General News

Daily Curiosity: The Atlantic's Best Books of 2009

Evan Morier — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:57:00 GMT

From Lincoln to finance to art, The Atlantic rates the top 25 books of the year.

OPM blasted by judgements in the Ninth Circuit

Evan Morier — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:11:00 GMT

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down two decisions this week requiring health benefits be provided to same-sex spouses of judicial employees.

The Office of Personnel Management had been denying the benefits claims of two employees, prompting Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit Alex Kozinski to write: "I have no reason to believe that this discrimination will cease without … action on my part."

Postal Service in crisis, seeking way out

Evan Morier — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:52:00 GMT

The US Postal Service is bleeding money like a trauma victim, not surprising to anyone who has been on the Internet lately. The only snail mail people get now is junk, bills, and Netflix DVDs.

In any case, the Postal Service needs to find a way to stop losing billions of dollars per year. Cutting Saturday delivery and raising rates both appear to have heavy opposition, but won't it have to be one of them if the USPS is still going to deliver the mail?

Obama finally comes to aid of USAID

Samuel Knight — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:38:00 GMT

President Obama has finally nominated an administrator to USAID ten months after taking office. The White House announced last week that it endorsed Rajiv Shah, the Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics at the Department of Agriculture and former Gates Foundation executive, to lead the development agency. Shah's appointment is subject to the approval of the Senate, who will be processing the nomination and holding hearings on the matter soon, according to a spokesperson from the Committee on Foreign Relations.

The announcement comes extremely late for Obama ,who has endured harsh criticism for the delay even from his own quarters. At a meeting with USAID employees in July, Hillary Clinton blasted the President's notoriously demanding vetting process. “It's frustrating beyond words,” the Secretary of State said before contradicting herself by calling the protocol “a nightmare” and “ridiculous.”

Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN), the chairman and a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also questioned the indecision. The pair, who passed a bill through committee this week that seeks to reform foreign aid, sent a letter to the White House two months ago imploring the President to pick someone already (pdf). “We recommend,” the two recommended, “that you give strong consideration to selecting a candidate who has already gone through the vetting process,” adding that “experience in global development” would be nice, too.

By nominating Shah, who had to be approved by the Senate to take the job at the USDA, the President at least appears to have heeded this advice.

Those who were discouraged by the vetting process include Dr. Paul Farmer, a man widely lauded for his sustainable community based approach to economic development. Although he was believed to be the President's top choice – and a rock star to development nerds - his auditors seemed to disagree. Were they perhaps concerned that his past criticisms of US foreign policy would' be an unwelcome controversy for the White House during Senate confirmation hearings, or was Farmer simply fed up with the process? Either way, it didn't work out.

Can he develop development?

As someone who has been through the Senate Confirmation Process once already this year, Shah's nomination may not rock the entirety of the establishment, but it hasn't been entirely endearing to the development community. The Washington Independent claims that many insiders are afraid that his appointment means the end of nation building and governance work for USAID. Conversely, he has experience managing large budgets, ones that dwarfed the entire $1.25 billion USAID budget, and his work researching agriculture and public health issues has earned the President praise for selecting Shah from Dr. Orin Levine. Meanwhile, Politico's Lauren Rozen said that USAID staffers don't know enough about Shah and are taking a wait-and-see approach to making an assessment about his nomination.

Outside of the loop, the appointment may not be met with approval either; Shah's work at the Gates Foundation included the promotion and development of a controversial biotechnology, transgenic agriculture. Supporters of the practice not only insists that it is safe and increases agricultural yields, they also claim a consensus exists in the scientific community regarding its safety and benefits. Dissenting studies - including one done by the IAASTD, a group supported by those radical environmentalist neo-luddites at the World Bank - have questioned the safety, productivity and necessity of genetically modifying food, which requires farmers to buy copyright-protected seeds every year. Whatever the truth is, without a stronger consensus on the issue, Shah will most likely encounter the controversy if he pushes the technology in his development work with the same enthusiasm of his former boss.

Afghan idle

Rajiv Shah's most pressing concern may not be the ethics of certain biotechnology, unfortunately, but economic development in Afghanistan. Although the President has claimed that an increase in civilian assistance is vital to his strategy in Afghanistan, public debate has been focused on additional troops. This debate may be utterly pointless if there is no palpable economic improvement. A recent Oxfam poll shows that 70% of Afghans believe that the main cause of the violence is poverty and unemployment.

That Obama has waited so long to name a USAID administrator has not helped alleviate the situation. By its own admission, the organization performed poorly in Afghanistan under the Bush administration, but, with a swift appointment, at least a new leader at USAID could have had an entire bureaucracy hard at work trying to crack economic problems in the Graveyard of Empires. While security problems and concerns about corruption are legitimate, there is no reason that USAID shouldn't have been primed by the White House to make a bold contribution towards an economic development strategy, which is of paramount concern. Instead, the President put off naming a leader to a potentially useful institution for almost a quarter of his first term. In this time, American military casualties have doubled and the rate of Afghan civilian casualties has increased significantly.

