New commercial: Six degrees of Google TV starring Kevin Bacon [TNW Shareables]

Logitech just posted this commercial for its Logitech Revue Google TV box, starring Kevin Bacon as a guy that is obsessed with, well, Kevin Bacon. Or at least we think it might be Kevin Bacon?there is a strong resemblance?

p.s. it really is Kevin Bacon.

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RIM's BlackBerry OS passes Apple's iOS in US mobile Internet traffic

Research in Motion's BlackBerry OS has overtaken Apple's iOS (iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad) for the first time in terms of mobile Internet usage. The latest US November data comes from Web analytics company StatCounter and its research arm, StatCounter Global Stats.

The BlackBerry OS managed to grab 34.3 percent last month while Apple's iOS recorded 33 percent. Google's Android is rapidly gaining and has almost tripled its Internet market share from 8.2 percent in November 2009 to 23.8 in November 2010. Apple's iOS has fallen from 51.9 percent to 33 percent over the same period. Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 has not yet registered a significant amount of Internet usage.

"These figures suggest that developers should not be developing solely for the iPhone to the exclusion of BlackBerry and Android," Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter, said in a statement. "This data demonstrates that there is a battle royal already going on in the smartphone market for the consumer and business internet user. You can never underestimate Microsoft but it looks to have its work cut out."

He also added that if current trends continue, BlackBerry and Android combined are on course to become twice the size of iOS in mobile Internet usage next year. The statistics are based on aggregate data collected by StatCounter on a sample exceeding 15 billion page views per month collected from across the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.

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HP kills Windows Home Server options, to focus on WebOS

Microsoft has confirmed that Hewlett-Packard's MediaSmart boxes, which run Windows Home Server, are being discontinued at the end of the year. HP has also told Microsoft that it has no intention of developing products that run Windows Home Server 2 (codenamed Vail).

Ever since HP acquired Palm for $1.2 billion, the company seems to becoming more competitive with its various partners. The company apparently has lost interest in selling Windows Home Server boxes. Instead, HP is promising to continue support for its existing MediaSmart products but has already redeployed development teams to focus on WebOS, according to Engadget.

Despite suspicions by many that the company would kill webOS, so far it has done the exact opposite. Two months ago, HP officially introduced webOS 2.0, the most significant update to the platform since its launch in 2009, along with the Palm Pre 2, the first device to sport it. Four more webOS 2.0 devices are slated to arrive in early 2011, and the company also plans to roll it out for current devices. Developers will thus be able to target eight webOS 2.0 devices in total, plus whatever Windows Home Server replacements the company may have under its sleeve.

"Microsoft continues to work on delivering 'Vail' to our customers," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. "We are working very closely with our partners such as Acer, Tranquil and many System Builders to bring the best solution to market. HP and Microsoft have a long-standing strategic relationship across both consumer and commercial markets and will continue to work together moving forward."

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Amid Deficit Fears, Obama Freezes Pay

?The hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is going to require some broad sacrifice, and that sacrifice must be shared by employees of the federal government,? Mr. Obama told reporters. He called federal workers ?patriots who love their country? but added, ?I?m asking civil servants to do what they?ve always done? for the nation.

The pay freeze amounted to an opening bid as the president and Republican Congressional leaders begin jousting in earnest over tax and spending policy. It also illustrated how Mr. Obama can use his office on occasion to get ahead of newly elected Republicans; they had been talking about making such a move when they assume control of the House and additional Senate seats in January.

But while the move represents a gesture toward public anger over the anemic economic recovery and rising national debt, the $5 billion to be saved over two years will barely dent a deficit that has exceeded $1 trillion for the past two years. And even those savings would be swamped by the multitrillion-dollar costs of the bigger issue dividing Mr. Obama and the Republicans ? what parts of the Bush-era tax cuts to extend beyond their Dec. 31 expiration, and for how long.

That issue and others will be on the agenda on Tuesday when Mr. Obama will host the House and Senate leaders of each party at the White House for the first time since the midterm elections.

