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Ever since the Bush administration shocked the legal community by dismissing eight U.S. attorneys in December, Justice Department leaders have vigorously denied that the firings were politically motivated. “I would never, ever make a change in the United States attorney position for political reasons,” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said in Senate testimony in early January. In a Feb. 6 hearing, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told lawmakers, “When I hear you talk about the politicizing of the Department of Justice, it’s like a knife in my heart.”

But at least three of the eight fired attorneys were told by a superior they were being forced to resign to make jobs available for other Bush appointees, according to a former senior Justice Department official knowledgeable about their cases. That stands in contradiction to administration claims that the firings were related either to job performance or policy differences. A fourth U.S. attorney was told by a top Justice Department official that the dismissal in that attorney’s case was not necessarily related to job performance. Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias in New Mexico — who officially steps down from his post on Wednesday, and who says he was never told by superiors about any problems with his work — plans to go public with documentation of the achievements of his office.

“I never received any indication at all of a problem” regarding performance or policy differences, Iglesias told Salon on Monday. “That only leaves a third option: politics.”

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The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has subpoenaed Maj. Gen. George Weightman, who was fired as head of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, after Army officials refused to allow him to testify before the committee Monday.

Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and subcommittee Chairman John Tierney asked Weightman to testify about an internal memo that showed privatization of services at Walter Reed could put “patient care services… at risk of mission failure.”

But Army officials refused to allow Weightman to appear before the committee after he was relieved of command.

“The Army was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for the decision to prevent General Weightman from testifying,” committee members said in a statement today.

The committee wants to learn more about a letter written in September by Garrison Commander Peter Garibaldi to Weightman.

The memorandum “describes how the Army’s decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was causing an exodus of ‘highly skilled and experienced personnel,’” the committee’s letter states. “According to multiple sources, the decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed led to a precipitous drop in support personnel at Walter Reed.”

The letter said Walter Reed also awarded a five-year, $120-million contract to IAP Worldwide Services, which is run by Al Neffgen, a former senior Halliburton official.

Yep, you read that right. Halliburton. Now color me surprised…

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The missing clock didn’t stop postal customer Al Cunningham from noticing the amount of time spent waiting for service.

“It’s always long here,” said Cunningham, 49, an insurance adjuster and former postal employee who was standing in line at the Watson Post Office in Fort Worth.

The Watson Post Office is one of the nation’s 37,000 post offices in which clocks have been removed from retail areas as part of a “retail standardization program” launched last year. The effort is designed to give the public-service areas a more uniform appearance, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in Thursday editions.

“We want people to focus on postal service and not the clock,” said Stephen Seewoester, Dallas spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service.

Yep. Since nobody has watches or anything…

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Een actie van webmagazine Bright.nl bij UPC is volledig uit de hand gelopen. Het webmagazine bezorgde woensdag een gemolesteerde decoder terug bij een klantenbalie van de kabelmaatschappij, waarop de receptioniste een bommelding deed.

UPC ligt al geruime tijd onder vuur van consumentenorganisaties en politiek, omdat het bedrijf agressieve verkoopmethoden zou hanteren bij de promotie van digitale televisie. Klanten van UPC wordt ongevraagd een decoder toegestuurd om de dienst uit te proberen, maar na de proefperiode worden zij automatisch aangesloten als ze de zogenoemde ‘mediabox’ niet terugsturen.

[..]

Van der Zande had naar eigen zeggen tevergeefs geprobeerd om UPC de decoder te laten ophalen. “We hebben ze een ludiek koekje van eigen deeg gegeven.” Hij heeft nog geen contact met het bedrijf gehad.

Geen zorgen, dat komt vanzelf. Je krijgt straks gewoon een abonnementje door de strot geduwd omdat volgens de boeken de decoder helemaal niet is teruggebracht…

Het wachten is nu op een UPC klant die bij het afleveren van zo’n decoder gelijk “conform de procedure” een bommelding doet.

Eergisteren:

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Nederland wordt onder dit kabinet “tien keer socialer, tien keer sterker en tien keer groener”. Jacques Tichelaar durfde die stelling aan in zijn eerste toespraak als PvdA-fractieleider.

