Mcnorman's Weblog

Wind Power Does Not Equal Job Power.

“According to our estimates, about 6,000 jobs have been created overseas, and maybe a couple hundred have been created in the U.S.”

Sounds about right for the stimulus plan.  Screw the taxpayer.

NASA’s shuttle PCs sold with sensitive data intact, insert WikiLeaks joke here.

Let this be a warning for John and Jane Q. Public (always a cute couple, those two) to always wipe sensitive / secret data from your hard drives before selling a computer. Or better yet, take out the drive entirely and physically destroy it. That’s what we’d expect from our government entities, but an internal investigation found that a number of PCs and components from NASA‘s shuttles had been sold from four different centers — Kennedy and Johnson Space Centers, and Ames and Langley Research Centers — that “failed sanitization verification testing,” or weren’t even tested at all. In Langley’s case, while hard drives were being destroyed, “personnel did not properly account for or track the removed hard drives during the destruction process.” Meanwhile at Kennedy, computers were found being prepped for sale that still had “Internet Protocol information [that] was prominently displayed.” Helluva way to start a shuttle launch retirement, eh?

Okay, who let the genius out of the locked room?

Dem Rep Says Bad Thing About Obama – Barack Obama Gossip.

Shelley Berkley (D-NV) characterizes the remarks of a fellow Democratic lawmaker who said ” Fuck the president ” during a Caucus meeting concerning the tax Compromise.

It doesn’t stop there.

But many other Democrats, including Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee, said they didn’t even know the provision was included.

Moran’s anger with the president boiled over in a short interview Thursday with The Hill about the provision and the tax debate held shortly after the Democratic caucus voted to reject Obama’s tax-cut deal.

“This is a lack of leadership on the part of Obama,” fumed Moran (D-Va.) “I don’t know where the f*** Obama is on this or anything else. They’re AWOL.”

It’s that Sari!  Someone screwed up?  Or is it just because she is a female?  How unfortunate, but diplomats are not exempt.  Not even Father Christmas, ask Janet.

The TSA was the centre of a diplomatic storm today after the Indian ambassador was subjected to a ‘patdown’ at a U.S. airport – because she was wearing a sari.

Meera Shankar, who dined at the White House just last month, was given one of the searches after she was pulled from an airport security line in Mississippi.

Today the Indian embassy in Washington protested to the White House about the incident.

External Affairs Minister SM Krishna said: ‘This is unacceptable to India and we are going to take it up with the U.S. government and I hope things could be resolved so that such unpleasant incidents do not recur.’

US faces diplomatic storm after Indian ambassador Meera Shankar’s TSA patdown | Mail Online.

News from The Associated Press.

The Czech government rejected Wednesday EU criticism of its use of a test of the credibility of gay asylum seekers.

The Vienna-based European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights said the Czech Republic is the only known EU country to use so-called “phallometric testing.” The method tests whether men seeking asylum on the grounds of homosexuality are sexually aroused by heterosexual pornographic material.

The Czech Interior Ministry said in a statement that the testing is conducted only after written consent had been obtained, and when it was not possible to use a different method of verification.

Ministry spokesman Pavel Novak said the testing has been carried out in fewer than 10 cases, always by a medical specialist, and was used on unreliable applicants from countries such as Iran, where homosexuality is grounds for harsh punishment.

Novak said all those who have passed the test have been granted asylum. He gave no further details.

The world is upside down and inside out.