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http://www.gao.gov/htext/d0482.html
http://www.ssa.gov/oig/executive_operations/eyeono ig/eyeoig10162002.htm
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2002/09/ 16/daily26.html

Learn to google.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05471.pdf

"As a region, Asia controls only about 9 percent of the allocated IPv4 addresses, and yet has more than half of the world's population."

This might be "US citizen's-only" technically, but the report itself is available on the web here. It's a 1.5MB PDF. You can also request a free printed copy of this or any GAO report here. (This report is GAO-05-383.)

This might be "US citizen's-only" technically, but the report itself is available on the web here. It's a 1.5MB PDF. You can also request a free printed copy of this or any GAO report here. (This report is GAO-05-383.)

sadly not

get your reports here (see 31st of March)

# Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Major Weapon Programs GAO-05-301, March 31, 2005
# Defense Aquisitions: Status of Ballistic Missile Defense Program in 2004 GAO-05-243, March 31, 2005

In our government I have been told if you department doesn't spend their full budget you get that much less next year.

Which is an myth, pure and simple, propagated by conservatives to spread the gospel of Government inefficiency. Ever heard of a not-so-little thing called the GAO?

That's why governments go hog crazy on spending in Febuary just before income tax time.

And the more detailed the nonsense is, the more easy it is to debunk; the federal fiscal year starts in October.

"they're not supposed to be schedule-driven anymore"

False.
In fact, R6.2-1 says that "schedule deadlines are an important management tool." It simply says that meeting a schedule is not more important than recognizing and understanding risks that come during the schedule, and adjusting the schedule accordingly. This is true, whether you're scheduled to pick your child up at school (don't drive at extremely reckless speeds in a residential area just because you're running late), or if you're planning a mission with NASA (don't launch a shuttle to stay on schedule if the temperature is below the tolerance level of your SRB O-ring system). In either case, the goal of keeping a schedule is not worth the lives, equipment, and money involved.

Risk Analysis: a technique to identify and assess factors that may jeopardize the success of a project or achievement of a goal. (http://www.gao.gov/special.pubs/bprag/bprgloss.ht m#sectR)

This is all we ask. Do a risk analysis for the Hubble mission. Identify and assess the risks and benefits of carrying out the mission. If the goal of continuing Hubble's mission (which is a very complex and dynamic issue to define in the first place) does not outweight the risks, then that's fine. But have the data to back it up. We are (supposed to be) scientists at NASA. We make up our minds based on analyzing as many of the associated facts as possible.

Sure, decisions need to be made. We cannot go to the Moon and Mars, build a space station, launch new Hubble-sized satellites, design the next generation of the shuttle, explore hypersonic flight, determine how to lower the effects of a sonic boom, and design new, safe, and more efficient ways to utilize our airspace (don't forget the first 'A'). Not all in the same year. Or decade, for that matter. These are only a portion of the things that NASA is currently involved in, with a much smaller fraction of the federal budget than when NASA was focused on getting a man to the moon.

We need to pick our battles and to prioritize our missions based on our available resources, financial and otherwise. The only good way to do that is through an analysis of the options and the associated risks.

A while ago, I saw a TV show which suggested that George W. Bush has ...eviscerated the Presidential Records Act and FOIA... for "national security" reasons?

Can anyone substantiate this argument? If so, how can an act that is used at least two million times a year be killed without any outcry from the public?

They caused the Darpa/SEI institute to try and improve things, a decent effort with the CMMI etc, and have been reporting some measure of success, but the effect is limited, because they cannot address the root cause.

There are some confusing red-herrings:

1. There is no significant technical or process problem in evidence, thats always just convenient misdirection.
2. The US government contract selection process is arcane, byzantine, corruptible, obscure and broken. It is skewed in bizarre directions by the curse of political correctness. The security contracting areas are often much worse as they can hide behind a veil of secrecy, failures need never be known.

Both these factors, while arguably true, are just confusing misdirection. IMHO, the root cause is that there is a negative selection effect in play.

Contractors that complete on time, on budget, or to spec, will make significantly less money from the contract than those that don't. Ultimately, natural selection, causes the wealthier contractor to absorb the smaller ones. Simply put, its survival of the least efficient.