Development aid has been sent to Afghanistan by the Obama administration through other channels and it remains to be seen whether or not USAID can help bring the war to an end, though some analysts believe that Shah should be given more of a chance; they have called for the USAID administrator to join the President's National Security Council. Shah's nomination may have come too late to make a difference though — development strategy in Afghanistan, like most other things, has been outsourced to Asians with Japan pledging $5 billion towards civic society development.

The President, at least, has finally decided to consider the role that USAID will play in his foreign policy by nominating someone to lead it.

New CIA ad geared towards Arabs

Evan Morier — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:33:00 GMT

The CIA has filmed a new TV ad to try to spark interest in the CIA among the Arab community. The ad—which shows an Arab-American family at home—tries to convey that the CIA respects the desire for some Arabs to keep close to their family and culture while employed.

DoD and military talk environment at D.C. event

OhMyGov! — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:30:00 GMT

A panel of distinguished environmental experts from the Department of Defense met yesterday at the National Press Club to address their efforts to comply with an Obama Administration directive to "green" the federal government.

Executive Order 13514, signed by President Obama, sets numerous green requirements for the federal government, including setting greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets; increasing energy efficiency; reducing fleet petroleum consumption; water conservation; waste reduction; supporting sustainable communities; and leveraging the governments purchasing power to promote environmentally-responsible products and technologies.

Here's a quick recap of the event:

"Army Green, Army Strong"

Addison "Tad" Davis highlighted the Army's new environmental campaign, "Army Green, Army Strong." According to Davis, the Army is "building, buying and going green" and with $50 billion in new construction they are positioned to reach 30% energy effectiveness.

Navy's Great Green Fleet

Bryon Paez from the Navy's Energy Office spoke about the ambitious environmental agenda of Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus. Among the environmental goals the Navy is pursuing at full speed ahead: 1) holding industry contractually accountable for meeting energy targets and system efficiency requirements, 2) sailing a Great Green Fleet composed of nuclear ships, surface combatants equipped with hybrid electric alternative power systems running biofuel, and aircraft flying only biofuels by 2016, 3) reducing petroleum use by 50 percent by 2015, 4) producing at least half of shore-based energy requirements on Navy installations from alternative sources by 2020, and 5) ensuring half of the Navy's total energy consumption for ships, aircraft, tanks, vehicles, and shore installations will come from alternative sources by 2020.

Alternative Fuels

Mike McGehee of the Air Force focused on the Department's work on alternative fuels. The Air Force has spent $54 million on the testing and certification of biomass and synthetic fuels for their over 5,000 airframes, with a goal to cost-competitively purchase 50% of domestic aviation fuel via "greener" alternative fuel blend by 2016.

Vice Admiral Alan Thompson, director of the Defense Logistics Agency, DoD's largest logistics combat support agency, chimed in stating that DLA is working with the services on alternative fuels and saw DoD as a "critical enabler to move DoD forward." He also reflected on a recent visit to Iraq where his organization is key to the drawdown of U.S. military activity. Adm. Thompson said that through their environmental stewardship they are returning occupied areas "much better than found."

An "Idea"

The keynote speaker, Dr. Dorothy Robyn, the deputy undersecretary of defense for installations & environment, provided the most insightful vision for DoD's direction and did not hold back any punches. She said that, while other cabinet level agencies could go green through low-hanging environmental fruit like low flow water fixtures, "what makes DoD unique, these green efforts are not only consistent but required for the mission."

She gave several examples where DoD was not only a good steward protecting federal lands but also allows the military to carry out their training missions without population encroachment, saying "it's in the Department's interest to do this."

But her most astute remarks revolved around her idea, still in its infancy, to leverage the environmental technologies developed from agencies like the Department of Energy and academia and using the DoD's non-homogeneous facilities to be a test bed for environmental solutions, which can be transfer to national solutions.

Can I get a copy of my SF-50 from the Office of Personnel Management?

Bureaupat — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:02:00 GMT

Dear Bureaupat,

I live in Washington, D.C. Can I just go to the Office of Personnel Management to get a copy of my SF-50?

Dear Local,

Wow, the questions about the SF-50, Notification of Personnel Action, just keep on rollin' in. Unfortunately, this is one situation were living in Washington, D.C. — home of the federal government and one seriously underperforming NFL team — provides absolutely no benefit.

While the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) manages the civil service of the federal government, including the policies, procedures and development of the SF-50, OPM itself is not a short- or long-term repository for your file.

