM

Scientists at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Joint Genome Institute have analyzed fossilized Neanderthal bones and discovered that the genomes of modern humans and Neanderthals are at least 99.5 percent identical. That certainly explains this:

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SEC Backs Green Reporting
By Tom Shoop | Thursday, November 16, 2006  |  09:54 AM

The advocacy group American Forests is backing a Securities and Exchange Commission proposal to allow companies to put annual reports and shareholder proxy information online rather than mailing printed material. The organization says that with companies currently mailing 300 million such packages a year, the change would:

• Allow 800,000 trees to continue to grow each year, removing some 267,000 tons of greenhouse gas from the atmosphere annually.


• Reduce fossil fuel consumption by approximately 500,000 gallons annually by eliminating the need for 3 million truck miles to transport the mail.


• Prevent 100,000 tons of paper from going to the nation's landfills each year.


• Eliminate 380,000 tons of greenhouse gas emitted in the manufacturing process.

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Red Ink, Black Ink
By Tom Shoop | Thursday, November 16, 2006  |  09:31 AM

Here's two pieces of agency economic news that aren't quite what they seem at first glance. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation reported Wednesday that it finished fiscal 2006 with a deficit of $18.1 billion. The Postal Service, meanwhile, said it ended up with a $900 million surplus. But the PBGC's report was actually good news, because the $18 billion figure is down from a shortfall of $22.8 billion in 2005 and a record $23.3 billion in 2004. And the Postal Service is still required to put $3 billion worth of pension overpayments into an escrow account, meaning that it technically ran a deficit of $2.1 billion.

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IRS to Reform the 1040
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 15, 2006  |  09:17 AM

The IRS is planning to make a few style and formatting changes to its most-used tax document, Form 1040, USA Today reports today. Even though the changes aren't exactly radical, taxpayers won't see them until the 2009 filing season. And IRS officials hope that most people won't even notice the modifications, because they'll file their forms electronically and never see the paper version of the 1040.

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Appliance Efficiency: Better Late Than Never
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 15, 2006  |  09:09 AM

The Energy Department has settled a lawsuit by agreeing to implement long-delayed energy efficiency requirements for household appliances. The suit, filed by 15 states and the the city of New York, charged that some of the rules were 13 years late. The new standards will cover 22 kinds of appliances and other types of household equipment, including heating and air conditioning systems, water heaters, boilers, dishwashers, clothes dryers and fluorescent lighting.

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Taxes and Fees
By Tom Shoop | Tuesday, November 14, 2006  |  01:34 PM

Wanna make a deal to pay your taxes on the installment plan? Fine, says the IRS, but you're going to have to pay a little more for the privilege.

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Pentagon IG Nominee Has Independence Issues
By Tom Shoop | Tuesday, November 14, 2006  |  10:14 AM

David H. Laufman is trying to jump-start his stalled nomination to be the Defense Department's inspector general, the Washington Post reports today. "Given the nature and magnitude of U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the hundreds of billions of dollars at issue in defense acquisition and contract performance, the need for aggressive oversight and accountability at the Department of Defense is critical," Laufman said yesterday. "Yet for more than a year, there has been a void of leadership in the Office of the Inspector General and a corresponding absence of essential oversight and accountability."

Laufman ran into some trouble at his confirmation hearings this summer, AP reports, because he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that under federal law, he would have to consult with the Defense secretary before investigating matters involving national security. Career IG staffers told Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., that such an approach would be a major departure from current practice. Now Levin, who is in line to chair the Armed Services panel when the Democrats take control, has expressed doubts about Laufman's nomination.

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Cincinnati Lockdown
By Tom Shoop | Tuesday, November 14, 2006  |  09:52 AM

Workers at the federal building in Cincinnati got a bit of a shock yesterday as investigators locked down the building after a Secret Service office in the building received a suspicious letter. Initial tests didn't reveal anything suspicious, but the envelope has been sent to an Ohio Department of Health laboratory for further analysis.

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Special Screeners Live High Life in Aspen
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 13, 2006  |  11:54 AM

The Transportation Security Administration is putting up temporary screeners in high-class accomodations in Aspen, Colo., the Aspen Times reports. The agency flies in screeners when it can't find enough permanent employees locally. Members of the special screening workforce get the benefit of staying in a place with relatively high per diem rates due to the presence of posh ski resorts. TSA is paying $82,000 a year per screener for lodging and food in Aspen, and that doesn't count salaries and benefits for the employees.

