Uh... sorry... we're a little short of change right now. Maybe after we phase out social security...

From today's NYT:
Help For Africa:
Britain announced long ago that it would meet the 0.7 percent target by 2013. France is more than halfway there, at 0.41, and has announced a timetable to get to 0.5 percent by 2007 and 0.7 percent by 2012. From America - the stingiest of all, compared with the rest of the G-7, donating just 0.18 percent of its gross national product to foreign aid - there has not been a word about getting to 0.7 percent by any date in this century. We sincerely hope that President Bush plans to come up with something before July - even if he does it only because his most loyal ally has asked it of him.

and


True to Ritual, House Votes for Full Repeal of Estate Tax. For the fourth time in four years, the House voted on Wednesday to repeal the federal estate tax permanently, a central element of President Bush's economic agenda.

and

According to Ralph Z. Hallow of the Washington Times, there's a building movement among House conservatives to push ahead with passing a Social Security phase-out bill this year.

Dandruff may contribute to world climate
(09 April 2005) From New Scientist

COULD dandruff help determine the world's climate?

Ruprecht Jaenicke of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Mainz in Germany collected air samples from Germany, Siberia, the Amazon rainforest, the south Atlantic and bubbles in Greenland ice, then analysed particles suspended in them. He found that 25 per cent of atmospheric particles are organic detritus (Science, vol 308, p 73). He estimates that around a billion tonnes of bio-aerosols enter the atmosphere every year, 20 times previous estimates. By reflecting or absorbing the sun's rays and encouraging cloud formation, they could influence the climate.

Probably as important as dandruff..

Today I commend our Senator Boxer on her amendment to stop the Gag Order. Senate Passes Boxer-Snowe Provision to Overturn the Global Gag Rule

I also thank her for bringing to attention and review EPA's CHEERS program. In the Senate Boxer said, “The idea that the Administration would pay parents to expose their children to toxins is absolutely reprehensible. Further the fact that EPA told parents there was no risk to participating in the study is unconscionable.”

The program has been suspended for further review.

So here's my take...
No, we don't want to pay parents to expose their children to toxins. BAD IDEA...

But, we do need to increase awareness of the dangers of toxins being used daily in US households. Reading the study's proposal, it looks like this could provide comsumer education and empirical feedback about the ramifications of the excessive amount of toxins we daily expose our children to... from RAID, Round-Up, Clorine, Ammonia, etc. I'll be watching....

And another great use for our tax dollars:

NEGROPONTE WANTS A $250 MILLION OFFICE

[This is already beginning to look less like a coordinator of intelligence and more like yet another intelligence agency]

WASHINGTON TIMES - The emergency supplemental-appropriations bill the Senate is expected to take up today includes a quarter-billion dollars to build a headquarters for the nation's new intelligence chief. . . The $82 billion supplemental request, sent to Congress last month, says the $250.3 million requested for the Intelligence Community Management Account will be used for a new facility to house the office of the director of national intelligence, the "expanded National Counterterrorism Center, and other intelligence community elements." John D. Negroponte, tapped by the president to be the intelligence chief, will begin work at offices in the White House compound. A transition team of more than 20 staff members had begun work in the temporary offices.


And Last Comment for the Day.. .because I have to get a life

From Josh Marshall (TalkingPointsmemo.com)

The Post says that the Bamboozlepalooza Tour "may be one of the most costly in memory, well into the millions of dollars, according to some rough, unofficial calculations." And even Republicans on the Hill seem to be getting concerned.

Remember, too, that that money comes into a whole different light when you see that Americans are being systematically excluded from these taxpayer-funded tour events on the basis of political ideology.

The pro-Bolton team, anti-UN folk have been making much of Kofi Annan's "nepotism" as part of the Oil for Food scandal.

There is a saying about glass houses......

This from todays news is just the LATEST of NUMEROUS nepotistic appointments...

"President Bush has nominated Vice President Cheney's son-in-law, a prominent Washington lawyer who represents companies in the homeland security field, to be the general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security.

Philip J. Perry, who is married to Cheney daughter Elizabeth Cheney Perry, is a partner at the Washington law office of Latham & Watkins, and has represented Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp. in dealing with the department. "