...after 9/11, in response to a terrorist threat from a flexible, decentralized, tactically innovative Al Qaeda, the United State responded by creating the largest, most wasteful, lethargic bureaucracy in American history. Must have had to be there for it to make sense. Now, the incoming DHS chief is promising a thorough review : WASHINGTON (AFP) – New US Homeland Security boss Janet Napolitano told lawmakers on Wednesday she had launched a sweeping review of her department, under pressure to reform amid allegations of mismanagement. Napolitano told the House of Representatives? Homeland Security Committee she had initiated policy reviews in eight areas and would soon report to President Barack Obama about the future of the body, which some have said should be dissolved. Napolitano said she was "kicking the tires," looking at policies afresh. "It will not be one of those two-year study jobs," she promised lawmakers. The Department of Homeland Security was set up six...

... is the appointment of Harvard Professor Ashton Carter as the Pentagon's chief weapons purchaser, as a counterbalance to Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn. From Stars & Stripes : President Barack Obama has nominated Harvard professor Ashton Carter, a leading authority on arms control and a longtime academic, to serve as the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, the White House announced Monday. The choice of Carter to run the office that oversees hundreds of billions of dollars for new weapons and research — and is the focus of intense lobbying by defense firms, retired generals, and members of Congress — sparked concern within the defense industry and parts of the Pentagon bureaucracy when it was first rumored last month, the Boston Globe reported in its Tuesday editions. But that may be exactly what Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wanted, the Globe noted. Unlike most of his predecessors, Carter has no professional ties to America’s arms makers or manufacturing industry...

Last week I reported on the 221,000 weapons "unaccounted for" in Afghanistan. Now, the latest estimate is that $125 Billion (enough to buy me a strong government interest in two or three major banks) sent to Iraq for rebuilding has just sort of ... disappeared. From The Raw Story : The US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), the Army's criminal Investigation Command and the Justice Department are investigating US soldiers and officials in the alleged misuse of a portion of the $125 billion initially sent to Iraq for reconstruction shortly after the fall of Saddam.... "In one case, auditors working for SIGIR discovered that $57.8m was sent in 'pallet upon pallet of hundred-dollar bills' to the US comptroller for south-central Iraq, Robert J Stein Jr, who had himself photographed standing with the mound of money," wrote Cockburn. "He is among the few US officials who were in Iraq to be convicted of fraud and money-laundering. ...

... maybe we should check to see if the GAO criticisms of the Federal aircraft fleet in 2003 were ever actually addressed. Like maybe the Federal government (a) actually ever determined how many aircraft it owns, or (b) ever fessed up to how much they cost? From the GAO : GAO could not accurately determine the number of government-owned aircraft and total costs of federal aircraft program operation s, because it found that GSA's database was unreliable. Although the database showed federal agencies owned nearly 1,400 aircraft and that agencies reported spending over $700 million to operate and maintain federally-owned and contracted aircraft in fiscal year 2002, GAO found it understated the cost of federal aircraft operations by at least $568 million over the past 3 years. This is because some agencies did not report all the required information. GAO also found there was no requirement for the agencies to report other aircraft costs such as depreciation. The systems and controls ...

... leave us not forget the cushy pension deal they've crafted for themselves. For purposes of reference, please realize that if you pay the maximum Social Security tax for 30 years, the government says you will start with a maximum annual benefit of $25,440. If you happen to be under 65, and then earn more than $1,800 a month, you will lose $1 in benefits for every $2 you earn (a 50% marginal tax rate). This is from that notorious libertarian, neo-con source: CNNMoney : Members are eligible to start collecting at age 62 if they have at least five years of service. If they have 20 years of service under their belt, they can retire at 50. With 25 years of service, they can retire any time. What they get depends on a formula based on years of service and average pay(natch, right?). So a congressman with 22 years of service and whose average salary for the top three years was $153,900 gets $84,645. A current congressman ending up with six years of service (it's two-year terms, ...

Here : An Associated Press investigation found that over the past five years, the money the military spends on winning hearts and minds at home and abroad has grown by 63 percent, to at least $4.7 billion this year , according to Department of Defense budgets and other documents. That's almost as much as it spent on body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006.

