A few interesting tech stories have come out recently. Hey, we can't do Gavin all day. The Washington Post is reporting today that the State Department has come up with a new, super technologically advanced way of spying on Iran, mainly Googling people. Aahh...Google, is there anything you can't do? The hope, we guess, is that they'll stumble on some Iranian's nuclear scientist’s MySpace page and hope it mentions under their likes "developing nuclear bomb to fend off the Great Satan." The CIA, however, says that this is probably not a good way to look for intelligence and then fell over in laughter. There's actually a lot more to the story, mainly involving turf wars between the State Department and the CIA (again) over sharing information and the meaning of it all. more ›

The weeks starts out right when a sucker punch on the field lands Chicagoist in the middle of a Sox/Cubs throwdown and the fists continue to fly in the comments. Despite suburban resident Ms. Pinney's best little try no books will be banned anytime soon and the El is really really gross. more ›

Reacting to criticism that the State Department voted against letting two gay rights groups into a United Nations panel, the State Department issued a statement last Friday denying that the vote was due to any sort of anti-gay bias. Instead, they did it because of a concern over pedophilia. more ›

So color us surprised when Adriel Hampton sent us a note asking if we wanted to join him in a chat with some South Asian media professionals in town on a junket with the State Department. Apparently they wanted to learn more about these "blog" things, and how they relate to journalism, both online and in print. more ›

There were elections yesterday? We had no idea! Well, we don't live in Marin, Contra Costa, Sonoma, or San Mateo County, but apparently pretty much everyone loves to Save The Music (That ad with the little kids disappearing from the school band -- hits ya right there). And CoCo's Acalanes Union School District managed to convince voters to fund up a seventh period of classes for AP and honors-track students. 'Cause nothing says fun like Calculus BC at 4 p.m.! However, voters in Ross decided to keep letting their school's roofs leak, Milpitas wants to have extra-crowded kindergarten classes, and Belmont is no longer funding their shuttle bus service. In other sort-of local election news, Doris Matsui, widow of Robert Matsui, was overwhelmingly elected (with 71% of the vote!) to her late husband's House of Representatives seat. She's the 46th widow to be elected to finish a husband's Congressional term. (Don't think any husbands have yet to be elected to finish out their wives', though don't think Bill Clinton's not thinking about it!). Picture by John Moore from the AP, off the State Department website more ›