The chief of the International Monetary Fund says the U.S. government's stalemate over spending and its debt limit is "very, very concerning" and could roll back economic progress around the world.

Christine Lagarde, who took over the financial watchdog-and-rescue organization in 2011, said global finance ministers assembled for meetings in Washington last week feeling like Japan had finally turned the corner and that economies in the U.S. and Europe were on the upswing.

"And then they found out that the debt ceiling was the issue," she said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "They found out that the government had shut down and that there was no remedy in sight. So it really completely transformed the meeting in the last few days."

Ms. Lagarde, a lawyer from France, added a global perspective to the standoff that has roiled Washington for weeks and befuddled overseas investors who typically view the U.S. as a paragon of financial rectitude.

Now big-wigs are begging these yo-yos not to crash the economy.

America's great minds of business and finance have reached a consensus on the government shutdown and worse, the prospect of a debt default: While the latter is worse, both are bad. Those same great minds are well aware how the shutdown came to pass and why default still looms on the horizon, whether next week, next month, or next year.

Yes, the frightened corporate leaders surely know how this happened -- because their money funded the tea party candidates and organizations responsible for the crisis.

Consider Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., a tea party freshman whose outspoken stupidity on a default's potential benefits, such as an improved U.S. credit rating, has provided a bit of dark humor in these dark days. Yoho, a large-animal veterinarian, announced months ago that he would never vote to raise the debt ceiling.

Like most Republican candidates, he had no problem raising contributions from business interests, notably including contractors, insurance companies, manufacturers and agricultural processors. All of which presumably share the horror of default expressed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But no doubt Yoho parroted the usual right-wing cliches about taxes, regulation, labor, and health care, so all the business guys wrote a check without caring that Yoho is an ignorant yobbo.

The National Security Agency's $2 billion mega spy center is going up in flames.

Technical glitches have sparked fiery explosions within the NSA's newest and largest data storage facility in Utah, destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and delaying the facility's opening by one year.

And no one seems to know how to fix it.

For a country that prides itself on being a technology leader, not knowing the electrical capacity requirements for a system as large as this is inexcusable.

Within the last 13 months, at least 10 electric surges have each cost about $100,000 in damages, according to documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal. Experts agree that the system, which requires about 64 megawatts of electricity - that's about a $1 million a month energy bill--isn't able to run all of its computers and servers while keeping them cool, which is likely triggering the meltdowns.

Embattled IRS official Sarah Hall Ingram made 155 visits to the White House to meet with a top Obama White House official with whom she exchanged confidential taxpayer information over email.

Of Ingram's 165 White House meetings with White House staff, a staggering 155 of them were hosted by deputy assistant to the president for health policy Jeanne Lambrew, according to a June Watchdog.Org analysis of White House visitor records.

Ingram exchanged confidential taxpayer information with Lambrew and White House health policy advisor Ellen Montz, according to 2012 emails obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Currently there are roughly around 50 million people in America on food stamps. This program is officially referred to as the politically correct sounding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. This federal program provides people with low or no income the ability to purchase food with Electronic Transfer Benefit or EBT cards. For years many have warned that since so many people are now dependent upon this program, ending it would result in widespread riots, looting and violence.

Considering that the federal government is on an unsustainable fiscal path as the world's largest debtor nation it is quite possible that it will soon become impossible for this program to continue. Interestingly enough we got a taste of what could happen when the system that processes EBT cards went down for a short period of time over the weekend.

Officially a systems glitch is being blamed for the outage after a test of the EBT backup system resulted in a system failure. The outage affected at least 17 states including Alabama, California, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia. The outage lasted throughout Saturday until the systems were restored later that evening. Even though the system was only down for a matter of hours, panic immediately ensued. One Massachusetts grocery store reported having to turn away roughly 50 percent of their customers due to their inability to process EBT cards. In Maine carts filled with groceries were left behind by shoppers at different stores. At a Mississippi Wal-Mart customers rioted upon finding out that they could not accept their EBT cards forcing the store to close. Similar situations occurred across the country with reports on social networking sites indicating that many folks were ready to riot.

During the course of the outage at least two Wal-Mart stores in Louisiana began processing EBT cards with no purchase limit. Immediately EBT card holders began filling up their carts with as much as they would hold to take advantage of the glitch. This resulted in chaos with police finally called in to restore order. Photos and videos have emerged showing bare shelves and an endless amount of abandoned grocery carts filled with huge quantities of food. Even though Wal-Mart as a company sucks, one has to question the morality of these people that rushed at the chance to take advantage of the broken system.

Eight years after spending $5 billion on a heavily-criticized universal camouflage pattern, the Army is back at the drawing board looking for a new design that's estimated to cost another $4 billion.

