Homeless Sex Offenders: Is there an app for that?

Would you rather have paroled sex offenders live closer to you and your local schools and know where they live, or would you rather they be homeless, and more likely to re-offend?  Is there a neighborhood-watch app that could help us out of this dilemma? (more after the jump)

Read on...

State and Energy: A Wonk's-Eye View

Ever since my Fellowships at the U.S. State Department and the Department of Energy, I've fielded calls from friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers, all looking for more information about my time there, how I got those gigs, and how those beasts actually function.

Harry S. Truman Building, headquarters of the U.S. State Department since 1947. Courtesy AgnosticPreachersKid.

It's no wonder.  The details available in places like Wikipedia on these bureaucracies are fairly sparse and abstract.  (Which is surprising, since there are a few books on the subject, which I haven't read.)  Where folks do talk openly about their time in such places, they might focus on juicy gossip about their co-workers, scandals, and major events, rather than on how the organizations actually operate—and how folks should use these systems to their advantage, from both within and without.

There are some pretty good reasons for much of this, as will hopefully become apparent.  There are many incentives to keep information hidden, not all nefarious.  Luckily, since I don't work at either place anymore, I can say (almost) whatever I please.

So, as an occasional series, I'll try to fill in some gaps.  I'll start off with the State Department, as it's better-known and more fresh in my mind.  If you have any questions to start off, please ask!

Transparency Now Banished.

I like to think I was into transparency before transparency was cool.  Even Secretary Clinton trotted "transparency" out for the Copenhagen climate talks.  Apparently, now it's passé:

Word "czars" at Lake Superior State University "unfriended" 15 words and phrases and declared them "shovel-ready" for inclusion on the university's 35th annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.

"The list this year is a 'teachable moment' conducted free of 'tweets,'" said a Word Banishment spokesman who was "chillaxin'" for the holidays. "'In these economic times', purging our language of 'toxic assets' is a 'stimulus' effort that's 'too big to fail.'"

Former LSSU Public Relations Director Bill Rabe and friends created "word banishment" in 1975 at a New Year's Eve party and released the first list on New Year's Day. Since then, LSSU has received tens of thousands of nominations for the list, which includes words and phrases from marketing, media, education, technology and more.

TRANSPARENT/TRANSPARENCY

"I can see clearly that this is the new buzzword for the year." -- Joann Eschenburg, Clinton Twp., Mich.

"In the lexicon of the political arena, this word is supposed to mean obvious or easily understood. In reality, political transparency is more invisible than obvious!" -- Deb Larson, Bellaire, Mich.

"I just don't see it." – Joe Grimm, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

This just makes it official.  I've resigned myself to becoming part of the counterculture.