Ronald Goldfarb, writing in the Hill , points out that 90 percent of the 16 million classified documents generated each year should be open in the first place. “The burden,” he writes, “ought to be on those classifying confidentially to make the clear case for secrecy, and the presumption should be for openness.” Ronald Goldfarb in the Hill: Presently, over 4,000 federal government officials have the power initially to classify documents. The classification system costs us $7 billion a year to classify 17,000 documents a day, 16 million per year. In addition, over 3 million employees have the power to declare a derivative classification if they use, excerpt or paraphrase a classified document — they do so 5,000 instances a day, 50 million documents a year. The natural tendency is to err on the side of safety and overdo it. Categories of classification are subjective, and different classifiers draw different conclusions. With no sunset provision to undo these classifications, and an uncertain, slow and expensive FOIA system, documents tend to stay classified. The Wiki experience shows how silly some of the secrecy has been shielding idiosyncratic behavior of eccentric officials, and how enlightening some of the disclosures have been — our wasting money by giving it to corrupt officials in Afghanistan. Read more Related Entries December 5, 2010 WikiLeaks: Not for Government Eyes November 30, 2010 WikiLeaks and the End of U.S. ‘Diplomacy’
Continue reading …Motorola Android tablet prototype makes a cameo at D: Dive Into Mobile running Honeycomb
December 7, 2010 No Comment
Google’s Andy Rubin brought more than just a Nexus S in his bag of goodies tonight. On stage at D: Dive Into Mobile, the man has brought with him a prototype Android tablet from Motorola. It’s got video chat, an NVIDIA processor, a “dual core 3D processor,” and… oh yeah, it runs Honeycomb , not Gingerbread. Little else is known — Rubin immediately turned his attention to a new release of Google Maps — but we wouldn’t be surprised if we were looking at Stingray , a tablet rumored for a launch on Verizon shortly. Is it seven inches? Ten? We honestly don’t know — but our gut tells us on the bigger side of the spectrum, which would line up with rumblings that the Stingray would in fact be a full ten inches diagonally. Feast your eyes on our pics below! Gallery: Motorola Android tablet prototype makes a cameo at D: Dive Into Mobile Motorola Android tablet prototype makes a cameo at D: Dive Into Mobile running Honeycomb originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Monday unveiled a compromise deal to extend all Bush-era tax cuts for two years, giving ground to emboldened Republicans who won big in last month’s congressional elections. After meeting Democratic leaders, Obama announced what he called a “framework” agreement with Republicans that would renew…
Continue reading …Massive Wild Fire That Turned Acres Of Land Into Ashes Killed 42 People In Israel
December 7, 2010 No CommentThursday-a massive fire that turned ten thousands of acres into ash around Israel’s third largest city,Haifa. The fire took at least 42 lives and prompted due evacuation to thousands of dwellers in the nearby villages before it was finally extinguished Monday,according to police reports. Authorities,according to Micky Rosenfeld,the police spokesperson, are currently investigating the major Massive Wild Fire That Turned Acres Of Land Into Ashes Killed 42 People In Israel is a post from: Daily World Buzz
Continue reading …BREAKING: Obama Presents The Tax-Cut Deal Cut With GOP Leadership. Will Rank-and-File Republicans Pass It? Will Dems Say No?
