Bloomberg BusinessWeek, May 27, 2013

choi

(1) Michael Riley, How the US Government Hacks the World.
http://www.businessweek.com/arti ... ent-hacks-the-world

Quote:

(a) "When President Obama receives his daily intelligence briefing, most of the information comes from government cyberspies, says Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence under President George W Bush. 'It’s at least 75 percent, and going up,' he says.

(b) Michael Hayden, who headed the NSA, and later the CIA, under Georg W Bush says, "We are the best at doing it [stealing information at computer hard drives]. Period.”

(c) "According to the former officials, US cyberspies, most from military units who’ve received specialized training, sit at consoles running sophisticated hacking software, which funnels into a 'fusion center,' where intelligence analysts try to make sense of it all.

"The agency has managed to automate much of the process, one of the former officials says, requiring human hackers to intervene only in cases of the most well-protected computers. Just like spies in the physical world, the U.S. cyberspies take pains to obscure their tracks or disguise themselves as something else—hackers from China, say—in case their activities are detected.

Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Washington is pressing China to stop the cyber attacks. Beijing's response: Look who's talking
(b) Look who’s talking. Cambridge Dictionaries Online, undated.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ ... /look-who-s-talking

choi

(2) Devin Leonard, The Post Office's Back to the Future Rescue Plan.
http://www.businessweek.com/arti ... -to-the-local-store

Quote:

"To preserve the letter of the law, which requires six-day service, the agency [USPS] would continue Saturday parcel delivery — a shrewd decision, since, thanks to booming e-commerce, the parcel business is one of the few sectors that is actually growing.

"Before the Civil War, the vast majority of post offices were located in country stores and taverns. 'There were virtually no free-standing post offices,' says Richard John, author of Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse. He says the government gave small business owners a share of their postal revenue, but no salary. Today they get even less. Gable says she receives $100 a month from the Postal Service. The main attraction for entrepreneurs, then and now, has been the prospect of getting more people through their doors. John says the postal service began erecting free-standing post offices after the Civil War when the public was more tolerant of federal construction projects.

"The Postal Service is the country’s second largest civilian employer, after Walmart.

Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: It now offers service in local stores just  like in the olden days
(b) "The bottom line" at the end of the article in print: The USPS wants businesses to sell stamps and mail packages in towns where the post office has closed or cut hours.   

* olden (adj): "existing a long time ago in the past"
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, undated.
http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/olden
(c) Van Etten, New York
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Etten,_New_York
(a town; The population was 1,557 at the 2010 census; The name of the town is that of the two brothers who founded a village in the town [around 1798])
(d)
(i) Richard John, Spreading the News; The American postal system from Franklin to Morse. Harvard University Press, 2013.
(ii) Richard R John, How the Post Office Made America. New York Times, Feb 9, 2013 (op-ed).
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/0 ... e-made-america.html

Quote:

"It was George Washington and James Madison, not Franklin, who supported the key legislation that got the modern post office up and running in 1792. By then Franklin had been dead for two years; the post office he briefly oversaw in 1775-6 was basically a carbon copy of the British imperial post.

"Northern legislators [in 1863 after the South seceded] instituted free city delivery, thereby creating the modern letter carrier. Before then, Americans almost always picked up their mail at the post office — even on Sundays, if they wished

* Benjamin Franklin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
(1706-1790; For many years he was the British postmaster for the colonies, which enabled him to set up the first national communications network; 1st United States Postmaster General: 1775-1776, appointed by Continental Congress)
* Francis Lieber
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Lieber
(1800-1872; German-American)
* United States Postal Service
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service
(Employees  546,000 (2012 Career Employees))

Compare
Walmart "Employees  2.2 million (2013)"  Wiki citing its submission to SEC (United States Securities and Exchange Commission).

(e) Keene Valley, New York
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keene_Valley,_New_York
(a town)   

choi

(3) Frank Bass, The Special Visa for Supermodels.
http://www.businessweek.com/arti ... killed-worker-visas

Quote:

"The US government grants hundreds of visas to models every year. Although more than half don’t have high school diplomas, according to a Brookings Institution analysis of federal data, the government puts them in the same H-1B category as scientists and software engineers, who need a college degree to qualify [thanks to a legislative quirk]. Fashion models only have to show immigration officials that they’re well-known in the industry.

"Models generally get fewer than 1 percent of the work permits—about 250 per year.

Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Engineers vie with cover girls for prized skilled-worker permits
(b) summary in Table of Contents: Supermodels vs programmers in the battle for visas