SFL Monday -- Feelin' Like An Apeman.

It's a glorious day, so why is the news so bad?

So far the only good thing I've come across is this John Pacenti profile of my buddy Willy Ferrer:

Politics aside, Ferrer has a rare skill that is much needed in a U.S. attorney: He knows h ow to bridge the gap between two opposing sides, Hogan said.

“Willy has an amazing ability to walk into the room where everyone is diametrically opposed and, more times than not, get everyone on the same page,” Hogan said. “He understands people and their motivation, and he is very good at finding common ground.”

BTW, I didn't know Ricky Arriola raised over $200k for Obama -- nice!

In other news, the inevitable consequence of educated, rational scientific intelligence applied to unlawful ends.

No one could have ever predicted.....

Who knew the company hired to handle Florida FCATs was so screwed up:

Memos obtained by The Miami Herald from the state department of education and South Florida school districts showed that Pearson had problems throughout the testing season, including:

- A subcontractor failed to deliver testing materials to some schools.

- Some of the company's student databases weren't compatible with state databases, delaying the bulk of student scores.

- Tenth-graders had to be given the exams again on paper after a computerized version had systemwide glitches.

- Technical problems plagued testing of the state's new computerized end-of-course exams.

Pearson officials did not respond to requests for comment from the Herald on Friday or The Associated Press on Sunday.

Additionally, to save money, the state opted to have the writing tests this year graded by one person instead of two. The state delayed releasing those results to make sure they were valid.

The state's chancellor for kindergarten through 12th grade, Frances Haithcock, sent a memo late Friday to superintendents apologizing for the scoring delays. She said the test results will be reliable.

"I fully intend to take action that will ensure the contractor-related problems experienced this year are not repeated in the future," she wrote.

School administrators say the delays make it difficult to make staffing decisions for the next academic year. For students, the scores determine which classes they can take, what extra help they need and whether they can change schools.

Pearson has had problems with exams in other states, too.

The company and the College Board settled a class action lawsuit for nearly $3 million after 4,400 students were underscored on the SAT in 2006.

Pearson was blamed for delays related to test-scoring problems in Arkansas last year and South Carolina in 2008. This year, Wyoming claimed $9.5 million in damages after an online test administered statewide by Pearson was plagued with glitches.

Did the same government lawyers who hired Rekers hire this company?

Here's the worst part -- all your high-tech gizmos are ruining your brain and destroying your family:

Mr. Campbell and his colleagues, each working from a home office, are frantically trying to set up a program that will let them share images with executives at their prospective partner.

But at the moment when Mr. Campbell most needs to focus on that urgent task, something else competes for his attention: “Man Found Dead Inside His Business.”

That is the tweet that appears on the left-most of Mr. Campbell’s array of monitors, which he has expanded to three screens, at times adding a laptop and an iPad.

On the left screen, Mr. Campbell follows the tweets of 1,100 people, along with instant messages and group chats. The middle monitor displays a dark field filled with computer code, along with Skype, a service that allows Mr. Campbell to talk to his colleagues, sometimes using video. The monitor on the right keeps e-mail, a calendar, a Web browser and a music player.

Even with the meeting fast approaching, Mr. Campbell cannot resist the tweet about the corpse. He clicks on the link in it, glances at the article and dismisses it. “It’s some article about something somewhere,” he says, annoyed by the ads for jeans popping up.

I love how this guy could not resist some stupid headline about a corpse when he needed to focus on his upcoming business meeting.

I've seen lawyers check emails, Facebook, sports scores, celebrity updates, full-on porn, all while in depositions, courtrooms, on conference calls, in meetings, at lunch tables, and yes -- while driving their fancy cars.

In fact, I've long claimed there is a class component to calls for bans on cell phone use or texting while driving -- I'm pretty sure most lawyers do this regularly and also think they are pretty talented at it -- in other words, the law really should apply to others (poor people, young, uneducated) who can't seem to multitask so well:

Preliminary research shows some people can more easily juggle multiple information streams. These “supertaskers” represent less than 3 percent of the population, according to scientists at the University of Utah.

The problem is we all think we're in that three percent.