So long as a contract firm can reasonably claim changes in requirements caused the delay, they can extend projects indefinitely, until it is so outdated it gets scrapped (and a new one arises, to replace it). There is never any internal criticism or consequences within an agency for staff changing (or omitting to state) requirements, no one gets fired or even given a poor performance rating, its just accepted. Everyone knows change will mean more jobs for more years, so this unofficial strategy of never ending changes is chronic, the agency will play along.

The real motivation is keeping agencies and services charitably engaged employing people. It has nothing to do with IT, or technology failure, We geeks are merely the public scapegoats, convenient doormats, we usually dont care, cos guess who is gonna get hired by the contractor.

Many RFQ or RFC do not appear to specify any actual requirements or specific objectives, thats usually left to the successful bidder to define and discover. Crazy but true. They may claim to specify stuff, but in my experience the acquisition documents usually do not include these basic items of information. Its hard to discover this as you have to dig through reams of deliberate obfuscation, missing references, and changed links, but in my small sample it seems to be true.

Fixing this situation is effectively impossible. It requires removal of the economic drivers causing this un-virtuous circle. There appears to be no real political motivation to change the basic economics, no politician seems to be influenced by wasted taxpayer money anymore. Or, put another way, the taxpayers can be manipulated so they dont care that the politicians dont care.

So, I conclude that this situation is effectively permanent, it will never get fixed.

If you can't beat em, join em?

Yes, you are right, rather than extend the debt ceiling, the US would be better off if we just defaulted on the debt--Er, no I guess not.

btw, it isn't a cap on the deficit or on spending it is an increase of the cap on the total allowable national debt--furthermore, according to this memo, raising the debt ceiling has happened ~65 times between 1954 and 1993, or about 1.5 times a year. There were 7 increases during Carter's administration, 16 during Reagan's two terms, and 5 during Bush 41's term (unless I've messed up term start dates).

I didn't find data on all of Clinton's time in office, presumably there were fewer then since by the end of his administration the debt started to go down. However the first Clinton debt ceiling increase was $225B, and the second was $530B, in April and August of 1993. Apparently things held together until at least 1996, when there was a debt crisis as we approached the debt ceiling again.

-se

Most applications nowadays are web apps in the military. Partially it was a rush to keep up to date. Since most work ends up being done by contractors, the military can't stay very far behind any longer, and expect to have contractor coders. Another reason was a desire to link into mandated centralized authentication mechanisms. So, a lot of the traffic is web traffic, it's just 443 rather than 80. There are relatively few http sites, since the regs call for any site that implements authentication of any sort to use SSL.

The GIG is basically a name. Not much is really changing about the military networks - the borders are having even more defense added, but they were already pretty heavily defended. The interconnects are being sped up, but once again, they were pretty fast already, what i've seen is incremental improvements. IPV6 compatible hardware is being substituted for that which isn't. A really aggressive date for total conversion (2006) is out there. I'm sure some satellites are going to be lofted to provide overseas connectivity, since the govt is leasing private satellite bandwidth to provide overseas connectivity due to the previously noted problems with existing links.

Probably the biggest change is that strict accountability up and down the line is being organized, so that if someone runs a rogue host that is not compliant with relevant regulations and standards, the system is shut down, either by contacting the owning organization to do so or having the next higher organization in the hierarchy shut them down. In the past, there was probably a resistance to just pulling the cable on people - no longer.

To be honest, this is probably my last post on the topic here. I'm tired of educating anti-American jerks. They can just keep on mouthing off all by themselves while knowing nothing. This whole article and the posters therein have been the biggest bucket of idiots I have heard from in a long time. Nothing personal to the parent poster - that's why I replied to you rather than one of them.

From the article,

Upper management often issues orders such as "Clean up the system at any cost!" Yet when these same managers get recommendations for pre-emptive security implementation, too often chief information security officers are told, "The budget for this quarter has been exceeded. Ask me again later in the year."

