WASHINGTON — Another former Justice Department lawyer went before Congress on Wednesday with few answers for his Democratic interrogators and a spotty memory. Hans von Spakovsky, who’s seeking a full six-year term on the Federal Election Commission, deflected questions about whether he undermined voting rights laws, saying, ‘I was not the decision maker in the front office of the Civil Rights Division.’ Time and again during his confirmation hearing, he cited either the attorney-client privilege or a cloudy memory for his purported role in restricting minorities’ voting rights. Von Spakovsky couldn’t remember blocking an investigation into complaints that a Minnesota Republican official was discriminating against Native American voters before the 2004 election. Under oath, he also said he didn’t recall seeing data from the state of Georgia that would have undercut a push by senior officials within the Civil Rights Division to approve the state’s tough new law requiring photo IDs of all voters. The data showed that 300,000 Georgia voters lacked driver’s licenses. A federal judge later threw out the law as unconstitutional. Von Spakovsky was among four nominees to the bipartisan FEC, which regulates federal campaign finance laws, to appear before the Senate […]
The drive to make computers more environmentally friendly has been given an extra boost after the technology giants Google and Intel joined the rush to prove their green credentials. The move was widely welcomed by environmental groups. But analysts argued that the move was motivated by regulation and the need to reduce costs and that more needs to be done to reduce the total carbon footprint of electronic devices during production and disposal processes. Debates over reducing carbon emissions usually focus on sectors such as aviation and motoring, where pollution from vehicles has had a visible impact on the environment. However, research firm Gartner shows that the IT industry, excluding consumer electronics devices such as DVD and CD players, accounts for roughly 2 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions – roughly the same as the stigmatised airline industry. With awareness growing that computers are playing a big part in global warming, it was no surprise that Google and Intel joined the likes of Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Microsoft in making carbon reduction a priority. The two technology giants signed up to the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, which is backed by the World Wildlife Fund, with […]
One in five people in the world has high-speed lines but the gap is growing. Almost 300 million people worldwide are now accessing the internet using fast broadband connections, fuelling the growth of social networking services such as MySpace and generating thousands of hours of video through websites such as YouTube. There are more than 1.1 billion of the world’s estimated 6.6 billion people online and almost a third of them are now accessing the internet on high-speed lines. According to the internet consultancy Point Topic, 298 million people had broadband at the end of March and that is already estimated to have shot over 300 million. The statistics, however, paint a picture of a divided digital world. While there are high levels of broadband penetration in western Europe, North America and hi-tech economies such as South Korea, usage in developing countries, and especially in Africa, is pitiful. Many of these emerging economies lack telephone services, let alone the sort of broadband internet access that has become available to every household in Europe. In terms of total broadband users, the US leads the pack with more than 60 million subscribers. But second-placed China is fast closing […]
NEW YORK — Reports surfaced on Tuesday, confirmed in spades this morning, as The Wall Street Journal announced major changes in its editorial structure ‘that is aimed at better positioning the Journal to benefit from the profound changes sweeping the news business,’ it said in a release. ‘This new organizational change will fully complete the integration of the Journal’s print and online news operations and will simplify our international news structure, at a time when the company is expanding and has a stronger presence worldwide.’ Editors will take on their new roles starting in July. Marcus W. Brauchli, the new managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, succeeding Paul Steiger, said in a statement that ‘simply to maintain our standing, we must adapt to constant change.’ He added, in a memo to staffers: ‘These are large changes. I know it will take some time to digest them. But this is a strong team and I look forward to working closely with all of them and all of you. I am confident they will position us to be maximally competitive in a fast-changing world, and enable the Journal to thrive and best serve our readers in print […]
WASHINGTON — The White House’s former political director was furious at Justice Department officials for disclosing to Congress that the administration had forced out the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., to make way for a protege of Karl Rove, President Bush’s political adviser, according to documents released late Tuesday. Then-White House political affairs director Sara Taylor spelled out her frustrations in a Feb. 16 e-mail to Kyle Sampson, then the chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. She sent the message after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told the Senate that unlike other federal prosecutors, U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins wasn’t fired for performance reasons, but to make way for former Republican political operative Tim Griffin. Griffin, serving as the interim U.S. attorney, then announced that he wouldn’t seek confirmation to the Arkansas post, but would remain until the Senate confirmed someone else. Griffin has since resigned. ‘Tim was put in a horrible position; hung out to dry w/ no heads up,’ Taylor lashed out in the e-mail, which was sent from a Republican Party account rather than from her White House e-mail address. ‘This is not good for his long-term career.’ The Taylor e-mail […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
