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Cover Oregon’s fizzled launch has been a high profile disaster for the state. After spending $160 million, Oregon’s health insurance exchange had exactly zero people sign up for private insurance in the first two months. Now Cover Oregon claims to have enrolled 7,300 people. However, the fine print from the Cover Oregon press release reveals that the suspiciously round number is actually an estimate. In fact, Cover Oregon has not indicated that a single person has paid their first bill, which is the industry’s measure of enrollment. As with any bureaucratic failure, finger-pointing is an unavoidable stage. Rather than trying...

Long a harbinger of national trends and an incubator of innovation, cash-strapped California eagerly awaits a temporary revenue surge from Facebook IPO stock options and capital gains. Meanwhile, Stockton may soon become the state's largest city to go bust. Call it the agony and ecstasy of contemporary California. California's rising standards of living and outstanding public schools and universities once attracted millions seeking upward economic mobility. But then something went radically wrong as California legislatures and governors built a welfare state on high tax rates, liberal entitlement benefits and excessive regulation. The results, though predictable, are nonetheless striking. From the...

As recently as a month ago, it appeared that Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker would be running into a withering fusillade of rhetorical fire when they appeared on Capitol Hill to report on the progress of the "surge" in Iraq. Now that their testimony is upon us, the political environment has become, in military argot, considerably more "permissive." A sign of how much things have changed: In July, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was pressing for a "date certain" for troop withdrawal; he derided those who wanted to pass a nonbinding drawdown resolution "that has no teeth...

On CNN just now. New Orleans Mayor Nagin, apparantly stressed out, in interview segment, said he has been yelling at the President and the Governor, and for all he knows, the "CIA could wipe me out". (Paraphrase) Just now. Turning into a strange, macabre show now. Blame continues, spiraling out of control. Sad. It even raised CNN's eyebrows a bit.(5:57 p.m. Eastern/4:57 p.m. Central)

DETROIT, United States (AFP) - Rats or lead poisoning. When it comes to the threats from the broken down house next door, Dorothy Bates isn't sure which is worse. "When it's lightening and thundering you can hear the bricks just falling," the 40-year-old nurse said as she looked at the smashed windows and garbage-strewn porch. "If you call and ask (the city) about it they say they don't have the funds to tear it down." There are more than 12,000 abandoned homes in the Detroit area, a byproduct of decades of layoffs at the city's auto plants and white flight...

BLUESTOCKINGS, the women's bookstore/cafe/performance space that opened on the Lower East Side in 1999, fizzled out in February, despite the efforts of a collective made up mostly of young white lesbians who cared more about mission than money. This month, a new Bluestockings reopened at the same Allen Street address - still a bookstore/cafe/performance space/activist resource center, but this time, with a broader mission. In its earlier incarnation, Bluestockings was about empowering women, all kinds of women: "Recognizing the links between oppressions, our goal is to be trans-inclusive, multilingual, open to all sexualities and spiritualities, intergenerational and to challenge racism,...

See the digerati dither, daily Art by Terry Colon appears courtesy of Suck.com. Subscribe Get Ditherati through your email. Suggest Send us a quote that rocked your petty little world, or just tell us how much today's quote did. YOUR FIVE WORDS ARE UP "Our nominees are using the Web in new and original ways to bring people together. We want to follow their lead by using the medium to honour winners in a powerful and uniquely Webby way." Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain, doing her best Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf impersonation while explaining why her outfit couldn't come up...

<p>Winning a Webby Award, the self-proclaimed Oscars of the Internet, will be a little lonely this year.</p> <p>The seventh annual ceremony, a flamboyant production that came to symbolize the online industry's excess, has been canceled. Many nominees from outside the Bay Area simply couldn't attend the event -- scheduled for June 5 in San Francisco -- because of the bad economy and fears about traveling, Webby organizers said Friday.</p>

Closure looms for 'best newspaper on the internet' By Charles Arthur, Technology Editor 28 June 2002 Salon.com, which describes itself as the "Web's best newspaper", faces closure unless it can attract new funding. The site's owners have been forced to admit that their outspoken stance on political issues is alienating users and potential advertisers.Salon.com's founder, David Talbot, has lodged an annual formal document, an "SEC 10-K", with the US Securities and Exchange Commission explaining its financial plight.The pioneering, left-leaning website – which refused to comment on the move yesterday – recently claimed to have revealed the identity of "Deep Throat"...