THE NSA'S POWER PROBLEM
The National Security Agency
is constructing a 1 million square foot data facility in Utah that, when
completed, will allow it to go about intercepting and storing data from
emails, phone calls and various other communications networks. But
there's a problem.
"Chronic electrical surges have destroyed
hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment," and the $1.5
billion dollar project's start date has been delayed by at least a year.Never fear - the NSA is still hard at work scouring the globe for information, including " . . . harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans."
TSA STILL GROPING PASSENGERS
The Transportation Security
Administration just can't keep its hands of elderly and disabled travelers. The agency has a particular problem at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport, where 26
complaints - double the national average - were filed against the TSA last year. Among the complaints was this gem: ". . . a breast cancer survivor complained that an agent at Sky Harbor ordered a pat-down of her prosthetic breast and refused to conduct the search in a private area.
'She made me pull it out in front of the world. When I got upset, I was told to shut up. I have never been so humiliated in my life,' the woman wrote in the complaint. 'The TSA has overstepped their bounds and ruined my vacation.'"
LOOTING THE WAL-MART
A two-hour long software
malfunction that prevented checkout clerks at two Wal-Marts in Louisiana
from checking the balances on the debit cards issued to food stamp
recipients
resulted in what the New York Post aptly called "legal
looting." How bad was it? "It was worse than anything we had ever seen in this town," Lynd said. "There was no food left on any of the shelves, and no meat left. The grocery part of Walmart was totally decimated."
"I saw people drag out eight to ten grocery carts." One person hauled away more than $700 worth of groceries, Lynd added.
You can see video of the carnage here.
VETS DELIVER "BARRYCADES" TO WHITE HOUSE
Over the weekend, veterans
descended upon Washington, D.C. to protest
the Obama
administration's crass decision to erect barricades at many open air
monuments on the national Mall - including the World War II, Korean and
Vietnam Memorials. The peaceful demonstration brought out the Park
Police (mounted on horseback) and several other displays of government
force. But the protesters didn't riot -- quite the contrary - and they
didn't even make a mess of the place. They did, however, dismantle the
hastily erected "barrycades," some of which were then delivered to the
White House (see the pictures at the link and notice the snipers
deployed on the White House roof). OBAMACARE WEBSITE TRIES TO HIDE STICKER PRICES
The spectacular
failure of the $500 million website
designed to help people
sign-up for Obamacare has IT professionals inside and outside government
wondering how something that has been in the works for so long could go
so
horribly wrong. One theory: the crack-up was built into the system,
because the Obama administration was afraid that if people simply
browsed the site
for insurance quotes, they would get sticker shock."Healthcare.gov was initially going to include an option to browse before registering," report Christopher Weaver and Louise Radnofsky in the Wall Street Journal. "But that tool was delayed, people familiar with the situation said." Why was it delayed? "An HHS spokeswoman said the agency wanted to ensure that users were aware of their eligibility for subsidies that could help pay for coverage, before they started seeing the prices of policies."
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