Newt Gingrich and his American Solutions Silicon Valley point man David Kralik frequently tell the story of  Census Bureau backwardness — captured here by the Washington Post:

Kralik puts the U.S. Census Bureau in the world-that-fails column. After spending more than $150 million on handheld computers to count everyone in the country, the Census Bureau announced a few weeks ago that it will scrap that program and hire 600,000 temporary workers and go back to the same way that it’s counted people since 1790: with paper and pen.

I had a Census Bureau-esque experience over the weekend — but with U.S. Savings Bonds.

Every year I buy a savings bond for my daughter for her birthday.  Yes, a lousy investment, but solid for sentimentalism.

I always sit down with a bank desk clerk (Bank of America), enter the information directly into the computer, and within days the government savings bond arrives in the mail.
But not this year.
This year I was given a government form to handwrite out.  The form is then mailed to the government.  The bond doesn’t get to me until three-four weeks later.  No computers are used.  Only human hands touch the transaction.

I asked a bank rep why the change.  She said she didn’t know, it’s just how the government does bonds now.  No more computers.
Put this in the world-that-fails column as well.

George Clooney’s dad, anyone?

We learn from Fishbowl:

Nick Clooney, veteran journalist and television host, joins the faculty at American University this fall as American University School of Communication and Newseum Distinguished Journalist in Residence. Clooney’s appointment is part of a long-term partnership between the School of Communication and the Newseum, the interactive museum of news in Washington, D.C.

And judging by the short window of time between doors opening and close for the below show, Prof. Clooney runs a tight ship.

Since the Newseum is having fun with Hoover …

so will we …

Those zany exhibit artists at the Newseum have done it again — J. Edgar Hoover like you’ve never seen him.

Click here for the hilarious makeover results.

On Sunday the Washington Post completes its 13-part series, “Who Killed Chandra Levy?”

What do Post reporters think about the massive undertaking?

Here’s a fascinating take from one of the Post’s own, quoted in the ombudsman’s Sunday column:

Several readers thought the murders of African Americans in the District had been slighted for one white woman who wasn’t even from Washington. And Robert E. Pierre, a Post Metro reporter, said that the emphasis on Levy “seems like either an awful big coincidence or just recognition that . . . a white life is worth more than a black one.”

Pierre said it was “unconscionable that we would devote 12 parts and a year to the investigation of this one death. About 200 people are killed in this city every year, most of them black and male. But the one that captures the ‘world,’ according to us, is the death of a 24-year-old white woman who had a relationship with a congressman.”

After 100 years, we can’t get you out of our minds…

Back in June, the New York Times’ Caucus blog ran this item:

As Senators Barack Obama and John McCain pushed their competing energy plans at campaign events today, advisers to Mr. McCain opened up a few new lines of attack on the presumptive Democratic nominee – one of them cinematic.

Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, accused Mr. Obama of being the “Dr. No” of energy security in a conference call with reporters….

His reference to the 1962 spy film starring Sean Connery

… this may not be the last time we hear the name “Dr. No”…

Turns out, the Caucus had it right.

Monday in DC brings the beginning of Screen on the Green, the free movie series on the Mall.

And the kick-off movie?  “Dr. No.”