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Hoyer's Quest Gets Complicated
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 13, 2006  |  11:16 AM

Here's the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who's seeking to become the next House Majority Leader:

A senior member of the Appropriations Committee, Hoyer has served as minority whip since 2003. He is credited for his work on several pieces of landmark legislation, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act, which restructured the pay system for federal workers.

Can FEPCA really be considered a "landmark," given that it has never been implemented the way it was intended?

By the way, those leaders of organizations representing federal employees and retirees who began celebrating Hoyer's potential ascension on election night might want to reconsider their optimism. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has thrown her backing behind Hoyer's challenger for the post, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. Even if Hoyer wins, the fact that the incoming speaker would have preferred to work with his opponent would be likely to limit what he'll be able to accomplish, wouldn't it?

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To Pork or Not to Pork
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 13, 2006  |  10:59 AM

"I'd just as soon do away with all [earmarks], but that probably isn't realistic," future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told USA Today last week. Apparently not. Pelosi's a pretty prodigious earmarker herself, the Los Angeles Times reports today.

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Bush to Cabinet: Cooperate with Congress
By Tom Shoop | Friday, November 10, 2006  |  11:56 AM

President Bush on his meeting yesterday with his Cabinet members:

As the new members of Congress and their leaders return to Washington, I've instructed my Cabinet to provide whatever briefings and information they need to be able to do their jobs. The American people expect us to rise above partisan differences, and my administration will do its part.

You can bet that the new heads of the oversight committees on the Hill will be reminding the Cabinet secretaries of this promise as they begin inundating them demands for information.

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No Job Security in the E-Ring
By Tom Shoop | Friday, November 10, 2006  |  11:35 AM

The New York Times quotes friends of Defense Secretary-in-Waiting Robert Gates as saying he was "clearly distraught" about the management of the Iraq war after returning from a visit to the country as a member of the Iraq Study Group. The paper also reports that administration officials say Gates intends to clean house at the upper levels of the Pentagon bureaucracy.

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Headline of the Day, Part Two
By Tom Shoop | Friday, November 10, 2006  |  11:27 AM

"It's All About the Thomases." That's what I've always said.

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VA Chief to Vets: Show Your Colors
By Tom Shoop | Friday, November 10, 2006  |  11:25 AM

VA Secretary James Nicholson wants the nation's veterans to bring out the bling. He says that on the equivalent of Veterans Day in Australia, vets wear the medals and ribbons they've earned whether they're in uniform or not. "My wife and I went into a cafe and the guy who took our order had his ribbons on, and the guy who made our cappuccino had his ribbons on," Nicholson told the AP. "It made me think, it's the kind of thing we should develop as a tradition in our country."

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Headline of the Day
By Tom Shoop | Friday, November 10, 2006  |  11:18 AM

"Elections may shift U.S. Iraq war policy." Ya think?

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Senator-Elect: Bring on the GAO Reports!
By Tom Shoop | Thursday, November 09, 2006  |  01:10 PM

Look out, bureaucrats! Sen.-elect Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., has her eye on you. Here's McCaskill, a former county prosecutor and state auditor, in today's Kansas City Star:

I've been able to arm-wrestle some bureaucracies in Missouri. I know a lot about federal programs. I know how badly they behave. It's not very sexy, but the GAO [Government Accountability Office] is going to love me as a senator. My office is actually going to read their audits.

The paper said McCaskill is "interested in serving on both the Senate Judiciary and Government Reform committees." If she actually said that, she may want to get GAO to send her a report on how Congress is organized. She'd have to get herself elected to the House to serve on the Government Reform Committee. Over in the Senate, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is what she's looking for. (Thanks for the tip, K.R.)

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A Little Less Than a Vote of Confidence
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 08, 2006  |  02:14 PM

Mybe we should've listened closely to White House Press Secretary Tony Snow last weekend when the subject of calls for Donald Rumsfeld to resign came up. In retrospect, a close reading of the White House transcript of Saturday's press briefing is pretty revealing:

Q We know what the president said in the interview with the wire services last week, and that was [Rumsfeld] was doing a fine job. But couldn't things change after the elections, depending on how they go?
MR. SNOW: The President is Commander-in-Chief. At any time he can make military decisions, and will do so; but he's expressed his confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld.