Tuesday will also be the last day for emergency federal assistance for about two million Americans who have been unemployed for long periods, and on Friday a temporary measure providing money for government operations will run out. The two parties are at odds over both matters, with many Republicans opposed to additional unemployment aid and demanding more cuts from domestic spending for the fiscal year that began in October.

Mr. Obama nonetheless expressed optimism that the meeting would be a productive fresh beginning.

?We can?t afford to fall back onto the same old ideologies or the same stale sound bites,? he said.

As Mr. Obama made his comments at the announcement of the pay freeze, the bipartisan commission he established in February to propose ways to reduce the growth of the national debt entered a final two days of negotiations over combinations of spending cuts and revenue increases. In a sign of the struggle to find a compromise that could attract Democratic and Republicans votes, the commission chairmen ? Alan K. Simpson, a former Senate Republican leader, and Erskine B. Bowles, a chief of staff to President Bill Clinton ? decided to meet privately with members one at a time on Monday and Tuesday instead of convening all 18 members.

The Republicans on the panel are generally opposed to raising taxes and the Democrats to big changes in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson revised their draft debt-reduction package over the Thanksgiving holiday break to reflect members? criticisms. Their goal is to reduce projected deficits by nearly $4 trillion over the coming decade. That is roughly the same amount that would be added to the national debt by extending the Bush-era tax rates ? a juxtaposition that underscores the contradictory impulses of elected officials as constituents demand smaller deficits and low taxes.

In advance of Tuesday?s bipartisan White House meeting, Mr. Obama and Democratic Senate leaders conferred by phone to try to coordinate strategy.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi planned to have the House vote on the approach that she, Mr. Obama and the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid, prefer, which would extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for income up to $250,000 a year for couples and $200,000 for individuals. But faced with defections from Democrats in swing districts and states, they are considering fallback plans, including one that would keep the Bush-era rates in place for income up to $1 million.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democratic Senate leader from New York, is the main proponent of that plan, which he is labeling the ?millionaires? tax.? He has picked up adherents among Democrats facing re-election challenges in 2012, including Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

The lame-duck session of Congress could end up passing a temporary extension that kicks the matter, like other issues, into the next Congress, which convenes in January. On Monday, the House approved a Senate measure that blocks until Jan. 1 a scheduled 23 percent cut in doctors? reimbursements from Medicare ? once again buying time to resolve the costly issue.

The pay freeze Mr. Obama announced wiped out plans for a 1.4 percent across-the-board raise in 2011 for 2.1 million federal civilian employees, including those working at the Defense Department, and it would mean no raise in 2012. The freeze would not affect the nation?s uniformed military personnel, and civilian workers who are promoted would still receive the higher pay that comes with the higher grade or position.

The move would save $2 billion in the 2011 fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 and $5 billion by the end of two fiscal years. Over 10 years, it would save $60 billion, according to Jeffrey Zients, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and the government?s chief performance officer.

While Congress has final word on federal pay, the president?s freeze seemed certain, given the political environment; if anything, lawmakers may go further by cutting pay. Republicans noted that some of them had called for a pay freeze for months. ?We are pleased that President Obama appears ready to join our efforts,? said Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the incoming Republican majority leader.

With Republicans vowing to make deep budget cuts, Mr. Obama must decide how far he is willing to go and where he will draw a line. He pointed out that he has already called for a three-year freeze on domestic discretionary spending, found $20 billion in savings from eliminating or scaling back unnecessary programs, identified $150 billion in improper payments.

The federal work force is an obvious first target, if one fraught with political risk for a president who relies on union support. Opponents of big government have been trying to build a political case that federal employees are being overpaid. In a report in June, Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute, a libertarian research organization in Washington, found that federal civilian workers had an average annual wage of $81,258 in 2009, compared with $50,464 for the nation?s private-sector workers. Average federal salaries rose 58 percent from 2000 to 2009, compared with 30 percent in the private sector.

Union leaders, though, cited other data showing that federal workers were paid 24 percent less than their private sector counterparts, and they accused Mr. Obama of playing politics. ?Sticking it to a V.A. nurse and a Social Security worker is not the way to go,? John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in an interview.

David M. Herszenhorn contributed reporting.

