New York Times, 02/13/2008
by Eric Lichtblau
"After more than a year of wrangling, the Senate handed the White House a major victory on Tuesday by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers and to give legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants."

Rand has posted the final report of their Counterinsurgency Study series. The central question the study attempted to answer was "How should the United States improve its capabilities to counter insurgencies, particularly those that are heavily influenced by transnational terrorist movements and thus linked into a global jihadist network?"

Previous reports

* Heads We Win -- The Cognitive Side of Counterinsurgency (COIN). RAND Counterinsurgency Study -- Paper 1
http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2007/RAND_OP168.pdf

* Subversion and Insurgency. RAND Counterinsurgency Study -- Paper 2 http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2007/RAND_OP172.pdf

* Understanding Proto-Insurgencies. RAND Counterinsurgency Study -- Paper 3
http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2007/RAND_OP178.pdf

* Money in the Bank -- Lessons Learned from Past Counterinsurgency (COIN) Operations. RAND Counterinsurgency Study -- Paper 4
http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2007/RAND_OP-185.pdf

* Byting Back -- Regaining Information Superiority Against 21st-Century Insurgents. RAND Counterinsurgency Study -- Volume 1
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2007/RAND_MG595.1.pdf

* Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006) RAND Counterinsurgency Study -- Volume 2
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG595.3.pdf

From the Defense Science Board Permanent Task Force on Nuclear Surety: The Task Force report is an independent assessment of the systemic causes of the August 30 unauthorized movement of nuclear warheads from Minot AFB, North Dakota to Barksdale AFB, Louisiana. Based on the information and insights gained from investigating and assessing these systemic causes, the report includes 16 recommendations to strengthen nuclear weapons surety.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the U.S. Census Bureau’s new Census Atlas of the United States speaks volumes about how the nation’s population and housing characteristics have changed over the years. The atlas, with more than 700 full-color maps, is the first general population and housing statistical atlas published by the Census Bureau since 1925.

Featuring more than 300 pages and weighing about 7 pounds, the atlas presents data from 1790 through 2000. It is arranged by topic and grouped into three general themes — who we are, where we come from and what we do. Most maps feature county-level detail for the United States and Puerto Rico.

Census Atlas of the United States is available on the Census Bureau Web site. A print copy of the Census Atlas can be purchased from the Government Printing Office online bookstore. This item will be available in D. H. Hill Library but has not yet been received.

Political Interference with Climate Change Science under the Bush Administration: United States House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, December 2007 [Final Report]

"For the past 16 months, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been investigating allegations of political interference with government climate change science under the Bush Administration. During the course of this investigation, the Committee obtained over 27,000 pages of documents from the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Commerce Department, held two investigative hearings, and deposed or interviewed key officials. Much of the information made available to the Committee has never been publicly disclosed. This report presents the findings of the Committee's investigation. The evidence before the Committee leads to one inescapable conclusion: the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming."

(Links to the full report and supporting documents are available at the bottom of the web site.)