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Rumsfeld Pays the Price
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 08, 2006  |  01:53 PM

With Donald Rumsfeld on the way out, I'm thinking back to something I wrote two years ago, at the height of the Abu Ghraib scandal:

What about accountability at the highest levels of the civilian bureaucracy for failures of leadership, management, training and discipline that have devastating consequences like those at Abu Ghraib? When you're really accountable, you pay the price. And when you're a political appointee, who serves at the pleasure of the president and is never guaranteed job security, the price is your job.

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Waxman: Gloves Starting to Come Off?
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 08, 2006  |  11:37 AM

Here's a quote from future House Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry "I'll Be Bipartisan" Waxman, D-Calif., from The Telegraph: "The Republicans have given us a very good example over the past 12 years of how not to behave, and we ought to learn from that."

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Get Smart About Election Results
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 08, 2006  |  09:55 AM

I should've mentioned this yesterday, but better late than never. If you want to keep up with the latest election news (and hey, they're still counting votes), visit On Call from our sister publication, The Hotline. It's got both breaking news updates and the smartest analysis around.

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FCC 's Quest: Ban the F-Bomb
By Tom Shoop | Tuesday, November 07, 2006  |  09:37 AM

The Federal Communications Commission continues its "how many F-bombs can dance on the head of a pin" quest to determine exactly what constitutes indecency in broadcast television. Yesterday's interpretations, according to AP:

• Indecent: A Dec. 9, 2002, broadcast of the Billboard Music Awards on Fox, in which singer Cher used the phrase, "F--- 'em," and a Dec. 10, 2003, Billboard awards show in which reality show star Nicole Richie said: "Have you ever tried to get cow s--- out of a Prada purse? It's not so f------ simple."


• Not Indecent: A Dec. 13, 2004, broadcast of CBS' "Early Show" in which a "Survivor" cast described a fellow contestant as a "bulls------."

To sum up: "cow s---" no, "bulls---" yes; "f---" never.

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FBI's Anti-Terror Shift: No Surprise
By Tom Shoop | Tuesday, November 07, 2006  |  09:23 AM

The folks at the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University are shocked that while the FBI has added agents and intelligence analysts, its investigations--especially in terrorism cases--increasingly do not result in prosecutions by the Justice Department. Why are they surprised, exactly? As FBI officials point out, this is pretty much exactly what they promised after 9/11: that more of the agency's resources would go toward trying to identify terrorist networks and prevent attacks before they occur. The jury's still out on how well this approach is working in terms of preventing terrorism, but it's certainly no surprise that it would result in a lower percentage of investigations that result in prosecutions.

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War's Over, Recruits Told
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 06, 2006  |  03:17 PM

Here's one way for the Army to keep its recruiting numbers up: tell would-be soldiers that the war in Iraq is over. That's what ABC News caught one recruiter doing. And it wasn't the only misleading statement caught by the network's hidden cameras.

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A Few More Pounds for Female Soldiers
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 06, 2006  |  03:02 PM

The Army has updated its regulations on how much female soldiers are allowed to weigh. Under the new rules, most women can weigh 5 to 19 pounds more than previously allowed. The Army's also changing the way body-fat percentage in female soldiers is measured, incorporating the results of the latest research on the differences between male and female body types.

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Firefighters Honored and Remembered
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 06, 2006  |  11:48 AM

"They loved doing their jobs, but they also loved going home afterward. This time they could not go home.”

--Jeanne Wade-Evans, a San Bernardino National Forest supervisor, at a memorial service for five Forest Service firefighters who died battling a blaze near Twin Pines, Calif. Those killed:

• Mark Loutzenhiser, 43
• Jason McKay, 27
• Jess McLean, 27
• Daniel Hoover-Najera, 20
• Pablo Cerda, 23

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Public Pensions: No Guarantees
By Tom Shoop | Monday, November 06, 2006  |  11:00 AM

How's this for a headline to send shivers down your spine: "Once Safe, Public Pensions Are Now Facing Cuts." That's from today's New York Times. It's about state and local government retirees, but still.

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Hijacking the Penatgon's ID Card Briefing
By Tom Shoop | Friday, November 03, 2006  |  10:07 AM

On Wednesday, David Chu, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, and Mary Dixon, director of the Defense Manpower Data Center, appeared in the Pentagon briefing room to talk about the department's effort to develop and implement new employee access cards under a presidential directive. It's a huge, multifaceted program that involves millions of taxpayer dollars and complex security issues. So of course the reporters present had a whole bunch of questions for the Pentagon's personnel chief on how it's being implemented, right? Well, sort of. There were a couple such questions, but then the media folks went straight to the really pressing news of the day, with the following consecutive questions:

Dr. Chu, as head of personal readiness, I'd like to get your views on what you think of Senator Kerry's comments about American personnel -- military personnel in Iraq being uneducated.