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MSI announces fanless Atom-based SFF motherboard

Japanese robot uses Microsoft Kinect-like magic to detect and pick ripe fruit [TNW Gadgets]

Just recently you may have seen a video demonstrating the Microsoft Kinect?s ability to create real-time 3D imagery. Japan?s National Agriculture and Food Research Organization has apparently taken that a step further. You see, they have created a robot that uses similar technology to determined whether or not a strawberry is ripe and if it is, pluck it effortlessly from its branch.

However, Farmers around the world shouldn?t be sweating bullets just yet because it?s just a prototype. But boy, is it a cool one.

here?s how it works. The robot uses two cameras to create a 3D image of the strawberry. From there, it?s able to detect whether or not the fruit is ripe by measuring its color and if the strawberry is red enough (it must be 80% red), the robot picks the strawberry from the stalk in about 9 second without any collateral damage.

So, just how useful is this thing?

Well, CrunchGear puts it into perspective. While it would take a normal human 500 hours to pick every strawberry in a 1000 sq meter field, these robots would be able to finish the job in 300.

Pretty impressive stuff and certainly a more welcomed addition to the robot world than those German robots that can design and mutate all by themselves. That?s just down right scary.

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Sidebar: A Witness Lies, the Court Shrugs and Veterans Are Outraged

WASHINGTON

Elven J. Swisher wore a replica of a Purple Heart on the witness stand when he testified that the defendant had tried to hire him to kill three federal officials.

Asked about the medal, Mr. Swisher pulled a document from his pocket to show that he was entitled to it and many others for his service in combat in the Korean War.

Mr. Swisher said the defendant, David R. Hinkson, an armchair constitutionalist with eccentric views about the tax code, had asked him how many men he had killed. ?Too many,? Mr. Swisher recalled saying.

All lies. Mr. Swisher had never seen combat, had killed no one and had served without distinction. The document was a forgery. Mr. Swisher has since been convicted of lying to federal officials, wearing fake medals and defrauding the Department of Veterans Affairs of benefits for combat injuries.

But the jury knew none of this, and with Mr. Swisher?s testimony it convicted Mr. Hinkson of soliciting three murders. He was sentenced to 33 years for those crimes, along with 10 years for tax evasion, and he is serving his sentence in the maximum-security prison in Florence, Colo.

When Mr. Swisher?s lies came to light, Mr. Hinkson challenged his convictions for soliciting the murders. The jury had believed him guilty of more than loose talk, he said, only because Mr. Swisher had falsely presented himself as a battle-hardened killer.

But the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled against him last year by a 7-to-4 vote.

Mr. Swisher?s lies, the majority said, were no big deal. There was no reason to think the jury would have come out differently had it known of ?Swisher?s routine, rather than heroic, military history,? Judge Carlos T. Bea wrote.

That decision has outraged veterans.

William F. Mac Swain, the national president of the Korean War Veterans Association, told the appeals court in a brief filed after the decision that ?its reasoning and language are a slap in the face to veterans and jurors alike.?

The majority opinion implied ?that the average American no longer attaches any significance to a veteran?s wartime service,? Mr. Mac Swain continued.

In fact, he said, jurors are likely to believe those who have sacrificed to defend them and are likely to reject the testimony of those who have falsely claimed entitlement to honors for which others have bled and died.

That was not just speculation. One of the jurors at Mr. Hinkson?s trial, in Boise, Idaho, in 2005, later said he would have voted to acquit had he known the truth.

?I was surprised to hear that Mr. Swisher was allowed to tell such lies which created the misimpression that he would be a good ?hit man? candidate based on having been a decorated combat veteran,? the juror, Ben S. Casey, said in a sworn statement. ?These lies discredit him as a witness and therefore discredit the rest of his testimony.?

Mr. Mac Swain?s brief was prepared by John W. Keker, a prominent San Francisco lawyer who earned a Purple Heart in Vietnam. In an interview, Mr. Keker said the majority?s ?dismissive and even supercilious attitude? about military service ?drove me out of my mind.?