December 7, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media H/T Heather. Senior administration officials talked to bloggers tonight after President Obama addressed the nation on the results of the extortion negotiation with the Republican leadership, and I have to tell you, I’m not all that unhappy with the results. This is an actual compromise deal . (And, as I’ve said before, giving tax cuts to the rich is the best insurance policy we can get for Social Security.) First of all, the unemployed who are still collecting benefits get to heave a sigh of relief, because they’re covered for the next 13 months. (I did ask about the 99ers. Sorry, nothing. Apparently we’re still invisible . I also said if they were still in negotiations, they might want to considering exempting unemployment benefits from the income tax, the way they used to before Reagan.) But that’s not all. The package includes a shiny new one-year 2% payroll-tax cut for employees, which will stimulate the economy because the people who get it are the ones most likely to spend it. Thumbs up on the payroll-tax cut, which by the way, will be revenue-neutral for Social Security via a credit for the amount that would have been otherwise collected. It also includes a fix to the Alternative Minimum Tax. The aforementioned millionaires and billionaires do get their tax cuts — but only for two years. (That will cost us $95 billion, by the way, and will be financed by borrowing from China.) But they’ll have a merry Christmas anyway, because of the jingle in their pockets from (you knew this was coming) reinstating the estate tax with a $5 million exemption . (The officials said that issue will be fought again at a later date.) If the president had his way, one of the officials said, they would only be making the middle-class tax cuts permanent, but it “wasn’t possible to get through. If there was a compromise, though, he wanted lots of other pieces included.” Bottom line, as the officials pointed out, if he didn’t deal with the Republicans, they would have dragged this out for “months and months and months,” and there was a good possibility they wouldn’t get any UI extensions at all. Honestly, I don’t care that he promised not to raise these taxes. With a gun to his head , he didn’t have much choice. But Obama needs to learn that an occasional piece of cheese from the Republican rats doesn’t mean a new era of understanding.
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Stay tuned… there’s some serious Nexus S / Android action about to occur. Continue reading Google’s Andy Rubin live from D: Dive Into Mobile Google’s Andy Rubin live from D: Dive Into Mobile originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Denver’s Broncos fired coach Josh McDaniels on Monday after the team dropped to 3-and-9 with a loss on Sunday to Kansas City. McDaniels held the job for less than two seasons. (Dec. 06)
Continue reading …Krauthammer on Obama’s Televised Tax Announcement: He Was Addressing Daily Kos, NYT and MoveOn
December 7, 2010 No Comment
Charles Krauthammer on Monday said that when Barack Obama spoke to the nation hours ago to announce a tax extension compromise just reached with Republicans, “It was actually a speech addressed at Daily Kos, the New York Times, and MoveOn.” In Krauthammer's view expressed on Fox's “Special Report,” “This was a speech aimed at appeasing the Left which is extremely angry over this” (video follows with transcript and commentary): read more
Continue reading …Yoomi and Duo join forces for an ‘Apples to Apples’ esque experience… on your Apple iPad
December 7, 2010 No Comment
Because your game board of an iPad can’t always be used for heated, futuristic Scrabble matches or perennially peeved pigeons , Discovery Bay Games has devised a divertissement of its own that, in its words (no pun intended), requires no reading. Actually, Yoomi for has a really cool trick in that it uses the Duo, a chip collector that rests on top of the display. Here’s how it works: one person picks (the selection hidden from the group by the Duo) between two cards with no criteria whatsoever (e.g. Loch Ness Monster or Big Foot). The rest of the group puts a token into the slot corresponding to their guess. Once the correct answer is revealed, the Duo “magically” (how coy) knows which answer was right and drops the tokens into the connected bin, leaving those who guessed wrong to pick up the pieces and try again. First player to rid themselves of all tokens wins! Interested in actually letting your family drop things on the iPad screen this holiday season? App is free, Duo is $40 from Toys R Us — and if you’re still need more, video is after the break. Continue reading Yoomi and Duo join forces for an ‘Apples to Apples’ esque experience… on your Apple iPad Yoomi and Duo join forces for an ‘Apples to Apples’ esque experience… on your Apple iPad originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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enlarge Dan Bartlett reminds all of us that the GOP doesn’t care about Americans, doesn’t care about the destructive effects of their disastrous policies and that it’s all gamesmanship for the soulless conservatives : (I)n Washington, where anything beyond last week’s news cycle is considered ancient history, the jury-rigged nature of the Bush plan—and the fiscal sleight-of-hand involved—have been all but forgotten. “We knew that, politically, once you get it into law, it becomes almost impossible to remove it,” says Dan Bartlett, Bush’s former communications director. “That’s not a bad legacy. The fact that we were able to lay the trap does feel pretty good, to tell you the truth.” (h/t Andrew) Case closed.
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