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Monthly Archives: September 2014

Overview of the U.S. nuclear weapons program

“Nuclear weapons and countering nuclear threats will continue to be a central concern for the United States until we achieve President Obama’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons. The President has identified the dual missions of sustaining a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent and countering the threat from nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation… Continue Reading

Towers Watson annual report on Fortune 500 directors compensation

“Total pay for outside directors at the nation’s largest corporations increased by 6% in 2013, fueled by higher stock-based compensation, according to a new analysis by global professional services company Towers Watson. The study also found that cash compensation remained flat for the first time since 2007, when proxy disclosure rules were enacted requiring companies… Continue Reading

Bourne-Again Shell (Bash) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

“US-CERT is aware of a Bash vulnerability affecting Unix-based operating systems such as Linux and Mac OS X. Exploitation of this vulnerability may allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on an affected system. The flaw was originally assigned CVE-2014-6271, but it was later discovered that the patch had an issue in the parser and did… Continue Reading

Appeals Court Limits Military Surveillance of Civilian Internet Use

“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in United States v. Dreyer that an agent for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service violated Defense Department regulations and the Posse Comitatus Act when he conducted a surveillance operation in Washington state to identify civilians who might be sharing illegal files. The 1878 Act prevents the U.S.… Continue Reading

Information Sharing Environment: Annual Report to Congress – 2014

“This report is submitted by the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE) on behalf of the President, as required by Section 1016 (h) (2) of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) of 2004, as amended. Accompanying, but distinct from this report, are substantial performance data and links to best practices, lessons learned,… Continue Reading

The Art and Science of Data-driven Journalism

Alexander Benjamin Howard – Columbia Journalism School | TOW CENTER FOR DIGITAL JOURNALISM “Journalists have been using data in their stories for as long as the profession has existed. A revolution in computing in the 20th century created opportunities for data integration into investigations, as journalists began to bring technology into their work. In the… Continue Reading

The FRBNY DSGE Model Forecast

Matthew Cocci, Marco Del Negro, Stefano Eusepi, Marc Giannoni, and Sara Shahanaghi – Fifth in a five-part series “This series examines the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (FRBNY DSGE) model—a structural model used by Bank researchers to understand the workings of the U.S. economy and provide economic forecasts.The U.S. economy has been in… Continue Reading

U.S. Creates Largest Protected Area in the World, 3X Larger Than California

Brian Clark Howard, National Geographic – “The Obama administration announced Thursday that it will create the largest marine reserve in the world by expanding an existing monument around U.S.-controlled islands and atolls in the central Pacific. The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument will now be nearly 490,000 square miles, about three times the size of California and six times… Continue Reading

Minimum efficiency standards for electric motors will soon increase

“Nearly half of the electricity consumed in the manufacturing sector is used for powering motors, such as for fans, pumps, conveyors, and compressors. About two thirds of this machine-drive consumption occurs in the bulk chemicals, food, petroleum and coal products, primary metals, and paper industries. For more than three decades the efficiency of new motors has been regulated by… Continue Reading

New GAO Reports – Freight Transportation, Managing for Results, U.S. Currency

FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION: Developing National Strategy Would Benefit from Added Focus on Community Congestion Impacts, GAO-14-740: Published: Sep 19, 2014. Publicly Released: Sep 26, 2014. MANAGING FOR RESULTS: Agencies’ Trends in the Use of Performance Information to Make Decisions – GAO-14-747: Published: Sep 26, 2014. Publicly Released: Sep 26, 2014 U.S. CURRENCY: Reader Program Should Be Evaluated While Other Accessibility Features for Visually Impaired… Continue Reading

National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day

“The National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day aims to provide a safe, convenient, and responsible means of disposing of prescription drugs, while also educating the general public about the potential for abuse of medications.” Locate a Collection Site Near You For use by the general public to locate a collection site by Zip Code or County/City/State. Law… Continue Reading

Congress.gov: Removing the Beta Label and New Enhancements

Via Emily Carr – Andrew Weber‘s news: The Library of Congress launched Congress.gov in beta two years ago.  Today, I’m happy to announce we officially removed the beta label. That’s roughly three years quicker than Gmail took to remove its beta label, but we won’t give you the option of putting it back on Congress.gov.  URLs that… Continue Reading