Information security is a challenging and technologically rewarding profession. Unfortunately, those responsible for carrying out information security often are not given the authority and budget to get the work done.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02627t.pdfTHere is the definition(pdf) of the Homeland security Dept's responsibility charter, for want of a better word

From another source, possibly not popular in these circles, is a paper on "Security Considerations for Information Security"http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security /bestprac/bpent/sec2/seconaa.mspx An excerpt:

Security is everybody's responsibility. The creation of a secure IT environment is not just the responsibility of your organization's IT staff. Everyone in the organization has the responsibility to respect and implement the corporate security policies.

Actually interest rates are going up steadily and the Fed cannot keep them low for much longer because it is causing the bond market to dry up. There was a recent issue of TBills that went nowhere due to our skyrocketing deficits. As the debt grows and takes a larger percentage of our governments income (Look at the GAO reports (graph) (simulation)) the only way to get outside (foreign) investors to buy our governments bonds is to raise interest rates. The other problem is the devaluation of the dollar which helps the debt to be worth less *real dollars* but negatively affects foreign investment.

If you had cashed out all your stocks in 2001 after the crash (9/11 & Bush Economy combined) and converted your money to English Pounds at a 0% interest rate you would have gained around 25% over 3 years. Beats the hell out of the stock market. The monitary policy of this administration is very poor and is making the prospect of a bright future very unlikely.

Actually interest rates are going up steadily and the Fed cannot keep them low for much longer because it is causing the bond market to dry up. There was a recent issue of TBills that went nowhere due to our skyrocketing deficits. As the debt grows and takes a larger percentage of our governments income (Look at the GAO reports (graph) (simulation)) the only way to get outside (foreign) investors to buy our governments bonds is to raise interest rates. The other problem is the devaluation of the dollar which helps the debt to be worth less *real dollars* but negatively affects foreign investment.

If you had cashed out all your stocks in 2001 after the crash (9/11 & Bush Economy combined) and converted your money to English Pounds at a 0% interest rate you would have gained around 25% over 3 years. Beats the hell out of the stock market. The monitary policy of this administration is very poor and is making the prospect of a bright future very unlikely.

By "Medical malpractice", do you mean just the lawsuits or does that include insurance premiums as well? And can you give us the source of your figure?

According to this report by GAO, it seems that the malpractice premiums are going up but the insurance comanies' net loss is growing as well. That leads me to believe that only one who's profiting from this are the lawyers. So try again, and this time without simply mimicing Democrate talking points.

China is living off of massive EU and American investment right now, they will not pony up 3 Billion dollars to the UN. (And I haven't even mentioned Peacekeeping dues, which the US is assesed at 30% of the pie.) Like China wants the UN to start poking its nose into Chinese affairs anymore than they already are. Kick the US out of the UN, look for China to pull out soon after. People are counting their Chinese chickens before the eggs have hatched. Secondly, the GAO estimated that between 1996 and 2001, the US had indirect contributions supporting UN operations to the tune of ~$25billion dollars. $2billion may be chump change, $25billion certainly is not. Do you think China is going to invest in rebuilding places like Kosovo? Or Somalia? Or Rwanda?

Having lived in Canada, you of all people should be aware of what would happen to the Canadian economy if the US was somehow forced to its knees. And if it came down to it, backs against the wall sort of thing..yes, I believe the US would invade Canada for its oil plus use its military to break any world embargo...which would have devastating consequences for all involved, but to think the US would not respond at all is criminally naive. Couple that with the fact that companies like Halliburton (as much as we like to hate them) account for a huge amount of the technical know-how in the oil extraction business in the Mid-East..do you think the oil flow will just keep on a'coming if you kick the US out? If you kicked all of the US workers in the Saudi Oil fields alone, do you think they could keep up their production levels?

Why can't people ever see the consequences of their /. proclamations? Contemplating kicking the US out of the world community? How asinine is that?

I think you're looking at things the wrong way. The administrations goals for the space program have little to do with the "civillian space program". The "military space program" is thriving.

