THE HOUSE REPUBLICAN Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) had a none-too-subtle warning this week for Democrats thinking about filing an ethics complaint against the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee: "I think it would be unwise for them to do that." Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was even more direct: "I find it very dangerous for the comity of the House for people to play politics by filing ethics charges that have no basis to be filed and no foundation." Translation: If you complain about our guy, we'll complain about yours.
This is no way to run an ethics process. There have been serious and credible allegations, detailed in this newspaper, that Rep. Michael G. Oxley (R-Ohio) and members of his staff, who are investigating mutual fund practices, pressured the mutual fund industry to dismiss its Democratic lobbyist and hire a Republican. Most disturbing was this sentence in the Post report: "Six sources, both Republicans and Democrats who all declined to be identified, said certain members of Oxley's staff have suggested the congressional probe might ease up if the mutual fund trade group complies with their wishes." The article named one former Oxley staffer who now works for Mr. Blunt, as well as the committee's chief of staff, Robert U. Foster III. The correct question here is not should the ethics committee investigate but rather: How in the world could it not?
While much of the money being invested today is coming from Afghans here and abroad, U.S. and international military and aid programs are surely making the expansion possible. More than 4,000 foreign troops are now in Kabul and another 9,000 U.S. and allied troops are stationed in Afghanistan, many at the Bagram air base 35 miles north of the capital. Without them, the relative peace in Kabul would not likely last long.
Several thousand diplomats, aid workers and other foreigners also live in Kabul, and the most visible part of the new business caters to their needs. It remains an open question whether the new Kabul can sustain itself when some of those relief workers go home.
There's a lot that should still be done -- but remember, we didn't start the Marshall Plan until after World War II was thoroughly over. This war is still underway.
You'd think a kid who hated being talked down to that much would despise Mr. Rogers, right? No way. No matter how smart my son was, he was still afraid that he might go down the drain with the bath water, and that if he went to a new place, there might not be a bathroom, and that if he got angry, he would turn into a monster and no one would love him anymore. He wasn't sure that Margaret Hamilton wasn't really green and mean, with an army of flying monkeys at her command, until he saw that obviously gentle woman with Mr. Rogers, and truly understood to the bone that Oz was all pretend, and the wicked witch was just a nice old lady like Nonna. I didn't understand at first how much he needed to know that, but Mr. Rogers did...
Ever since my son was three, I've volunteered at his schools, and over the years worked with hundreds of children, and I've never met one that wasn't gifted. Even three and four year olds will show signs of some astonishing gift that sets me raving about some breathtaking child and his innate ability to make another child feel welcome, or to persevere in a task that I would have given up on in half the time, or to plan a complicated project and see it through. There's no way to see the gifts that people who have barely entered the world have, to see how "special" they all are (and Fred Rogers spent enough time with individual children so that wasn't just a word to him) without believing in God, and knowing to the bone that beauty and grace come into the world with every human being.
Fred Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister. If he ever mentioned God on his show, I missed it. But he was one of the greatest witnesses to the power of a life of faith I've ever seen.
After initially praising the giant spending package that was shaped by Congressional Republicans, the White House has reversed itself in recent days, conceding in a series of public statements that a closer reading of the 3,000-page spending bill shows that domestic counterterrorism programs were shortchanged. President Bush signed the bill into law earlier this month.
The latest acknowledgment came this week from the president himself... Mr. Bush said he was "disappointed" with the Republican-authored spending package because it had failed to provide adequate money for local counterterrorism programs. And he said that Congress was to blame.
In remarks that struck some in the audience as unusually sharp given that both houses of Congress are controlled by the president's party, Mr. Bush said that Congress "did not respond to the $3.5 billion we asked for — they not only reduced the budget that we asked for, they earmarked a lot of the money..."
A Republican Congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Republicans were angry over the efforts of the White House to distance itself from the domestic-security provisions of the spending bill.
"We told the White House months in advance what we were going to do with this bill — and we believe it provides an historically unprecedented amount of money for state and local assistance," the aide said.
