NewsBytes... One day away and look what happens...

So I took a 'mental health day' yesterday -- glorious weather here in DC and the Cherry Blossoms at their peak, but you're out one day and ...

So I'm catching up. Here are a bunch of items worth checking out.

* The WP has an editorial this morning on Lurita Doan.

Playing Politics at the GSA [WP, 4.3.2007]
Lurita Doan's willful disregard of the Hatch Act

What we have here is an apparent violation of the Hatch Act of 1939. That's the federal law that prohibits political activity by government employees and agencies. Unfortunately, it hasn't stopped the Bush administration from walking the line between the two as if it were a tightrope at the circus: The Doan drama is yet another example of the administration's politicization of the federal government.

Is U.S. Government 'Outsourcing Its Brain'? [WSJ, 3.30.2007, registration required... or try this link]
Virginia's Tysons Corner has become outsourcing central, filled with people who do the kind of complex work that clock-punching civil servants can't. As the number of private federal contractors continues to rise, some worry the U.S. government is "outsourcing its brain."

For a week now, blogs have been bubbling with chatter about Kathy Sierra and the cyber thugs who have threatened her life and showered her with profane and disgusting insults.

Sierra is a woman who is passionate about technology. She asks what we all ask about much of it: "Isn't there a better way?"

She's also attractive and smart and opinionated -- the last two being fairly important to the success of her blog "Creating Passionate Users."

Many have said Sierra is drawing such vile criticism in part because she is a woman in a predominantly male blogosphere. And I believe that.

There are thoughtful, caring bloggers. But there is also an air of juvenilia in the blogosphere, created by the sort of punks who amused themselves by writing horrible things about girls on the restroom stall.

There is more going on in the world than our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our agenda-setting media are going make their daily choices based on a set of values and priorities that we won't always agree with. But if ever there were a case for journalism to give the people what they need, even if sometimes they say they don't want it, this would be it. Every day Americans are fighting and dying while trying to stand up police forces, armies, and humanitarian missions. We need to hear their stories, every day.

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