Look what I wrote.

UPDATE: The good folks at Catallarchy have noticed my article. I feel famous!

# : 10:19 PM : :

Things I did this weekend:

• went to a girly slumber party (which could be a post in itself, actually - did you know that Wet 'n' Wild nail polish still costs 99 cents?)
• spent most of Saturday sleeping to recover
• ate Ethiopian food (Sodere restaurant - delicious)
• saw Kings of Leon at the 930 Club (excellent)
• ate Indian food (Minerva's weekend buffet - yummy)
• attempted to go to the new Wegman's, but gave up because despite the fact that this grocery store has a parking garage, there was no place to park at all
• toured Mount Vernon
• gave my cats the catnip mouse my mom got them for Christmas (high kitties = teh funny)
• went duckpin bowling
• drank wine and ate tapas at a fun lounge with couches

Things I did not do this weekend:

• laundry
• FAFSA
• scholarship essay
• eat the perfectly tasty leftovers in my fridge
• clean my room
• pay my bills

I have things going on almost every night this week (Wednesday's still free, but I have two things on Tuesday) and next weekend promises to be almost as packed as this one. I'm not sure how that's going to work.

# : 1:08 PM : :

I'm excited because my handbell choir started practicing again in preparation for Easter. The director chose a more difficult piece for us this time, and I got a great set of bells. I play a lot, including one very showoffy stretch where it's basically me doing eighth-note runs for half a dozen measures. Unfortunately, the bells are bigger than I often play, and playing so much means I need to play four-in-hand. My fingers are pretty short, so hanging on to the bells is tough especially since they're heavy!

I did a fairly good job, though more practice will be needed. I think I have to wait to heal from this week though - I've got swollen, tender parts on my index fingers and thumbs where I squish the bell handles between my fingers. My hands look kind of deformed.

# : 10:26 PM : :

I wish lawmakers would bother to learn about the relevant science when coming up with new laws, and that reporters would do the same before writing about them.

Via The Agitator, we learn that Missouri lawmakers are trying to ban vaporized alcohol machines.

Now, I think these machines are stupid (I disapprove of drinking solely to get drunk) and I don't think that trying to mainline alcohol is a good idea, whether that's by shotgunning beers, inhaling alcohol vapor, inserting an IV, or administering alcoholic enemas. However, all of these stupid things are legal for adults to do (as far as I know), as they should be. If it's legal to drink, it seems ridiculous to outlaw drinking fast.

To its credit, the article quotes an anesthesiologist who points out the dangers of mainlining alcohol and the fact that inhaling alcohol doesn't make it lower-calorie, and alcohol is carb-free anyway. (It's true that drinks involving anything other than straight alcohol and water do have more calories and usually carbs; this is a way for people who don't like to drink straight hard alcohol to get the experience.)

But then it quotes people who are concerned that alcohol inhalation would circumvent breathalyzer tests, only using unspecified "health experts" to point out that "alcohol in the bloodstream, whether delivered in liquid or vaporized form, should result in the same breath test readings."

This is an important point - apparently people think that breathalyzers work because you have alcohol on your breath due to having swallowed it. That's not the case at all. In fact, breathalyzer tests are an indirect way to measure the alcohol in your bloodstream.

When your blood circulates through your lungs, gases diffuse across the alveolar membrane. Oxygen comes in, and carbon dioxide goes out. They diffuse until the concentration in the alveolar sac reaches a constant proportion with the concentration in the blood surrounding it (this is an application of Henry's Law; the proportionality constant varies). The same thing happens with alcohol, and this is how the inhaled-alcohol machine works: when you breathe in alcohol vapor, it diffuses across into your bloodstream. And the reverse direction (when your blood contains alcohol but the air you're breathing doesn't) is when the breathalyzer applies. Alcohol is actually removed from your body in small quantities via the lungs, and this is what the breathalyzer measures (or attempts to; for various reasons, these indirect tests aren't as accurate as we might like them to be).