Of the many factors that account for differences in earnings between men and women, our model indicated that work patterns are key. Specifically, women have fewer years of work experience, work fewer hours per year, are less likely to work a full-time schedule, and leave the labor force for longer periods of time than men. Other factors that account for earnings differences include industry, occupation, race, marital status, and job tenure. When we account for differences between male and female work patterns as well as other key factors, women earned, on average, 80 percent of what men earned in 2000.

• More than 60% of U.S. corporations didn't pay any federal taxes for 1996 through 2000
  
• By 2003, [corporate taxes] had fallen to just 7.4% of overall federal receipts
  
• most corporations that actually do owe taxes pay a rate less than 5%
  
• 94% of US-controlled companies and 89% of foreign-controlled companies paid zero to 4% in taxes
  

It would be nice it you got your facts straight... Most of your statements are outright lies !!

"The Price-Andersen Act simply allows the government to act as an insurance broker for nuclear power plants. The plants PAY for the insurance, and it only covers small accidents-- maximum liability for the government is something like $10 million. Furthermore, the act allows for private companies to step in to take over the insurance after a period of some years-- something that private companies have indeed done. (The PA Act has actually made taxpayers money, as plants have paid out more than they have received, just like any successful insurance company. So it doesn't count as subsidy at all.)"

Wow.. talk about deception.... Time for a dose of the truth and here.

"NRC's procedures for ensuring that licensees comply with Price-Anderson Act liability insurance provisions include requirements that licensees provide proof of primary and secondary insurance coverage. NRC requires each licensee to show proof that it has liability insurance that includes the $300 million of primary insurance coverage per site required by the Price Anderson Act. NRC and the licensee also sign an indemnity agreement that requires the licensee to maintain an insurance policy in this amount. This agreement is in effect as long as the owner is licensed to operate the plant."

Note: This is a per plant policy.

"in the event of a nuclear incident causing damages exceeding $300 million, would be collected from each nuclear power plant licensee at a rate of up to $10 million per year and up to a maximum of $95.8 million per incident for each nuclear power plant."

Or roughly 8.5 Billion dollars in total, enforced by a form a government socialism. (Post accident levy).

As for maximum liability.. it goes into the Tragedy of the commons category..
"The key to the tragedy of the commons is when individuals use a public good, they do not bear the entire cost of their several actions."

As for estimate of REAL damages.. take a look a Chernobyl catastrophe

"If accident damages exceed that amount, taxpayers will be asked to make up the difference. Compare that to the 1982 Sandia National Laboratories study (CRAC-2), which projected economic damages of up to $300 Billion (in 1982 dollars) resulting from an accident at the Indian Point, NY reactor site. The 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe already has cost Russia, Ukraine and Belarus some $300 Billion, and the costs-from interdicted land, from radioactive waste disposal, from ongoing health effects-mount daily."

"Moreover, no other hazardous industry has such a subsidized insurance scheme. "

Yes, the Feds and ultimately the Taxpayers are on the hook for unlimited liability, since no company has that type of resources to pay the real cost of a catastrophe, and someone will have to pay for the damages.

Furthermore.. "The Price Anderson Act directs DOE to fully indemnify its contractors for any and all public liability in connection with nuclear activities - even with accidents resulting from a contractor's bad faith, reckless behavior, gross negligence, or willful misconduct."

A major weakness of the ABL is its vulnerability to attack by enemy aircraft or by SAMs. Escort fighters could defend the ABL against enemy aircraft; however, the very long times on station would make such defense difficult, unless absolute air superiority had been established or some warning mechanism could scramble fighters to respond to an attack on the ABL. Siberian Airlines Flight 1812 was accidentally shot down on 4 October 2001 by a S-200 SAM missile at a range of about 250 km. The maximum range of a S-200 is 250-300 km [1].

The only thing you didn't mention is that the USPS is Constitutionally mandated to provide postal service. You also don't mention that it absolutely hemorrhages money. It's been forever since it actually broke even. So, in sum, be careful before you trot the USPS out as a model of how a government operation should work.

"A structural transformation of the Service is called for because the Service faces major financial, operational, and human capital challenges. It is at growing risk of not being
able to continue providing universal postal service vital to the national economy at reasonable rates while remaining self-supporting through postal revenues."