... I care about this more. From AP : On another matter, a financial disclosure form Daschle filed about a week ago showed that he made more than $200,000 in the past two years speaking to members of the health care industry that Obama wants him to reform. The speaking fees were just a portion of the more than $5.2 million the former senator earned over the past two years as he advised health insurers and hospitals and worked in other industries such as energy and telecommunications, according to a financial statement filed with the Office of Government Ethics. Among the health care interest groups paying Daschle for speeches were America's Health Insurance Plans, $40,000 for two speeches; CSL Behring, $30,000; the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, $16,000, and the Principal Life Insurance Co., $15,000. And, of course, there is always Tom's wife Linda, who abruptly decided to end her own lobbying career right after Barack Obama won the election and rumors started fl...

Noting that Nancy Pelosi has already signaled a Congressional commitment to coming across with another $25 Billion for Detroit's ailing Big Three, Coyote succinctly makes the case for simply allowing a failing business ... to fail: So what if GM dies? Letting the GM's of the world die is one of the best possible things we can do for our economy and the wealth of our nation. Assuming GM's DNA has a less than one multiplier, then releasing GM's assets from GM's control actually increases value. Talented engineers, after some admittedly painful personal dislocation, find jobs designing things people want and value. Their output has more value, which in the long run helps everyone, including themselves. The alternative to not letting GM die is, well, Europe (and Japan). A LOT of Europe's productive assets are locked up in a few very large corporations with close ties to the state which are not allowed to fail, which are subsidized, protected from competition, ...

... and not American citizens. But Becky beat me to it . Ask yourself why Asian stock markets and bourses are celebrating this morning, and why anybody thinks its good for the average homeowner . You don't have to be a Libertarian to realize that both Senators McCain and Obama are pandering on this issue (but it helps).

Let's see--Governor Ruth Ann and the General Assembly couldn't manage to do eminent domain reform, and decided to balance the budget by cutting summer school funding for kids who couldn't pass the DSTP. But--on the plus side, apparently-- they came together to outlaw copycat bands . And another victimless crime hits the books, much to the bemusement of club owners throughout the state: Vicky Walls, who oversees booking national bands for the Bottle & Cork in Dewey Beach, said she has never heard of an instance when a band claimed to be an act it was not. Walls said in addition to the real acts, the popular beach establishment sometimes has cover bands and tribute bands perform. "Everyone knows that's not Fall Out Boy on the stage because the next song is a Duran Duran song and the next song is someone else," Walls said. Walls said if bands seriously tried to impersonate famous acts, most people would think they were crazy. "People know that the Beatle...

My Dad does not have a lot of patience with the nation of wimps we have become. A few weeks ago I was talking to him about the fact that fuel prices (among other things at our house) would be curtailing our normal big, two-week vacation this year, and that we were having to make other sacrifices to get back to living within our means. He was unimpressed. "We didn't get to go on big vacations when you were growing up, did we? And without all the credit cards, nobody really had the option of running up all that debt. So how are you any better or any worse off? You people keep expecting everything to always get better and better, and that isn't always going to happen. Get used to it." He's right about the myth that the American dream is that every generation should have it better than its predecessors, or else we're somehow failing. Throughout most of American history --and for most Americans--moving up in the world, whether in relative terms (status) or re...

. . . where one of the more recent posts graphically points out the extent of Federal land ownership, especially in the American West. As a Libertarian--hell, as a tax-paying American citizen--it does seem that at least some of this land could be safely turned over for management to non-profit foundations for management. The Sierra Club talks a great fight: couldn't they manage part of Idaho?

This is the first in an irregular series of posts on truly interesting parts of the Federal government that you've probably never heard of. In April 1997, CNN reported this story : U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin signed a pact with the Vietnamese government on Monday that requires the communist country to repay the $146 million wartime debt of its defeated foe, South Vietnam. But he said it would take time for the former enemies to forge closer economic ties. Most of the overdue loans date to the late 1960s, when Washington was channeling hundreds of millions of dollars into South Vietnam to try to prop up its besieged government. The repayment will take place over 21 years. The agreement follows months of negotiations on the amount of overdue debt incurred by the former South Vietnamese government that Hanoi was to absorb. In 1993, Vietnam agreed in principle to accept the debt from the South Vietnam regime as part of a larger agreement that helped clear the way for renewed i...