In 2004, the Army decided to scrap the two traditional camouflage uniforms that had long been used by the military - one meant for woodland environments, another for the desert - and claimed to have come up with a universal pattern that could be worn anywhere and blend in with any environment.

The $5 billion dollar experiment with the universal pattern is over as the Army is phasing out the uniform after less than a decade of use. But many soldiers and observers are wondering why it took this long and cost this much to replace an item that performed poorly from the start during a period when the money could have been spent on other critical needs, like potentially life saving improvements to military vehicles and body armor.

Less than a decade after the so-called Universal Camouflage Pattern, or UCP, was introduced the Army is back to the drawing board, set to announce a new camouflage pattern and standard uniform to be worn by the more than million members of the active duty and reserve forces.

Evidence of the UCPs inadequacy as a combat uniform is easy to find - just look at pictures of soldiers currently serving in Afghanistan, they're not wearing the UCP, which was deemed unsuitable for operations there, but a different uniform known as the MultiCam. In 2009, Congress responded to soldiers' "concerns about the current combat uniform which they indicated provides ineffective camouflage given the environment in Afghanistan," by passing a bill in the appropriations act requiring that the DOD "take immediate action to provide combat uniforms to personnel deployed to Afghanistan with a camouflage pattern that is suited to the environment of Afghanistan." The result was the MultiCam. But that uniform, while it is currently worn in Afghanistan, was not a replacement but an interim substitution for the UCP, which is still the Army's official uniform and the one worn by all soldiers not overseas.

© Alon RonThen-Israel Navy chief, Rear-Admiral (ret) Eliezer Marom, June 1, 2010.

Israeli embassy says it is looking into the issue. Under British law, permission to arrest foreign citizens for war crimes is limited.

The former commander of the Israeli navy, Rear-Admiral (ret) Eliezer Marom was detained for questioning Monday morning at London's Heathrow Airport immediately after landing in the United Kingdom.

After brief questioning, Marom was released and allowed to continue his visit. A spokesman for Israel's embassy in London confirmed the details and said "we are looking into the issue right now."

Following initial inquiries, none of the relevant British authorities, the Home Office, which is responsible for border controls, the London Metropolitan Police and the Foreign Office, are aware of Marom having been detained or questioned.

Israel's Foreign Ministry is continuing to look into the incident but at this stage, it seems that Marom was under the mistaken impression that the routine questions he was asked at passport control at Heathrow Airport and the slight delay he experienced were actually an attempt to detain him over war crimes allegations.

Bipartisan bill pulls together existing efforts to dramatically reform the NSA in the wake of Snowden disclosures

The conservative Republican who co-authored America's Patriot Act is preparing to unveil bipartisan legislation that would dramatically curtail the domestic surveillance powers it gives to intelligence agencies.

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, who worked with president George W Bush to give more power to US intelligence agencies after the September 11 terrorist attacks, said the intelligence community had misused those powers by collecting telephone records on all Americans, and claimed it was time "to put their metadata program out of business".

His imminent bill in the House of Representatives is expected to be matched by a similar proposal from Senate judiciary committee chair Patrick Leahy, a Democrat. It pulls together existing congressional efforts to reform the National Security Agency in the wake of disclosures by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Sensenbrenner has called his bill the Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-Collection, and Online Monitoring Act - or USA Freedom Act, and a draft seen by the Guardian has four broad aims.

California women will have more access to abortion after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Wednesday that allows nurse practitioners and other non-physicians to perform the procedure during the first trimester of pregnancy.

Assemblywoman Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) introduced the measure because of concern that there are not enough physicians, especially in rural areas, to meet the needs of women who desire an abortion.

"Timely access to reproductive health services is critical to women's health," Atkins said in a statement. "AB 154 will ensure that no woman has to travel excessively long distances or wait for long periods in order to obtain an early abortion."

The measure was one of seven bills signed by the governor Wednesday that involved women's health, including legislation to promote breastfeeding.

Hawaii's health insurance marketplace is hoping to turn around a stalled start by providing plans and pricing to consumers by Oct. 15 - but there are no guarantees, its executive director said Wednesday.

Coral Andrews, executive director of Hawaii Health Connector, told state lawmakers Wednesday that getting the marketplace running properly has been a fluid situation, with circumstances changing every day.

"We want to make sure that we're doing it the right way," Andrews said after testifying for more than an hour before a panel of lawmakers representing three House and three Senate committees.

The insurance exchange - a key component of President Barack Obama's federal health care overhaul - hasn't been able to sell any insurance in Hawaii because of problems with the software at the heart of the marketplace. Consumers can't see plans, even though a variety of options from two insurers have been approved to be sold by the state's insurance division.