The GAO report this came from can be found here.

Note that I am for torte reform, but it appears that in this case it is not the lawsuits that are driving up the insurance costs but rather cycles in the malpractice insurance market itself.

I guess you didn't notice the recent GAO Report which tells us that the DoD PKI has issued over 9 million certificates. I am not saying it works well, but it does work on large scale. Frankly PKI really isn't cost effective for smaller companies either. It is the larger companies and governments that benefit the most in my opinion. Reason: initial setup costs can be high, unless you are willing to outsource your security, a decision that I personally frown on (but that is another discussion).

Another thing: EPM is probably not the best idea for providing a legal signature that is meant to last for the life of a long term legal document such as a 30 year lease, or a passport (10 years in the U.S.). The reason is that in 30 years the algorithms used to perform the digital signature will be easily defeated, thus making that signature easily forgeable. EPM's best use is as a certification that a document was sent by person X at time Y and that it hasn't changed since it was signed. This would also have value in financial transactions that are short lived in nature, but not with transactions that need verifiability over any long period of time.

The comparison to a postmark is a bit anomalous as someone else pointed out, because while a postmark does attest to a certain date and time of stamp cancellation, it does not assert the identity of the sender. It does attest to the originating location of the letter, which EPM does not do.

Lastly, I find the prospect of E.M.P. in the hands of postal workers to be a frightening prospect and...OH E-P-M....

I'm sorry, but that doesn't mean anything to me.

Yeah, it is a disapointing reference in my mind too.

[...]Any effort to enlighten only a small portion of the people as to the way politics works is elitist and, necessarily, counterproductive to the principal goal of democracy: the distribution of power.

You may like to read John Locke's* writings about why governments should be organized in roughly the way ours is organized. To state the obvious, a representative democracy does distribute power, it concentrates power in people who must become experts in government. In fact, even the elected officials can't possibly perform all the specific, intricate, and difficult tasks that running a government requires, they need assistants. At the federal level, legislators have an outlet, this is their staff AND offices like the GAO that can do extreamly intricate work for them (look at some of their reports, they are amazing). Offices like the GAO are essential to an efficient government and require people trained in many areas of thinking, esp. how government is run.

*I know, this would be educating your self, and others in the world may not have read it, so it is counterproductive unless you can get everyone to read it at the same time.

You can find the PDF version of the GAO report at the following link: "File Sharing Programs: Child Pornography is Readily Accesible Over Peer-to-Peer Networks."

Prejudice is a troll, but you were modded up, so too bad you didn't take time to RTFArticles.
This is a moonshot that costs about one-ninth to one-sixth of a shuttle launch. The European and Canadian Space Agencies are interested. India has traditionally received technological support from the Russian programme, but it's cheaper to use indigenous launch vehicles, no matter how threatened USA feels by large markets (even if the population is poor) being independent. And this is an exploration mission as a prelude to commercial missions. So why would India spend money on this and what does the market have to do with it?
Because India's space programme launches communications satellites which, like TCP/IP over railway communications lines, bring literacy to remote villages. Yes the schools in the villages need satellite dishes and the railroad stations need network stations, but the government provides them!
Because India's space programme launches weather satellites which, along with the communications satellites, help farmers in isolated regions to increase their yields.
Because with Japan and China shooting for the moon while NASA stagnates, India wants to position itself now as a contender for lunar mining and lunar transit station operations for deep space missions, services for which other countries (like ESA and CSA) and private companies worldwide will pay . And that money can be used to feed people!
Imagine that, creating high tech jobs to help farmers grow more food and to sell services to the global market and use the money to educate and feed more people.
With Congress cutting NASA's budget, how much of the savings are used to help feed poverty stricken Americans?

FYI, the USPS has always been independent. Without going into too much detail, it operates as an independent government corporation, similar to the FDIC, Amtrak, and Fannie Mae. I'm personally a huge fan of the USPS, but they are far from profitable. Just check out this testimony from the GAO (and various other reports by the same organization). Alternatively, hit Google with "Postal Transformation" and see what it gives you. The only problem is that the USPS is constitutionally guaranteed. That's right. You have the constitutional right to send mail in the US.