If you are currently a federal employee, the best place to get a copy of your Official Personnel Folder (OPF), which includes your SF-50, is your agency's Human Resources office.

If you are a recent retiree or job-changer and left federal employment within the last 90 days, you may be able to request a copy from the HR office at your previous agency.

But in situations where the fine folks at HR are unable to help, you may request a copy of your SF-50, a complete copy of your OPF, or certain other forms by writing to:

National Personnel Records Center
111 Winnebago Street
St. Louis, MO 63118-4126

It is important to note that The Privacy Act of 1974 (5 USC 552a) stipulates that requests for information from federal records be signed and dated and in writing. That's right: only written requests for records may be made. No calls, emails, or faxes regarding personnel records will be accepted. And pleading "But Bureaupat said you'd help" won't work either. Trust me, I've tried that one myself. Good luck!

Yours in Gov,

Bureaupat

Read More Q&A from Bureaupat:

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The DOJ would like your credit card information... and for you to shut up

Alex Salta — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:33:00 GMT

It can be a thin line between legitimate concerns over the government's role in questions of privacy and free speech, and overheated hallucinations of Big Brother monitoring everything we read and discuss. A recent subpoena issued by the Department of Justice seems to drift out of the realm of the former and into the murkier waters of the latter, and some people are not happy.

Declan McCullagh of CBS News' Taking Liberties blog recently reported that in June of 2008 Kristina Clair, a systems administrator for independent news aggregator Indymedia.us was served with a federal subpoena demanding the website provide DOJ with "all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us [including] IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information" regarding the site's visitors.

But that wasn't all the federal subpoena demanded. It also instructed Clair "not to disclose the existence of this request unless authorized by the Assistant U.S. Attorney."

So not only was Clair being told by the Department of Justice to disclose sensitive information for an unknown reason, she was being told not to mention this to anyone...including an attorney. Well that sounds like a fun interpretation of the Constitution!

A confused Clair reached out to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital industry legal advocacy group, for advice on how to deal with the DOJ's unexpected demand. "Not only was this request a plain violation of federal privacy law," EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston told FoxNews.com, "not only did it threaten the First Amendment right to read anonymously of all of Indymedia's users, it also violated Ms. Clair's First Amendment rights by ordering her not to disclose the subpoena's existence."

The EFF sent a letter to Assistant U.S. Attorney Doris L. Pryor on February 13 detailing some of the concerns listed by Bankston. "On February 24, I received a voicemail from Ms. Pryor in response to my letter," Bankston told Fox News. "In that message, Ms. Pryor said that I was correct that the subpoena did not compel Ms. Clair's silence, but that she would be seeking a court order, as she would confirm in a letter later that day."

The subpoena was almost immediately withdrawn by U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison with little explanation. Apparently this wasn't the end of the saga. According to McCullagh's story, Assistant U.S. Attorney's in Morrison's office reiterated to the EFF that if Clair were to tell anyone about the subpoena she could face prosecution for obstruction of justice, and that such a disclosure "may endanger someone's health" and "would have a human cost."

Those seem like the types of veiled threats of physical harm you would more likely hear from a disgruntled Tea Bagger than an Assistant U.S. Attorney, but if nothing else it is nice to see that the market on threats hasn't been cornered by the faux populists among us.

Lucy Daglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press suggested in an interview with CBS News that the legitimacy of the DOJ's actions is questionable at best. "I have seen any number of these things withdrawn when counsel for someone who is claiming a reporter's privilege says, ‘Can you tell me the date you got approval from the attorney general's office,'" she told McCullagh. "I'm willing to chalk this up to bad lawyering on the part of the DOJ, or just not thinking."

According to Fox News, an anonymous source claims that neither Attorney General Eric Holder nor former Deputy Attorney General/Acting Attorney General Mark Filip ever received or signed off on Morrison's subpoena. Such a signature is required by law. It is not clear if an internal DOJ investigation has been launched regarding this allegation.

The Department of Justice's press office seems to be in deflection mode when it comes to taking the blame for this cute little publicity nightmare. "The U.S. Attorney's office of Indiana South issued the subpoena and it's a grand jury investigation," spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz told Fox News. "[Morrison's office] are the one's giving comment. Unfortunately, [The DOJ] can't comment on grand jury deliberations."

The Department of Justice has gained a reputation in recent years for being a hothouse for wacky federal antics. From former Attorney General John Ashcroft's career as an amateur art critic to the notorious U.S. Attorney firings, the DOJ has been no stranger to controversy. This recent case isn't likely to help clean up the department's image. Then again maybe we should just stop talking about this; after all we wouldn't want to put anyone's health in jeopardy.

A typeface to save the planet: Ecofont

Timothy Page — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:44:00 GMT

The Dutch have always been innovators in graphic design and mindful of their environment, living in a below-sea-level country as they do. A new “holey” font that seeks to reduce wasteful printing is the latest product to merge these two worlds.