Are you at all concerned that the senator's comments will have any effect on recruiting or on morale, anything like that, of the U.S. --

Have you heard -- have you received any feedback from people within the military about these comments, what they perceive them to be? Do they feel insulted? Has any of that come to your level?

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Iraq IG Shutdown: New Old News
By Tom Shoop | Friday, November 03, 2006  |  09:41 AM

The New York Times has discovered that Congress has ordered the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction to disband after next year. Gee, where have I read that before?

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Davis: Not That Tech-Friendly
By Tom Shoop | Thursday, November 02, 2006  |  01:50 PM

House Government Reform Committee chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., is known for being friendly with the technology community in North Virginia. But a CNET News.com analysis puts Davis near the middle of the pack among members of Congress, while Sen. George Allen, R-Va., scored the highest of anyone on Capitol Hill. Based on a series of tech-related votes, Davis received a score of 55 percent on a ranking based on a series of tech-related votes. He lost points for votes “banning some computer generated-porn,” for investigating the computer game “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” and for seeing to prohibit Internet gambling. The highest-ranking House members in CNET's ratings are Reps. Ron Paul, R-Texas, with an 80 percent score, followed by California Democrats Zoe Lofgren and Ellen Tauscher.--Daniel Pulliam

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TSA Bonuses Can't Buy Retention
By Tom Shoop | Thursday, November 02, 2006  |  09:25 AM

In May, the Transportation Security Administration began paying 36,000 of its 45,000 screeners retention bonuses of $500 or $1,000 each. The net effect of the $18 million program? Not much, USA Today reports. The agency's turnover rate wasn't any lower over the summer than it was in the winter and spring months, according to TSA and the Office of Personnel Management. For all of fiscal 2006, one in five screeners left TSA. Now the agency is trying a new approach: creating a new pay grade to boost the salaries of veteran screeners.

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A Mall Makeover?
By Tom Shoop | Thursday, November 02, 2006  |  09:09 AM

Quick--what gets more visitors than Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon national parks combined? The National Mall in Washington, with 25 million visitors generating three to four tons of trash every day on just 300 acres of turf. That "adds up to a lot of wear and tear," Park Service Director Mary Bomar tells AP. Now Bomar wants to know what visitors want out of the Mall. So the Park Service has launched an $800,000 campaign to get their views.

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Headline of the Day
By Tom Shoop | Thursday, November 02, 2006  |  08:59 AM

"Productivity slows to a standstill." I blame YouTube.

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Less Government, More Effectiveness
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 01, 2006  |  04:05 PM

Here's ex-Clinton administration official Bruce Reed in a post on his Slate blog, "The Has-Been:"

In 1994, Republicans took over the Congress with one goal foremost in mind—to turn Americans against government. Twelve years later, they've succeeded, although not the way they intended. A new CNN poll finds that 54 percent of Americans think government tries to do too much, while only 37 percent think government should do more. And to put government in its place, they're going to vote … Democrat.

That's a pretty shocking statistic, and a strong indication that this election has become a referendum on government's effectiveness. If the Democrats end up with control of Congress, they won't be in an enviable position. As the Washington Post reports today, Democrats are promising to add tens of billions of dollars in spending for defense, homeland security and education. But that only addresses the 37 percent of bigger government types who presumably make up the Democratic base. The folks in the too-much-government camp, on the other hand, don't actually want government to stop doing what it's doing, they just want it done better, and they don't want to pay any more for it. They want, in short, what Clinton promised them in the whole reinventing government crusade: a government that "works better and costs less." And that's the toughest of challenges to meet.

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No Glacier Bombs
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 01, 2006  |  09:40 AM

The National Park Service has thought it over and decided that, no, lobbying artillery shells into Glacier National Park isn't a good idea. The Washington Post reports that the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway had sought to lob shells into the park as a means of avalanche control. The Park Service decided that while that technique would work, it wouldn't be consistent with "park values." The agency wants the railroad to build snow sheds to shelter train tracks at key points instead.

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'Amazing' Air Force Downsizes, Recruits
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, November 01, 2006  |  09:25 AM

At the same time the Air Force is cutting 40,000 jobs, it's trying to send another message: We're hiring. The service has launched a $22 million advertising campaign, AP reports, to lure linguists, medical staff and other specialists. The ad campaign's slogan? "Do Something Amazing."

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