And you call me a troll...

A couple things:

1) I'm not a Republican, Republicans often like regulation that has nothing to do with the legitimate functions of government ie protection of individual rights.

2) fasâcism n.1. (sometimes cap.)
a totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism.
Were this an accurate description of me, I would prefer governmental monopolies. It should be obvious that I don't. None of the other identifiers fit, either.

3) moânopâoâly n., pl. -lies
1. exclusive control of a commodity or service that makes possible the manipulation of prices.
2. the exclusive possession or control of something.
3. something that is the subject of such control, as a commodity or service.
4. a company or group that has such control.
5. the market condition that exists when there is only one seller.

4) US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 7: [The Congress shall have Power] To establish Post Offices and post Roads.

5) Section 8 pertains to powers granted specifically and solely to Congress. In other words, nobody but those specified by Congress can engage in postal business. The USPS is the only entity specified by Congress to engage in postal business.

6) The USPS employs inspectors to covertly monitor private parcel companies, fining them when certain classes (mostly letters) of mail are found to be delivered privately.

7) More information from the Government Accounting Office, here, here

8) I don't particularly care how bad other nations are. I'm not going to stop trying to make things better just because there are worse places. That's an attitude for pessimists or people looking for excuses to stick with the status quo.

Perhaps you'd like to ground your reasons in fact as detailed as I've provided, if you wish to defend your claims further, that is. You should try actually looking at the background details, especially the laws that govern mail. Try starting with the United States Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 83. It will provide information that you'll have trouble refuting, unless you happen to be a Senator or Congresscritter with sizable political clout. Well, you could do it if you control a majority of the Postal Commission, or the Justice Department.

18 USC Part I Chapter 83 Section 1696 - Private express for letters and packets

(a) Whoever establishes any private express for the conveyance of letters or packets, or in any manner causes or provides for the conveyance of the same by regular trips or at stated periods over any post route which is or may be established by law, or from any city, town, or place to any other city, town, or place, between which the mail is regularly carried, shall be fined not more than $500 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

This section shall not prohibit any person from receiving and delivering to the nearest post office, postal car, or other authorized depository for mail matter any mail matter properly stamped.

(b) Whoever transmits by private express or other unlawful means, or delivers to any agent thereof, or deposits at any appointed place, for the purpose of being so transmitted any letter or packet, shall be fined under this title.

(c) This chapter shall not prohibit the conveyance or transmission of letters or packets by private hands without compensation, or by special messenger employed for the particular occasion only. Whenever more than twenty-five such letters or packets are conveyed or transmitted by such special messenger, the requirements of section 601 of tit

According to the General Accounting Office (PDF document) a single Shuttle launch costs $759 million. I live in the real world, so to me, that still seems like an awful lot of money.

It then does around about 5.3 million miles.

So that's $143 per mile. To do what?

So far NASA hasn't come up with a good explanation why these are sound investments in the future. I'm sure that it could attract more support if it were to be open and say that the Shuttle is a statement of national virility and an essential part of the flag waving exercise.

But to claim that the Shuttle or the ISS are vital for industry or medical research is fatuous, and preparing for the manned Mars missions - well that would be just another black hole for flag waving.

Best wishes,
Mike.

The $30 billion dollar figure is an Andersen-quality accounting trick. It doesn't include lots of costs that go into building the station, including those of getting the people and equipment into space. This is a letter that the GAO wrote regarding NASA's accounting practices, and this is GAO's independent estimate of costs: $94 b. (Both .pdf files>

Nonetheless, what is proposed might be possible. I worked at an govt. agency in 1995/6 that developed a web interface to allow filing of EZ1040's and 1040a's and from some popular tax programs. We tested end-to-end - from a browser and a tax product into IRS's mainframe systems. Total cost was something like $30 million.

The project was killed by Congress, specifically by Congressman Ted Stevens. He used GAO to nitpik the system to dealth on technical details (PKI wasn't really around back then) and rapid development/procurement practices used by the project. The GAO Report is here. But hell, we did it in six months!