Introducing Ecofont, your average old Arial typeface tweaked in such a way that can reduce ink use by 20 percent. Designed by the Dutch marketing and communications agency Spranq, the idea sprang from agency cofounder Colin Willems, who witnessed massive amounts of ink wasted every day in the mundane printing habits of office workers everywhere.

Available for Windows, MAC, and Linux operating systems, the font incorporates tiny holes in the letters to not only retain the visual aspect, but to help reduce the ink used with your day-to-day printing.

According to a 2009 report on government printing released by Lexmark and O’Keefe & Company, the U.S. Government alone spends $1.3 billion dollars printing every year, and almost a third, $440 million, is complete waste. Federal workers print 30 pages every work day on average, 92% of them admitting they print more than they need.

If people are paying attention to this sort of thing at all (and most aren’t), they typically combat excessive ink use by printing in draft mode or using smaller type. These help reduce overall output and consume less ink. But most office workers don’t have any thoughts or time to spare for considering the environmental impact of ink as they race to meet a deadline.

Here’s where Ecofont has some promise. The font can be downloaded for free, dropped into your computer’s font folder, set as the default, and bam! Less wasteful printing every time, without having to fuss with anything.

While some critics have considered this “green” font the greatest thing since Swiss cheese, the battle for simplistic ingenuity did not come quick. For months, designers pounded pots of coffee and arranged letters in all sorts of ways to help reduce ink consumption. Some of those failures include using partial letters to save ink, or using a zebra-like pattern in the font to cut out unnecessary inking.

Spranq co-founder Gerjon Zomer said that the light bulb went off when designers realized that it is necessary to preserve the size and outline of letters to keep them readable. Much like a kitchen knife with holes in it keep down weight without hampering its slicing performance, Ecofont does the same for typography and ink consumption.

This reporter decided that the only true way to write about this font was to write in it. After downloading Ecofont from the website, I was typing away in a euphoria of “green happiness,” and for the time being, wasting even more ink by printing out documents in both Arial and the new font to compare the differences.

Depending on your software, Ecofont holds its own when displayed, much like draft mode and other ink conserving methods. However, Gerjon Zomer himself will tell you that the font isn’t beautiful, but it is adequate enough for personal use or internal use at a company. Their main goal: to incorporate the font in business spending.

“We’re working hard on launching Ecofont Professional, but we’ve already received over a hundred requests from government agencies and NGOs all over the world,” Zomer told OhMyGov. “The Ecofont free version is used by such organizations, but due to the fact we believe it’s not suited for use in organizations we don’t keep record of this.”

The Ecofont is based off of the sans-serif font family Verdana, a popular web font that’s similar to the ubiquitous Arial and used widely in the business field. A little more time is needed to polish off a truly professional look for primetime. Currently the company is inviting developers to help improve the design.

Apart from English, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese versions, Arabic and Hebrew versions are currently under development.

Download Ecofont here.

Are congressional staffers covered under federal government pay plans?

Bureaupat — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:30:00 GMT

Dear Bureaupat,

I'm considering moving up in government. That is, up to Capitol Hill as a congressional staffer. Can you tell me whether or not congressional staffers are covered by a federal government pay plan?

Dear Hill-Bound,

Moving from the halls of the federal bureaucracy to the home of Congress beneath the Capitol dome is quite a move indeed. Though all part of the federal government, there are some key ways the jobs are different, including on the pay and benefits side.

While federal government employees are covered by a number of different pay systems, some established by individual laws, some by administrative determination, none of these will apply to you. Your salary will be determined by the member of Congress you work for and you'll be at the mercy of his or her budget.

Congressional staffer salary can vary widely. There are caps too. In 2009, the maximum salary for a staffer for a member's personal office was $168,411. Committee staffers, in certain instances, are eligible for a slightly higher salary.

While that sounds good, only a few aides are paid at the cap. Many junior-level staffers make an embarrassingly paltry sum, for office jobs that can have a brutal intensity to them. This includes working for the sometimes wild and crazy personalities of the elected. And... all this in the expensive city of Washington, D.C.

Unlike their federal counterparts who are free to go home at the end of the day, when Congress is in session, Congressional staffers often work well into the night, sometimes into the early morning, to craft legislation or to broker deals with the administration. Not the typical day of a fed, but due to their prestige, competition for congressional jobs is fierce.

On the bright side, there is a potential pay-off. Many experienced congressional staffers leave the public sector to find jobs in the private sector making many times what they make in Congress.

Of course, their value in the private sector is sometimes enhanced not by their skills but by the personal connections they make while working for Congress.

Yours in Gov,

Bureaupat

Read More Q&A from Bureaupat:

[+] Can the new GI Bill be used for graduate education?

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