The crack online staff at Federal Times has just unveiled a nifty new feature — our first iGoogle gadget. IGoogle lets you customize your Google homepage and collect all the federal news you need in one place. Simply follow this link to add Federal Times to your iGoogle homepage. Once it’s in place, you can click on tabs to see the latest headlines from FederalTimes.com, FedLine, our expert columns on retirement, money, career and legal issues, and our polls. The last year or so has been an exciting time for Fed Times’ online presence. We started our first blog, unveiled a…
Browsing: Uncategorized
Attention NORAD Tracks Santa fans…Santa arrives at the North American Aerospace Defense Command tomorrow for his annual mission brief! NORAD will have video and a full report on its NORAD Tracks Santa site (WARNING: site plays music) and facebook page.
Federal Times is proud to announce that our new online forums are open for business! Just click this link to find the forum. Registration is free and easy, and you can sound off about anything on your mind. For example, click here to express your thoughts on the NSPS repeal and what it might mean for future pay raises. And my colleague Rebecca Neal has begun a conversation about the proposal to have OPM cover millions of uninsured Americans in this thread. And feel free to start your own conversations too. Is something going on in your agency you think…
Ever been out to dinner and had the urge to read a section of U.S. Title 5? Well, for $9.99, you can download a personal copy of the full U.S. code to carry with you wherever you take your iPhone. Yes, that’s right, apparently there is a market for everything. Title 5 is the section that dictates rules, standards and behavior for federal employees, and Tekk Innovations wants to make sure you’re never without a copy of trusty U.S. Title 5. By downloading this handy app, you can search the entire code, e-mail sections and even have access to tables…
As you may have heard by now, many senators are proposing to back off of creating a government-run health care plan to cover uninsured Americans and instead want to task the Office of Personnel Management with running a smorgasbord of private health insurance plans that would serve Americans needing coverage. Senators appear to be modeling the idea after the existing Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), the health insurance program that serves about 8 million federal employees, retirees and their families. Do you think that’s a good idea? Is OPM up to the challenge? Do you think such a plan…
The Project on Government Oversight, which first exposed the antics of a group of State Department security contractors guarding the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, says that contractor, ArmorGroup North America, has been fired. In a news release today, POGO announced it obtained a State Department email informing ArmorGroup’s management that its contract for security services will not be renewed for a fourth year. The department will instead extend the contract for six months while a new contractor is found. In the news release, which laments the continued use of contractors to provide security, POGO executive director Danielle Brian said:…
Since Santa Claus has been tracking whether we’ve all been bad or good this year, it’s only fair we have a way to track Santa on Christmas Eve so we know when to check our stockings for coal. And in just under 17 days the North American Aerospace Defense Command will help us do that. That’s right — NORAD Tracks Santa is back! And NORAD has launched this calendar of games to help us keep track of time before it keeps track of Santa. I tried all the of the games to date. The game from Day 1 is, in…
12:10 p.m. Update: A department spokeswoman just got back to me with a statement. The threat was deemed noncredible by security officials and normal operations have resumed. – Tim Kauffman Original post: Sources tell us that employees at the headquarters building of the Homeland Security Department in Washington have been evacuated because of a bomb threat. Watch this space; we will provide more information as we get it.
Congress can’t seem to pass a spending bill on time or figure out health care reform, but as CNN points out, at least they’ve got time to consider resolutions to honor Confucius and establish National Pi Day. CNN says Congress has taken up more than 300 commemorative resolutions so far this year. It would be one thing if these feel-good measures were simple formalities that sailed right through Congress. But that’s not how it works. My fellow reporter Rebecca Neal says she’s seen bills like last year’s H. Res. 1255 — a resolution honoring Toby Keith — eat up hours of floor time…
I have to take my hat off to FedLine commenter “Still another NRC engineer,” who just posted what may be the best comment in our blog’s thirteen-month history: A Poison parody called “Talk Nerdy To Me.” This was his response to the heated discussion sparked last week on our blog post “The NRC Dating Service?” (And for those not familiar with Nuclear Regulatory Commission terminology, “EDO” is the acronym for the agency’s Executive Director of Operations.) The original “Talk Dirty To Me” video can be found here — sing along as you’re waiting for your agency to let you go…