The method of protectively coating metallic uranium which comprises dipping the metallic uranium in a molten alloy comprising about 20-75% of copper and about 80-25% of tin, dipping the coated uranium promptly into molten tin, withdrawing it from the molten tin and removing excess molten metal, thereupon dipping it into a molten metal bath comprising aluminum until it is coated with this metal, then promptly withdrawing it from the bath.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Rufus Dye. Dye joined the Army Air Corps in 1940 after finishing high school in Illinois. Dye finished radio operator school in Chicago before heading for flight training in California. Upon completion of flight training and earning his commission, Dye reported for duty with the 392nd Fighter Squadron, 367th Fighter Group in England where he flew combat missions in France prior to the Normandy landing. He flew a P-38 Lightning. He was in Frankfurt when the war ended.

News release about DART's reduced service schedule in observance of the Christmas holiday.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Consequences for a municipality if five of it's seven council members are removed at a recall election (RQ-0156-GA)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a home-rule city may extend a Tax Code, chapter 311 reinvestment zone’s termination date beyond the date provided in the ordinance designating the zone (RQ-0238-GA)

BRAC 2005 Intelligence Joint Cross-Service Group Meeting Minutes of October 6, 2004. The document is redacted and includes the IJCSG Principals Meeting brief (PowerPoint slides).

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Because of increased awareness of threats to national security and efforts to privatize federal jobs, the demand for security clearances for government and industry personnel has increased. Industry personnel are taking on a greater role in national security work for the Department of Defense (DOD) and other federal agencies. Because many of these jobs require access to classified information, industry personnel need security clearances. As of September 30, 2003, industry workers held about one-third of the approximately 2 million DOD-issued security clearances. Terrorist attacks have heightened national security concerns and underscored the need for a timely, high-quality personnel security clearance process. However, GAO's past work found that DOD had a clearance backlog and other problems with its process. GAO was asked to review the clearance eligibility determination process and backlog for industry personnel. This testimony presents our preliminary observations on the security clearance process for industry personnel and describes (1) the size of the backlog and changes in the time needed to issue eligibility determinations, (2) the impediments to reducing the backlog and delays, and (3) some of the initiatives that DOD is considering to eliminate the backlog …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The availability of child pornography has dramatically increased in recent years as it has migrated from printed material to the World Wide Web, becoming accessible through Web sites, chat rooms, newsgroups, and now the increasingly popular peer-to-peer file sharing programs. These programs enable direct communication between users, allowing users to access each other's files and share digital music, images, and video. GAO was requested to determine the ease of access to child pornography on peer-to-peer networks; the risk of inadvertent exposure of juvenile users of peerto- peer networks to pornography, including child pornography; and the extent of federal law enforcement resources available for combating child pornography on peer-to-peer networks. Today's testimony is based on GAO's report on the results of that work (GAO- 03-351). Because child pornography cannot be accessed legally other than by law enforcement agencies, GAO worked with the Customs Cyber- Smuggling Center in performing searches: Customs downloaded and analyzed image files, and GAO performed analyses based on keywords and file names only."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This letter responds to a request by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, for GAO's views on the need for postal reform and is based upon prior testimonies related to this issue. Since the Postal Service's transformation efforts and financial outlook had been placed on GAO's High-Risk List in April 2001, the Comptroller General has testified on several occasions about the governance, financial, operational, and human capital challenges that threaten the Service's ability to carry out its mission. If not effectively addressed in a timely manner, these challenges serve to threaten the Service's ability to remain self-supporting while providing affordable, high-quality, and universal postal services to all Americans."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 1996, the Congress authorized an experimental initiative called the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program that provides funds to increase the quality of visitor experience and enhance resource protection. Under the program, the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service--all within the Department of the Interior--and the Forest Service--within the U.S. Department of Agriculture--are authorized to establish, charge, collect, and use fees at a number of sites to, among other things, address a backlog of repair and maintenance needs. Also, sites may retain and use the fees they collect. The Congress is now considering, through H.R. 3283, whether to make the program permanent. Central to the debate is how effectively the agencies are using the revenues that they have collected. This testimony focuses on the potential effect of H.R. 3283 on the issues GAO raised previously in its work on the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program. Specifically, it examines the extent to which H.R. 3283 would affect (1) federal agencies' deferred maintenance programs, (2) the management and distribution of the revenue collected, and (3) interagency coordination on fee collection and use."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO summarized the results of its investigation, performed at Congress' request, of street narcotic sales in the vicinity of certain drug rehabilitation clinics in the District of Colombia. To obtain an overview of the problem, we conducted physical surveillance of five clinics in the District of Columbia and interviewed clinic personnel and law enforcement officials. In brief, we found that a significant amount of illegal drug trafficking activity takes place around these clinics. Patients frequently must navigate their way through a virtual bazaar of illegal drug dealing when they enter and exit the facilities."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The federal government is interested in the use of smart cards--credit card-like devices that use integrated circuit chips to store and process data--for improving the security of its many physical and information assets. Besides providing better authentication of the identities of people accessing buildings and computer systems, smart cards offer a number of other potential benefits and uses, such as creating electronic passenger lists for deploying military personnel and tracking immunization and other medical records. Over the past 2 years, GAO has studied and reported on the uses of smart cards across the federal government. Congress requested that GAO testify on federal agencies' efforts in adopting smart card technology--based on the results of this prior work--and on the specific actions that the Department of Veterans Affairs is taking to implement smart card technology."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This report responds to a Congressional request for information on trends in prices for prescription drugs frequently used by Medicare beneficiaries and other individual with health insurance. We obtained data from two state pharmaceutical assistance programs for the elderly on the usual and customary prices reported by retail pharmacies for selected drugs. The usual and customary price is the undiscounted price individuals without drug coverage would pay. We tracked monthly price trends from January 2000 through June 2004 for a total of 99 drugs, which include 77 drugs frequently used by certain Medicare enrollees and 79 drugs frequently used by certain non-Medicare enrollees. We also compared the price trends during this period separately for the 52 brand drugs and 47 generic drugs."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) enforces the rights of federal employees and applicants for federal employment under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) of 1994. USERRA provides for the employment and reemployment rights of federal and nonfederal employees who leave their employment to perform military service. USERRA also prohibits discrimination against persons because of their military service. In light of the significant number of National Guard members and reservists serving in the war in Iraq and in other conflicts who will be demobilized and returning to the federal workforce in the coming months, the Ranking Minority Member, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, asked us to review issues surrounding enforcement of the act in the federal sector, particularly by OSC. Under USERRA, a federal employee or applicant who believes that his or her USERRA rights have been violated may file a claim with the Department of Labor's (DOL) Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS), which investigates and attempts to resolve the claim. If VETS cannot resolve the claim, the individual may request that it be referred to OSC. In addition to …

Reconciliation report with an ending account balance of $3,247.57 reconciled for the period ending on February 29, 2004.