All that to say that, given that you don't actually have alcohol still in your mouth (or lungs!), there's no reason for swallowed alcohol to give a higher BAC reading than inhaled alcohol.

# : 10:01 AM : :

I had an awesome road trip this weekend.

Thursday we drove down to stay with my college roommate Kristin, who's a PhD student at Duke. (She lives in a very nice freshly built house. I could get one of its neighbors for, I suspect, about as much as it would cost to buy a condo in Chantilly. This depresses me.)

Friday morning we went horseback riding at a place K likes. I've been on trail rides before, the kind where you sign a waiver and/or wear a helmet, then they lead you along a flat path and instruct you not to let your horse move any faster than a walk. This trail ride was very different. They gave us a leg up onto our horses and off we went. The guide asked us which kind of ride we'd prefer, and we chose hilly. So we went up and down hills, in and out of trees. Also in and out of streams, small rivers, and mud puddles. And we got to let the horses run, which was thrilling. I was actually afraid I'd fall a few times, and I was sore for a few days, but it was awesome.

For lunch we had somewhat inauthentic, but tasty, barbecue at the Q Shack, then decided that what we really needed to do next was visit the Duke Homestead and Tobacco Museum. It was actually very interesting; I didn't know how much work went in to making smoking tobacco. Plus, I visited a tobacco museum on my tour of the South; how cool is that!

Next we headed over to Duke for a tour of the Duke University Primate Center. There were many lemurs, and it was very cool. Then Kristin gave us a mini tour of the Duke campus, and we got to see all the crazy people in tents waiting for basketball tickets. This is the craziest thing ever - apparently, you have to camp out weeks ahead of time, and someone in your group has to be physically at the tent the whole time. While I can see how camping with my friends might be fun, not for weeks, and not for freaking basketball tickets. Our tour guide at the Primate Center was 45 minutes late because she was tenting! That is a totally different universe right there, my friends.

The evening was devoted to Josh's birthday party. Somehow very few pictures were taken, but here's one:



The next morning, we got up relatively early for the drive to South Carolina. Despite good intentions to just snack while driving, we decided that a trip to the Waffle House was required for the Southern experience. I have to say, the service is great there but the food kind of sucks. My omelet came with a couple slices of orange cheese product squished in there, despite the fact that I'd ordered it sans cheese because I suspected that was the sort of thing they'd try to pass off. And the bacon was overcooked, but the grits were tasty.

Once arrived at Chuck's in Columbia, SC, we toured the SC Statehouse, which is gorgeous, even if it suffers from an inferiority complex (the guide made sure to tell us that people who'd visited many statehouses said SC's was one of the best). It had public wireless internet in the lobby, which I thought was kind of cool. I was amused that they said the (open, non-encrypted) connection was just as secure as a standard dialup connection, which is quite true, though people tend to save their paranoia about non-encrypted net traffic for the newfangled wireless technology.

Dinner was more barbecue at a place called the Little Pig, where there were styrofoam plates and a long buffet. I am now addicted to the mustard-based South Carolina barbecue. The evening's entertainment was a bluegrass concert - again with the Southern experience. I knew I'd like it, since my late PawPaw played bluegrass, but I was totally blown away at how awesome the band (warning: music plays automatically) was. I bought a CD, which contains my new favorite song, Side by Side. Here's a clip so you can hear what's making me choke up this week.

After the concert we stopped at the WalMart Supercenter to buy necessities. I'd been to one before in Maryland, but it wasn't as huge as this one. I was fully prepared to mock the aisles of Hamburger Helper, but the produce and spice selections were both better than at the Giant I normally go to! Also, they had a lobster tank! That's incredible.

Sunday morning, we ran out to WalMart (it being the only grocery store we knew of) and got ingredients to cook breakfast. Chuck woke up when the bacon started frying - awesome. My French toast turned out quite well considering I had no cookbook and no butter. (We sent Chuck to get some, but six different convenient stores had only margarine. Score again for WalMart.)