The latest news is that the industry trade group, the Investment Company Institute, has announced it's looking for a new lobbyist to add to its team. Of course, though, the ICI's equally open to hiring a Dem or a Republican. Some Democrats now are calling for an ethics investigation into Mr. Oxley and his staff.
Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said Democratic leaders will meet as early as today to determine how to respond to allegations that top aides to Rep. Michael G. Oxley (R-Ohio) suggested that a congressional probe of mutual fund companies might ease if the industry dismissed one of its most prominent Democratic lobbyists or hired a Republican. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Oxley oversees mutual fund companies.
"That is an extraordinarily serious allegation," Hoyer said. If proven true, "it's both unethical and frankly borders on perhaps being criminal." Several Democratic officials said party leaders plan to force an ethics investigation but do not want to be seen as targeting Oxley for partisan reasons.
Isn't saying bongs are illegal for how they might be used similar to saying guns are illegal for how they might be used? The preemptive strike grows increasingly popular...
According to a Voice of America article, Mr. Ashcroft says they plan to redirect the seized websites to to the DEA website.
"Mr. Ashcroft says customers who want to visit some of their favorite drug paraphernalia websites are in for a big surprise in the days ahead. They will be automatically redirected to the website for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration."
In essence the DEA is going to usurp the freedom of speech and expression of the people who run those seized websites. This would be akin to the U.S. Dept of Justice redirecting the "aclu.org" website to the "usdoj.gov" website.
And then there are the serious privacy issues involved if the DEA redirects the seized websites, since they'll be logging all visitors, obtaining their IP address and other highly personal information.
Bottom line is this is a serious issue and if the DEA is able to do this, they could potentially redirect *ANY* website -remember that the owners of the websites seized have *NOT* been convicted of any crime."
The State Department's transcript of the actual conversation makes it evident that Powell had embellished the quote to make it appear much more incriminating. Instead of being a directive to "clean out all of the areas, the scrap areas and the abandoned areas," as Powell claimed, the transcript shows the message from headquarters was merely "to inspect (emphasis added) the scrap areas and the abandoned areas." The damaging admonition that Powell said he quoted, "Make sure there is nothing there" is not in the transcript and appears to be an invention.
- Cello lessons are proceeding quite well, thank you very much. I've been practicing for 30 minutes to an hour almost every day, and I'm coming along quickly, if I do say so myself. Within the next week or two I'll need new books, as I'm already on the last two pages of Suzuki Book One. I recently discovered that I can play the very, very beginning of Bach's first unaccompanied cello suite, and it thrilled me to no end. It's such a lovely sound.
- Having said that, I think that my left hand (which fingers the strings) is getting ahead of my right (which holds the bow), and of my technique in general. I'm getting better and better at playing songs at a reasonable pace, but it's not at all uncommon that short notes don't sound. This is especially a problem on the lower two strings. I also find that when I cross between a string that I'm fingering and an open string, the change in tone is piercing. I can't go on like that forever.
- Learning the left hand part on the cello is not completely unlike learning, say, Mortal Kombat; your fingers are racing to hit the right spots with the right timing. It's a matter of hand-ear coordination instead of hand-eye coordination, but the parallels are apparent. (It's a terrible thing that video games have warped my mind to the point that MK is the simile that comes most readily to hand, but I never promised you a rose garden.)
- The varnish on a cello must contain puppy repellant, because our dog has never tried to chew on it. At first, she barked suspiciously when I would play, but now she just stays her distance.
- I had wondered why both right-handed and left-handed players bow with the right hand and finger with the left hand. Canadian Reader commented that string instruments are slightly asymmetrical, and don't resonate as well when bowed with the left hand. Just for fun, I tried bowing with the other hand, and it made an incredible difference. The cello sounded like it was made of compressed oatmeal; it didn't resonate at all. In part, I'm not used to bowing with the other hand, but I don't think that was the entire explanation.