?The idea that jurors wouldn?t be tremendously affected if they knew someone had lied about getting their war decorations was just astonishing,? Mr. Keker said.

After reading Mr. Keker?s brief, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski switched his vote. He said the brief and a recent Supreme Court decision had made him realize he had ?underestimated the trust some jurors would have placed in Swisher if they thought he was a decorated combat veteran, and the likely backlash if they learned he was a fraud.?

But the tally the second time around, in July, was still 6 to 5 against Mr. Hinkson.

Dennis P. Riordan, one of Mr. Hinkson?s lawyers, said he was working on an appeal to the Supreme Court, where the justices have lately been quite engaged with the meaning of military service.

The decision Chief Judge Kozinski referred to, for instance, granted a new sentencing hearing to a death row inmate, George Porter Jr. In an unsigned unanimous opinion, the justices chastised Mr. Porter?s trial lawyer for failing to tell the jury about ?Porter?s heroic military service in two of the most critical ? and horrific ? battles of the Korean War,? service for which he earned two Purple Hearts and other distinctions.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in another case about a Korean War veteran. It concerns David L. Henderson, who missed a filing deadline for veterans? benefits because he was bedridden from the very disability for which he sought help.

At the argument in Mr. Hinkson?s case in the Ninth Circuit, there was much discussion of medals and their meaning.

Judge Harry Pregerson, who would end up in dissent, said he and his father had both earned Purple Hearts. ?So I know what it?s about,? he said.

A lawyer for the government, on the other hand, argued that Mr. Swisher?s lies had been inconsequential.

Judge Pregerson asked the lawyer, John F. DePue, what he was wearing on his lapel. It turned out to be a Distinguished Service Medal.

?I honor you for your service,? Judge Pregerson said. ?When I look at you, I say, ?This guy?s got credibility standing there.? ?

?You?re impressing us,? Judge Pregerson said, and then he seemed to refer to Mr. Swisher. ?And if a guy is wearing a Purple Heart medal, that?s going to impress some people, too.?

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RIM's BlackBerry OS passes Apple's iOS in US mobile Internet traffic

Research in Motion's BlackBerry OS has overtaken Apple's iOS (iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad) for the first time in terms of mobile Internet usage. The latest US November data comes from Web analytics company StatCounter and its research arm, StatCounter Global Stats.

The BlackBerry OS managed to grab 34.3 percent last month while Apple's iOS recorded 33 percent. Google's Android is rapidly gaining and has almost tripled its Internet market share from 8.2 percent in November 2009 to 23.8 in November 2010. Apple's iOS has fallen from 51.9 percent to 33 percent over the same period. Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 has not yet registered a significant amount of Internet usage.

"These figures suggest that developers should not be developing solely for the iPhone to the exclusion of BlackBerry and Android," Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter, said in a statement. "This data demonstrates that there is a battle royal already going on in the smartphone market for the consumer and business internet user. You can never underestimate Microsoft but it looks to have its work cut out."

He also added that if current trends continue, BlackBerry and Android combined are on course to become twice the size of iOS in mobile Internet usage next year. The statistics are based on aggregate data collected by StatCounter on a sample exceeding 15 billion page views per month collected from across the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.

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Amid Deficit Fears, Obama Freezes Pay

?The hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is going to require some broad sacrifice, and that sacrifice must be shared by employees of the federal government,? Mr. Obama told reporters. He called federal workers ?patriots who love their country? but added, ?I?m asking civil servants to do what they?ve always done? for the nation.

The pay freeze amounted to an opening bid as the president and Republican Congressional leaders begin jousting in earnest over tax and spending policy. It also illustrated how Mr. Obama can use his office on occasion to get ahead of newly elected Republicans; they had been talking about making such a move when they assume control of the House and additional Senate seats in January.

But while the move represents a gesture toward public anger over the anemic economic recovery and rising national debt, the $5 billion to be saved over two years will barely dent a deficit that has exceeded $1 trillion for the past two years. And even those savings would be swamped by the multitrillion-dollar costs of the bigger issue dividing Mr. Obama and the Republicans ? what parts of the Bush-era tax cuts to extend beyond their Dec. 31 expiration, and for how long.