Once we were stuffed, we headed off on our day trip to Charleston. Completely different place from Columbia, and gorgeous. There was a brief attempted detour to "Foreign Trade Zone 21" but we couldn't find it, though we did discover that plain wafer/strawberry ice cream sandwiches taste exactly the same as the chocolate/vanilla kind.

We eventually arrived in Charleston, where we walked through a stunning college campus:



and bummed around the town square. Then I wanted to go visit a plantation, so we headed back out of town.

Magnolia Plantation was also fascinating and beautiful. There were peacocks:



and tame deer:



but the house and gardens were the main attraction.



I managed to set my camera to manual while it was in my pocket, so a bunch of my pictures didn't come out. (Some even seem to be missing from the camera - who knows.) However, those (like my mom) who were lucky enough to get a cell phone call from the plantation got to watch us on their web cam! That is so awesome. Technology improves my life every day!

For dinner we went to Hyman's, supposedly voted best seafood in SC by Southern Living magazine. It was indeed excellent. Among other things, we ate alligator sausage, shrimp & grits, and fried oysters.

Monday we breakfasted at the Original Pancake House (also overrated, plus there's one a mile down the road from my house, but tasty) and drove home. Tim suggested driving into DC and eating something suitably yuppie, but I insisted on stopping at Cracker Barrel for one final "southern" experience.

I think my best-food trips so far are still Thailand and New Orleans, but this one was up there. Obviously the huge chains were boring, but the barbecue and seafood rocked. And, of course, the company was wonderful. See more picture here.

# : 9:37 PM : :

Yesterday, driving back from our Carolinas trip (more on that later), we passed two abandoned dogs on the highway. One was running up and down the median, and one was on the shoulder, frighteningly close to traffic.

I did not stop to pick up either one.

I know it's not a good idea to stop on the freeway, and people regularly get hit by cars while trying to rescue dogs, and the dogs might have been scared of us, and I could have been bitten, and I didn't know where any shelters were in South Carolina.

But I keep thinking about the poor doggies. What a horrible way to go, to be pushed out onto the edge of I-95 by the person you trust to feed you and keep you safe, and left there confused, surrounded by speeding cars, with no way to escape. I should have turned around. I feel really guilty.

So, three things:
(1) next time I see an abandoned animal I am going to pick it up, as long as I can do so safely.
(2) tonight when I pay my bills I am going to write a check to the animal shelter, for use by people who are not too lazy to help animals.
(3) I want to meet someone who abandons their animals on the road, because I would like to hit them. Or possibly run them over with my car.

# : 6:10 PM : :

Apparently I haven't posted since Saturday. My sickness returned in the form of a nasty cold (Tuesday) and a horrible migraine (today). And I've been working a lot.

I had a very nice Valentine's Day. I'm fairly neutral toward the "holiday" in general, but I do appreciate sappiness. He cooked me chicken curry; I made cream puffs. It was excellent.

This weekend I'm road-tripping to the Carolinas to visit friends, so don't expect to see me back until Tuesday.

# : 1:29 PM : :

I just finished filing my taxes. This year it was easy and fun (OK, not fun) thanks to living in the same state all year and being able to file online for free. (Go to irs.gov, they have links so you can e-file using a variety of tax software for free.)

Afterwards, I was telling my friend Josh that I got a large refund, and should fix my W-4 so that doesn't happen again.

[JOSH]
but why? it's like a big present in march :-)

[ME]
or like lending the feds money for free!

[JOSH]
dude, they need all the help they can get.
I never thought about it that way...

# : 8:54 PM : :

(Headlines given are mine.)

Some colleges stop soaking students for long-distance service, recognizing their preference for cell phones

In the past three years at AU, long-distance calls from the dorm phones plummeted. Five years ago, the school made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on long-distance service, said Carl Whitman, executive director of the Office of Information Technology. Last semester, the school made $1,109.

Maybe next they'll stop requiring the purchase of "meal" plans?