- You know that part in Mr. T's video "Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool" where Mr. T gets the bow caught in the strings and shoots it across the room like an arrow? Sure you do. That's bullshit.
- The cello is an awkward instrument to lug around. It's light, but it has roughly the dimensions of a pre-teenager. I have a soft case that I can wear like a giant fragile backpack, and that works reasonably well as long as I duck when I go through doorways. But if I had to take it on a crowded subway, or take it to school on a bus, I'd have to get a hard case and smack people right and left. I don't know how bassists do it.
- In my experience, trumpet players who are just goofing off and killing time often play the theme from Superman, because it's very easy on the trumpet. I don't know if other cello players do this, but I found that the bottom string of the cello is made to play the two-note theme from Jaws. I think I've played it every night.
- In Houston, every single commercial break had four or five commercials for the local news. Did this happen everywhere? Does anyone know why? I thought that either they hadn't sold enough commercials, or they kept having to kill time due to general incompetence.
- I just got another push towards the pro-war side. I don't like to agree with Fred Durst on anything.
- I'm quite fond of that "Complicated" song, but Avril Lavigne can't sing her way out of a paper bag live. And they listed, what, five writers for “Complicated” in the Best Song award? The whole Avril phenomenon seems increasingly fishy to me. Did they bring in a stunt vocalist for the album?
- Norah Jones: Beautiful woman. Genuinely talented. Good song. Having said that, she must have had a friend hack the Grammy’s mainframe.
- Yo-Yo Ma was constantly rocking his cello when he was playing his duet with James Taylor. I don’t know why he would do that- whether it’s just showmanship, or whether that’s what you do when you’re really, really good. I hardly move at all when I play cello.
- I would love to hear Elvis Costello do more Clash covers.
- N’SYNC sang a tribute to the Bee Gees, in their inimitable all-castrato close harmony. But I can’t help but think that it would have been more respectful to hold a black Mass over Maurice Gibb’s grave and bathe the remaining brothers Gibb in feces.
- Mystikal wuz robbed.
Washington - There was only one problem with President George W. Bush's claim Thursday that the nation's top economists forecast substantial economic growth if Congress passed the president's tax cut: The forecast with that conclusion doesn't exist.
Bush and White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer went out of their way Thursday to cite a new survey by "Blue-Chip economists" that the economy would grow 3.3 percent this year if the president's tax cut proposal becomes law.
That was news to the editor who assembles the economic forecast. "I don't know what he was citing," said Randell E. Moore, editor of the monthly Blue Chip Economic Forecast, a newsletter that surveys 53 of the nation's top economists each month.
"I was a little upset," said Moore, who said he complained to the White House. "It sounded like the Blue Chip Economic Forecast had endorsed the president's plan. That's simply not the case."
One thing that does seem clear is that there are two battling factions, and each is desperately asserting that it is in full control over the things that really matter. One faction says that firm control over the substance of economic policy is held by serious people who understand political and economic realities: understand the value of the experience and reputation of Alan Greenspan, understand the risks and dangers involved in widening the deficit, understand the trade-offs and the point of balance between short-run policies to boost demand and long-run policies to boost growth. The other faction says that firm control over economic policy is held by people who think it is long past time to pay Greenspan back for allowing unemployment to reach a peak of 7.6% in the summer of 1992, and that only fools worry about whether Bush Administration policies are creating serious problems that subsequent post-2010 administrations will have to try to deal with.
The fact that each faction wants to convince the outside world that it is really in firm control is no surprise. In the Bush Administration (as in the Ottoman Empire during its decline) the perception of power is often the reality of power: who would win the power struggle inside the Topkapi Palace and gain the ear of the Sultan often hinged on whom outsiders believed had already gained the ear of the Sultan. One consequence of our habit of electing unknown southern governors to the Presidency is that only blind luck will give us a President who is more interested in and informed about economic policy (or, for that matter, foreign policy) than a late-Ottoman Sultan. And nobody I have found (save possibly Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute) believes that this President is profoundly interested in or well-informed about American economic policy. So we have to hope that the internal struggle in the corridors of power produces a good Grand Vizier, one who can gain the confidence of and then manage the Sultan while keeping the substance of policy on the rails.
