Libya has paid its $1.5 billion obligation to compensate American victims of Libyan terrorist attacks, according to U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey). The funds were paid under terms of the Libyan Claims Resolution Act, sponsored by Lautenberg.

Compensation was paid by Libya for the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 279, including 38 Americans, the1968 bombing of the Labelle discotheque bombing in Berlin, Germany which killed two and injured approximately 90 Americans and other U.S. deaths and injuries in still pending cases.

"American victims and their families have waited decades for Libya to pay for its deadly acts of violence -- and today they have received long-overdue justice," Sen. Lautenberg said in a press release. "I am pleased that our relentless pressure and support for terror victims has led to this historic moment."

In 2004, President Bush lifted economic sanctions against Libya which had been in place since 1986, and in 2006, Bush removed Libya from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. Both actions came before Libya had paid any compensation to American victims of its terror attacks.

Also See:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Defines Modern Terrorism
Origins and History of Terrorism (Terrorism)
Global Terrorism in Presidential Election Years (Terrorism)

After President-elect Obama resigned his Senate seat on Sunday, Democrats hold a slim 50-49 edge in upper house and will need the votes of at least 10 Republicans to move an automaker bailout bill forward.

Also See: What is a Lame Duck Sessions of Congress?

To help pre-screen applicants for jobs within the new presidential administration, the Obama-Biden transition team has prepared a very revealing questionnaire of 63 questions covering virtually every aspect of the applicant's life. What does it reveal about working for a President of the United States? What is Rule No. 1? Don't embarrass the boss. [Read more...]

Also See: The Presidential Transition Process

Holy cow, Beaver! Dad’s going to croak when he finds out that the State of Georgia is recruiting citizens who speak frog.

It’s no joke. Georgia is looking for volunteers who can help biologists identify the calls of the state's 31 frog species in the annual statewide calling frog survey.

They need 75, but so far only 30 qualified frog speakers have passed the test. Guess it’s not easy speaking green.

"Aloha" - hello and goodbye. Hello to the Hawaii quarter and goodbye to the U.S. Mint's 50 State Quarters Program. With the November 11th debut of the Hawaii quarter in downtown Honolulu, the U.S. Mint drew to a close it's most popular-ever coin program. Read more...

President-elect Barack Obama has barred special interest lobbyists from contributing money to the presidential transition process. The first-ever action allows lobbyists to provide non-financial assistance to the transition, but bars them from actually lobbying for their cause while doing so.

Obama’s ban goes beyond the regulations contained in the Federal Election Campaign Act, which does not specifically address financial contributions to assist with presidential transitions.

"During the campaign, federal lobbyists could not contribute to or raise money for the campaign," said Obama Transition Co-Chair John Podesta in a press release. "Today, the President-elect is taking those commitments even further by announcing the strictest, and most far reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history."

Also See:
The Presidential Transition Process
Presidential Transition: Top 10 Challenges for the New President

You don't even need to give me your lunch money to learn that a taxpayer-funded study by the National Science Foundation (NSF) has concluded that aggressive young bullies may actually enjoy seeing others in pain. Now generations of kids learned this from that big grin on Terrible Tommy's face as he was busting their noses for no good reason, but the NSF chose to study brain scans of eight 16- to 18-year-old boys with "aggressive conduct disorder," better known as bullying. Read more...

With the best of intentions and the help of taxpayers, the U.S. Department of Education has developed and launched the USALearns.gov web site, a site the Department of Education says will help approximately 11 million adult immigrants learn English. That's great, as long as the language the immigrants speak now is Spanish. Currently, and with no apparent plans for expansion, USALearns.gov is available in English and Spanish only. Interestingly, the instructions in both the Spanish and English modules, are almost entirely in English. Read more...

That's quite a list of tasks the GAO sent to President-elect Obama (as if he needed reminding), but as U.S. Politics Guide Kathy Gill noted, it failed to include trimming down the massive and ever-growing national debt. Maybe GAO has given up on the debt. You can hardly blame them, when you consider the sobering... nay, shocking fact that the 2008 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report shows that Social Security and Medicare alone currently have a combined unfunded liability of $101.7 trillion.

The unfunded liability is the difference between total benefits to be paid, and the total projected collections in taxes and Medicare premiums. And, oh by the way, that $101.7 trillion unfunded liability is more than seven times the size of the U.S. economy and 10 times more than the national debt. Can anything be done? Oh yes, but it won't be fun. Read more...

Hours after being elected the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama received his first presidential security briefing from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). What did they talk about? What happens during the daily presidential security briefings? There are two ways, and two ways only, for you to find out for sure: be elected President of the United States or be appointed Director of National Intelligence. [Read More...]

Also See:
How to Access Declassified CIA Documents
Common Questions About CIA Employment
U.S. Defense Policy Primer (2001)