I think IRS is still gun shy on the issue.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02231t.pdf

Maybe a little off topic but congress just published a report on FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center. It deems the FBI imcompetent and nothing more than a incident report function. DOS is covered in details. TheRegister has a good write up today.

Here is an excerpt from the summary:

Several internal NASA studies have shown that the shuttle program's workforce has been affected negatively by such downsizing. In particular, the shuttle program has identified many key areas that are not sufficiently staffed by qualified workers, and the remaining workforce shows signs of overwork and fatigue. Moreover, the program's demographic shape and skill mix jeopardize the program's ability to "hand off" leadership roles to the next generation and achieve a higher flight rate to support assembly of the International Space Station.

So, although the stance of management has changed about tactical decisions, the budget just isn't there to support the workforce needed to support the demands of the Shuttle at the flight rate needed for Station assembly.

Does this issue have its origins in the Shuttle program or in the Station program? Probably a little of both. Station is probably not really paying its way, but Shuttle probably is not demanding the resources needed for high flight rate operations either.

My hope is that the new NASA Administrator (whoever that may be) will examine and address this issue early in his tenure.

What reforms would you like to see made in the H1B visa program?

Many companies depend on the H1B visa program to satisfy their need for tech workers. Several problems have been identified with the current H1B visa program. A September 2000 report by the GAO documents the massive expansion in the H1B program, and concludes that better controls are needed. Organizations such as the IEEE have provided recommendations to reform the current process.

I am interested in your view as to what problems you see in the H1B visa program, and steps you would take to correct them.

It explains why the program is so easy to abuse by unscrupulous companies. There are also some interesting statistics: In 1998 only 13,000 H-1B's were adjusted to Green Card status, yet 65,000 H-1B visas were issued that year.

The quota is likely to rise to 195,000 next year.

Actually the median salary for H1-B applicants is $45,000. From a GAO report entitled "H1-B Foreign Workers - Better Controls Needed to Help Employers and Protect Workers" (PDF format)

Complete (physical) isolation is very hard to reach in such cases. You often need to make data from the spaceship available to the outside world (processed telemetry et al) or to connect the control center to other multipurpose LANs. As you said, partial isolation may be done using only outgoing connections and firewall devices, but if seeing how an active ftp connection is done, you can understand this is no panacea, especially if you are low on $ for your project.

Oh, by the way, take a look at this GOA report. It states that using trust relations between hosts you can reach some of NASA's critical systems.

I don't want to be an astronaut anymore ;)


--

You remember that peace dividend we were supposed to get after the cold war? Remember when Reagan was pumping most of our annual budget into the military to outspend the Commies? We were supposed to be able to cut back that spending dramaticly after the Cold War was over. After WWII the US military budget dropped by 90%. Most of that $ went to the Marshall plan to rebuild Japan and Western Europe. It also went to the GI Bill which produced the most romanticized and idyllic time in most American's memories.

But didn't we cut back on military spending after the Cold War and close all those bases? Yeah, about 15% of our top Cold War spending levels. During 1998 we spent over $321 Billion on National Defense. We currently have over 8,600 combat aricraft, 10,000 tanks, 18 aircraft carriers, 120+ subs, 3600+ Ballistic Missiles and over 725000 other missiles. Source

Now compare that to the 50 Billion we spent on education and training, the 23 Billion NASA got and the fact that China, only spent 40-60 Billion on their National Defense. As a percentage of our GDP we spend 6 times what countries in Western Europe (England, France) who have also been participating in our policing operations around the world.

We need to take a chunk of that money and invest in the public infrastructure (education, health care, public utilities, small business resources) in our country and many 'pontential rogue nations' in the former Soviet Union, Africa, Asia and South America. Once our people and other people are able to trade with one another, make a living for their families and provide a future for their children, I garuntee that the liklihood of war is 0.000000000000000000001.

History has shown that we have created many of the dictators we have had to overthow (Noriega, Suharto, Sadam) and we have managed to help countries get on their feet (W. Europe, Japan). We are at that crossroads again and must decide how to spend our money. Investing in Peace is always a better idea than investing in War.