What I find truly frightening is that there's every indication that a similar dynamic exists on the foreign policy side. Consider the weeks and weeks of indecision and delay. Consider the absence of an official postwar plan. Consider the endless procession of contradictory documents and articles based on leaks and inside sources. Consider the well-known splits between the realists and the neoconservatives. A war's not going to be much use to anyone if this crew can't get their act together and figure out what it is they're trying to accomplish.
Before RAWbservations shut down, there was a post by Tacitus demanding that anti-Iraq marchers denounce ANSWER, who lead the protests. I wrote a response to the nature of the question, basically saying that Tacitus was out of line in his tone and that by de facto comparing anyone on the opposing side to its worst element only drives the debate further and further away from civil, rational discourse. To make a long story short, I took my own side to task for its verbal excesses.
I am now less inclined to do so in the future.
Not because I suddenly agree with Tacitus's tactics, mind you. But rather because I wonder what the point is. If Jane Galt deserved to be bullied into hiatus because she is on the same side as Rush Limbaugh, then maybe you believe I should be so bullied, too.
The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative exists for a strange reason: an AIDS vaccine may be a global necessity, but it's really in no single country's or company's interest to spend the sort of money that would be necessary to find one. Most pharmaceutical firms view any such vaccine as a liability nightmare, and demand would be greatest among the populations that are least able to pay. Making drugs, by contrast, involves a much greater financial incentive and much lower risk. "We have left vaccine development to the commercial sector as if there were an incentive for companies in the marketplace to make a product," Larry Corey, the head of H.I.V. Vaccine Trials Network and a professor of medicine at the University of Washington, told me. "But there is no incentive. And what is society's response? Well, society can't get it together. Remember, these trials can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Do we use public-private partnerships? Does the government fund it all? We are just asking these questions today. Twenty years after the epidemic began."
In the overall population of participants, 5.8 percent of those who received the placebo became infected, compared with 5.7 percent of those who received the vaccine. The difference was not statistically significant.
But among black, Asian and other minorities the rate of infection was only 3.7 percent in the vaccinated group, compared with 9.9 percent in the placebo group.
That meant, after statistical adjustments, that the vaccine reduced the infection rate in that group by 66.8 percent. The numbers were small, about 500 patients, but statistically significant. There was a less than 1 percent chance that the findings were the result of chance.
- House Bill 916, was filed on Feb. 12 by state Rep. Sid Miller (R-Stephenville). He calls the bill the Defense of Families Act, and said in a press release that the measure would prohibit two people of the same sex from co-adopting a child in Texas.
- H.B. 38, filed on Nov. 12 by Rep. Warren Chisum (R-Pampa). Also known as the Texas Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), this proposal would prohibit the state from recognizing same-sex marriages or civil unions.
- H.B. 194, filed on Nov. 15 by Rep. Robert Talton (R-Pasadena). This bill would disqualify gay men, lesbians and bisexuals in Texas from serving as foster parents.
- H.B. 574, filed on Jan. 27 by Rep. Jessica Farrar (D-Houston). This measure would prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
o H.B. 862, filed by Coleman (D-Houston) on Feb. 11. This measure, also known as the Dignity for All Students Act, would protect Texas students from discrimination based on characteristics including race, religion and sexual orientation.
And American leftists also fear liberated women. "Liberation of women" is one of their causes, but only in abstract. Women are to be freed because "of course" they'd all become leftists. But if women are truly liberated and permitted to think and say what they want, then many of them will reveal themselves to be conservative. Which is why the spectre of Condi Rice and Jane Galt looms so large in leftist nightmares: if a large number of women begin to oppose the leftists, it kicks one of the ideological props out from under their self righteousness.
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