You Gotta be Kiddin’. An audit shows Uncle Sam’s overpaying for a lot of government day care centers. There’s one case where it cost taxpayers $35,000 a year to take care of one government worker’s kid. (WashPost)
Turn out the Lights, the Party’s Over. The Tennessee Valley Authority – the federal dam project that pumped light into the rural southeast during the Depression is having to cut back. A memo went out to cut back on entertainment expenses after a going away party for a government worker wound up costing taxpayers $35,000. (WashPost)
Fool Me Once Shame on You, Fool Me Twice... A company that screwed up a $427 million dollar federal contract has been awarded another one – this time for just $12 million. BearingPoint, which set up a computer system so disasterous for the VA it resulted in five resignations and a Congressional investigation, has landed the bid to build a biometric ID card for theTransportation Security Administration. (WashPost)
Superfund Shortfall. Washington could run $250 million short on money needed for cleaning up the worst pollution sites. (NYT)
The Cold War is Officially Over – We’re Bringing the Troops Home. President Bush is set to outline how the US will redeploy as many as 100,000 troops from Europe and Asia. Some will come home. Others will back up the strained forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. (CNN)
The Cost of War. Reservists and National Guardsmen are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan to find their civilian jobs were eliminated, they’ve been passed over for promotion, and their benefits cut. (AP)
Terrorism’s Hard Drive. Since the Bush administration outed Muhammed Neem Noor Khan--the al Qaeda operative turned spy for our side—we’re finding out a lot of scary stuff terrorists planned. But we still don’t know if any of the plans on his computer were active or abandoned. (MSNBC)
Putting a Price on 9/11. Insurance Services Office Inc. of Jersey City, N.J. ranks the 9/11 attacks as the most expensive catastrophe to hit the US at $20.7 billion.
What’s that Sound, Science? President Bush promised to base his science policy on what he called "sound science." For the first time ever, a broad spectrum of scientists have criticized a President’s science policy. And they’re criticizing it in big numbers – more than 4,000, including 48 Nobel winners have signed a statement critical of President Bush’s science policy.
The Scoop on the Dog Poop. Dog poop turned up in a Connecticut Capitol Committee room. State Capitols are more used to piles of BS than doggie-doo. So the search was on to find a culprit. A Democratic legislator blamed the seeing-eye dog of a Republican colleague’s staffer. But it turns out it was the Democrat’s pet pup -- an appropriate breed, too -- a Shih Tzu.