Nu:

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Loophulpmiddelen als rollator, krukken en blindenstok verdwijnen binnenkort uit de basisverzekering.

Deze maatregel van het College voor Zorgverzekeringen treft honderdduizenden ouderen, gehandicapten en chronisch zieken, meldt het Algemeen Dagblad zaterdag op basis van een advies dat door de organisatie half maart naar het ministerie van Volksgezondheid wordt gestuurd. Het college wil hiermee tien miljoen euro besparen.

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The Bush administration estimates that emissions by the United States of gases that contribute to global warming will grow nearly as fast through the next decade as they did the previous decade, according to a long-delayed report being completed for the United Nations.

The document, the United States Climate Action Report, emphasizes that the projections show progress toward a goal Mr. Bush laid out in a 2002 speech: that emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases grow at a slower rate than the economy. Since that speech, he has repeated his commitment to lessening “greenhouse gas intensity” without imposing formal limits on the gases.

Kristen A. Hellmer, a spokeswoman for the White House on environmental matters, said on Friday, “The Climate Action Report will show that the president’s portfolio of actions addressing climate change and his unparalleled financial commitments are working.”

[..]

“Since 1990, for every 1 percent increase in emissions the economy has grown about 3 percent,” Mr. Ebell said. “That’s good, and it’s better than the European Union’s performance.”

[..]

“If you set the hurdle one inch above the ground you can’t fail to clear it,” said David D. Doniger, the director of climate policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has long criticized the administration and sought binding cuts in greenhouse gases.

And praising your accomplishments by comparing yourself to other retards isn’t going to help, you’re still a retard. With idots like these, the world is doomed.

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Surely one of the most gorgeous sights the solar system has to offer, Saturn sits enveloped by the full splendor of its stately rings.

Taking in the rings in their entirety was the focus of this particular imaging sequence. Therefore, the camera exposure times were just right to capture the dark-side of its rings, but longer than that required to properly expose the globe of sunlit Saturn. Consequently, the sunlit half of the planet is overexposed.

Between the blinding light of day and the dark of night, there is a strip of twilight on the globe where colorful details in the atmosphere can be seen. Bright clouds dot the bluish-grey northern polar region here. In the south, the planet’s night side glows golden in reflected light from the rings’ sunlit face.

Saturn’s shadow stretches completely across the rings in this view, taken on Jan. 19, 2007, in contrast to what Cassini saw when it arrived in 2004 (see PIA05429).

The view is a mosaic of 36 images — that is, 12 separate sets of red, green and blue images — taken over the course of about 2.5 hours, as Cassini scanned across the entire main ring system.

Huge version here

It used to be a joke: “The current Vice President of the United States, who refused to be identified by name”

But it appears one of the goals of the current administration is to make all jokes real:

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Interview of a Senior Administration Official by the Traveling Press.

It appears that the official doesn’t want to be identified. The reason is not known.

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Much to the delight of Francophiles everywhere, Microsoft’s Office 2007 switches Outlook Express spell-checkers to work only in French. Those disposed to communicate in other languages are being advised to use third-party programs.

Microsoft has confirmed the problem here, and explains it comes about when the Office 2007 installation process removes older spell-checker files. The notice invites users to solicit advice about third-party spell-checkers on Microsoft’s community forum.

Wait, what? The installer for a word processor removes the spell-checker files from a mail client? Why?

yeah, I know, the microsoft argument is that they’re “integrated”, which I translate as “we’re happy to break everything you have anytime we install something”

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Consumerist points to a PDF of the “pre-litigation settlement letter” RIAA lawyers sent to college students accused of copyright infringement. The accused are invited to fess up and pay up in 20 days (at this website, for instance), or the RIAA will sue

That site looks like crap, it doesn’t even have a RIAA logo. If I’d receive such a letter, I’d think it was a phishing attempt by criminals to get me to send them money. Given who the RIAA are, that’s already true, but I suspect other criminals will start sending similar letters next to their “give me your paypal password” spam runs.