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Daily Archives: August 23, 2014

MuckRock 50 States of FOIA Project

“The MuckRock 50 States of FOIA Project aims to shed light on what it’s like to work with public records around the U.S., through the voices of requesters state by state. This time, we focus on the state of Massachusetts. MuckRock spoke with Colman Herman, a freelance investigative reporter whose work can be found in the Globe, the Herald, and Commonwealth Magazine.”

Backoff: New Point of Sale Malware

“This advisory was prepared in collaboration with the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), United States Secret Service (USSS), Financial Sector Information Sharingand Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), and Trustwave Spiderlabs, acting under contract with the USSS. The purpose of this release is to provide relevant and actionable technical indicators for network defense. Recent investigations revealed… Continue Reading

Why You Should Talk to the Librarians

Paula Krebes, Dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Bridgewater State University: “If you haven’t spent a good few hours going over your syllabi with a librarian trained in your subject area, you’re shortchanging your course and your students (and yourself). Librarians keep up with the technology in your field. They know the campus holdings and can… Continue Reading

The Simple Analytics of Helicopter Money: Why it Works – Always

Buiter, Willem H., The Simple Analytics of Helicopter Money: Why it Works – Always (August 21, 2014). Economics, Vol. 8, August 2014, DOI: org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2014-28. Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2484853 “We provide a rigorous analysis of Milton Friedman’s parable of the ‘helicopter’ drop of money – a permanent/irreversible increase in the nominal stock of fiat base… Continue Reading

New GAO Reports – Education of homeless students, World Trade Center Health Program, SNAP

EDUCATION OF HOMELESS STUDENTS: Improved Program Oversight Needed, GAO-14-465: Published: Jul 31, 2014. Publicly Released: Aug 22, 2014. WORLD TRADE CENTER HEALTH PROGRAM: Approach Used to Add Cancers to List of Covered Conditions Was Reasonable, but Could Be Improved, GAO-14-606: Published: Jul 23, 2014. Publicly Released: Aug 22, 2014. SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM: Enhanced Detection Tools and Reporting Could Improve Efforts to… Continue Reading

Ozone-Depleting Compound Persists, NASA Research Shows

“NASA research shows Earth’s atmosphere contains an unexpectedly large amount of an ozone-depleting compound from an unknown source decades after the compound was banned worldwide. Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), which was once used in applications such as dry cleaning and as a fire-extinguishing agent, was regulated in 1987 under the Montreal Protocol along with other chlorofluorocarbons that… Continue Reading