That issue and others will be on the agenda on Tuesday when Mr. Obama will host the House and Senate leaders of each party at the White House for the first time since the midterm elections.

Tuesday will also be the last day for emergency federal assistance for about two million Americans who have been unemployed for long periods, and on Friday a temporary measure providing money for government operations will run out. The two parties are at odds over both matters, with many Republicans opposed to additional unemployment aid and demanding more cuts from domestic spending for the fiscal year that began in October.

Mr. Obama nonetheless expressed optimism that the meeting would be a productive fresh beginning.

?We can?t afford to fall back onto the same old ideologies or the same stale sound bites,? he said.

As Mr. Obama made his comments at the announcement of the pay freeze, the bipartisan commission he established in February to propose ways to reduce the growth of the national debt entered a final two days of negotiations over combinations of spending cuts and revenue increases. In a sign of the struggle to find a compromise that could attract Democratic and Republicans votes, the commission chairmen ? Alan K. Simpson, a former Senate Republican leader, and Erskine B. Bowles, a chief of staff to President Bill Clinton ? decided to meet privately with members one at a time on Monday and Tuesday instead of convening all 18 members.

The Republicans on the panel are generally opposed to raising taxes and the Democrats to big changes in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson revised their draft debt-reduction package over the Thanksgiving holiday break to reflect members? criticisms. Their goal is to reduce projected deficits by nearly $4 trillion over the coming decade. That is roughly the same amount that would be added to the national debt by extending the Bush-era tax rates ? a juxtaposition that underscores the contradictory impulses of elected officials as constituents demand smaller deficits and low taxes.

In advance of Tuesday?s bipartisan White House meeting, Mr. Obama and Democratic Senate leaders conferred by phone to try to coordinate strategy.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi planned to have the House vote on the approach that she, Mr. Obama and the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid, prefer, which would extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for income up to $250,000 a year for couples and $200,000 for individuals. But faced with defections from Democrats in swing districts and states, they are considering fallback plans, including one that would keep the Bush-era rates in place for income up to $1 million.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democratic Senate leader from New York, is the main proponent of that plan, which he is labeling the ?millionaires? tax.? He has picked up adherents among Democrats facing re-election challenges in 2012, including Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

The lame-duck session of Congress could end up passing a temporary extension that kicks the matter, like other issues, into the next Congress, which convenes in January. On Monday, the House approved a Senate measure that blocks until Jan. 1 a scheduled 23 percent cut in doctors? reimbursements from Medicare ? once again buying time to resolve the costly issue.

The pay freeze Mr. Obama announced wiped out plans for a 1.4 percent across-the-board raise in 2011 for 2.1 million federal civilian employees, including those working at the Defense Department, and it would mean no raise in 2012. The freeze would not affect the nation?s uniformed military personnel, and civilian workers who are promoted would still receive the higher pay that comes with the higher grade or position.

The move would save $2 billion in the 2011 fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 and $5 billion by the end of two fiscal years. Over 10 years, it would save $60 billion, according to Jeffrey Zients, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and the government?s chief performance officer.

While Congress has final word on federal pay, the president?s freeze seemed certain, given the political environment; if anything, lawmakers may go further by cutting pay. Republicans noted that some of them had called for a pay freeze for months. ?We are pleased that President Obama appears ready to join our efforts,? said Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the incoming Republican majority leader.

With Republicans vowing to make deep budget cuts, Mr. Obama must decide how far he is willing to go and where he will draw a line. He pointed out that he has already called for a three-year freeze on domestic discretionary spending, found $20 billion in savings from eliminating or scaling back unnecessary programs, identified $150 billion in improper payments.

The federal work force is an obvious first target, if one fraught with political risk for a president who relies on union support. Opponents of big government have been trying to build a political case that federal employees are being overpaid. In a report in June, Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute, a libertarian research organization in Washington, found that federal civilian workers had an average annual wage of $81,258 in 2009, compared with $50,464 for the nation?s private-sector workers. Average federal salaries rose 58 percent from 2000 to 2009, compared with 30 percent in the private sector.

Union leaders, though, cited other data showing that federal workers were paid 24 percent less than their private sector counterparts, and they accused Mr. Obama of playing politics. ?Sticking it to a V.A. nurse and a Social Security worker is not the way to go,? John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in an interview.

David M. Herszenhorn contributed reporting.

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House Censure: Humbling to Some, but Not All

In the genteel parliamentary history of the House of Representatives there lurk rowdy days of rough-and-tumble brawls, beatings, chokings, fistfights, upended hairpieces, stentorian demands for apologies unheeded and a lot of sneaky conduct and foul-mouth talk. Some did nothing bad, or almost nothing.

But they all wound up where Representative Charles B. Rangel, a Democrat from Harlem, is expected to find himself this week: in the well of the House, facing the shame of formal censure. The choreographed mortification ritual has played out more than a score of times since 1832. Convicted by peers, the transgressor ? all have been men ? stands before the assembled members and a packed gallery of spectators and reporters as the speaker reads the rebuke.

?What it?s saying is you?ve brought disgrace to the House of Representatives, you?ve discredited the institution that you serve in,? said Ilona Nickels, an author and expert on Congressional affairs. ?You have impugned the integrity of our proceedings. You?re a disgraceful person. And you?re going to stand there in the well of the House and we?re going to read these charges against you and we?re going to, in essence, say, ?Shame on you.? It doesn?t really help your résumé, or your obit for that matter.?

It is also a moment of truth, not for the fainthearted.

On Oct. 27, 1921, Representative Thomas L. Blanton, Democrat of Texas, faced it with deep anxiety. He had been convicted of entering in The Congressional Record a letter that was, in a colleague?s words, ?unspeakable, vile, foul, filthy, profane, blasphemous and obscene.? It involved a squabble between union and nonunion printers, and by today?s standards was relatively mild stuff.

As the speaker finished his condemnation, Mr. Blanton turned ashen and fled the chamber. ?In the corridor he fell exhausted, striking his head on the marble floor,? The New York Times reported. ?He rested a few minutes on a couch, refused medical aid and shuffled to his office, tears running down his face as he forced his way between spectators and members who were leaving the session.?

Not all of them cry and carry on. Depending on the offense, its probable fallout and the thickness of a politician?s skin, censured members have shown humility or defiance, perhaps relieved that the practical consequences are only dishonor and a need to face voters at the next election, well short of immediate expulsion, if slightly more humiliating than a slap-on-the-wrist reprimand. (Officially, there have been 22 acts of House censure, but some are debatable because the censures appear to have been politically motivated.)

As censurable violations go, the seriousness of Mr. Rangel?s fall somewhere in the middle. He was convicted by a subcommittee of the House ethics committee of 11 violations, including improper fund-raising, failing to pay taxes on rental income and failing to report income on Congressional financial-disclosure forms ? not of stealing fortunes, battering colleagues or cornering pages in the anterooms.

It was much worse in 1873, when Representatives Oakes Ames, Republican of Massachusetts, and James Brooks, Democrat of New York, were censured for bribery in the Crédit Mobilier scandal, in which millions were skimmed from stock sales during construction of the nation?s first transcontinental railroad, the Union Pacific.

In 1870, three Republican congressmen ? Benjamin F. Whittemore of South Carolina, John T. Deweese of North Carolina and Roderick R. Butler of Tennessee ? were censured for selling appointments to Annapolis and West Point. And in 1979, Representative Charles C. Diggs Jr., Democrat of Michigan, was censured and resigned after being convicted of mail fraud and padding his staff payroll.

Many 19th-century censures were for ?unparliamentary language,? a grab-bag for name-calling, mud-slinging and insults, mostly in Civil War-era debates. But in 1864, Representatives Alexander Long of Ohio and Benjamin G. Harris of Maryland, both Democrats, were cited for ?treasonable utterances? ? backing the Confederacy.

?When you look at the list for all the various reasons people were disciplined, it really is a function of the times,? Ms. Nickels said. ?Every era has its own ethos ? what?s considered horrible and what?s not considered horrible.?

Kerri MacDonald contributed reporting.

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