Military realizes actually having soldiers is better than kicking out all the homos

The number of gay and lesbian service members discharged under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy has dropped by almost half since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and is at its lowest level since the Defense Department began keeping such figures in 1997.

Now taking bets on which long-standing injustice will be repealed first: "don't ask don't tell" or the men-only draft register.

# : 7:23 PM : :

Today I went to the mall because I had a coupon for Express pants. Everyone else in Northern Virginia also went the mall, apparently because it's right before Valentine's Day. What the heck? It was, seriously, nearly as bad as the time I went to the mall the weekend before Christams. You should not need to buy as many Valentine's Day presents as Christmas presents. They had security guards directing traffic in the parking lots, and it still took me 20 minutes to get out to the road.

(I'm sick. It might be the flu, except I also have a stomachache, and I don't quite wish I was dead, which is apparently the primary flu vs. cold determiner. Whatever it is, it isn't fun.)

I've got a bar of dark chocolate sitting here to be munched on as needed. I just noticed that it claims to have 24% of my daily fiber requirement. Who knew chocolate had fiber? I feel virtuous now.

# : 4:54 PM : :

Read this CNN article: "Study links juice, chubby children".

That wasn't too hard to follow, right? Think you know what the conclusions of the study were? The study showed that drinking juice makes kids more likely to be overweight, right?

Wrong.

Check out Radagast's post on the subject.

if we wanted to be generous with our statistics, we could say that fruit juice may have had a difficult to detect effect on the weight of already overweight children, but no effect on any other weight class of child. In either case, pure fruit juice has not been shown to be correlated with children becoming overweight. (emphasis mine)

To be fair, the CNN headline is the only part that's flat-out wrong - the actual article does a decent job of summarizing the research. However, although the article points out that sweet drinks have a statistically significant correlation with becoming overweight only for those children who are already overweight or at risk, it fails to distinguish between all sweet drinks and fruit juice only, and completely neglects the fact that no statistically significant correlation (or, at most, a small and borderline-significant one) was found between fruit juice only and overweight, for any category of children.

Now, next year when a new study comes out and shows that there's no link between fruit juice and becoming overweight, we're going to see that reported with headlines about how the scientists have changed their recommendations. "Fruit juice now good for you, scientists say."

# : 1:59 PM : :

My hair goop smells like cookies. My body lotion smells like chocolate. I might have to make a visit to the bakery. Or make cookies tonight.

# : 10:01 AM : :

Google Maps

I squealed like a little kid when I saw this. I seriously don't know how Google does it; basically every product they come out with is the best in the market while it's still in beta. I also don't know how they do it technically; I would never have thought this was possible in a web browser without a huge download.

The maps are easily legible. They scroll quickly, without waiting for a new page load. (You can click and drag to see other parts of the map, no more clicking on the little arrow and hoping it moves the right amount.)

When you get directions, you can click on a step of the directions and a bubble pops up with a zoomed-in map of the particular intersection. The directions are pretty good, too. When I was mapping various portions of DC to test it out, I kept thinking "Oh, so THAT'S where those roads come together."

It's integrated with Google Local, so you can search for bookstores (say) in a particular area, near an address, or in the visible portion of the map. Little markers pop up, and the names, phone numbers, and relative locations of the stores show up on the side.

This is the coolest thing I've seen in months. I'm starting to worry about Google taking over the world, but honestly, they do such a good job at everything else, I might not mind.

# : 11:10 PM : :

So we've got people pushing for bans on smoking in restaurants and using cell phones while driving.

This morning I was nearly broadsided by a guy who was driving and lighting a cigarette at the same time.

Why not combine the two and ban smoking while driving? It's a menace AND a public health concern! I think this is an underexplored opportunity.

For the humor impaired: I'm joking.

# : 10:39 AM : :

First of all, I have to say that I love flying Southwest. Their seats are comfortable, their employees are goofy, and the planes fly on time. The only problem is that BWI is far away.

Their business practices are inspired. They allow you to cancel a reservation up until an hour before the flight. Even if it's nonrefundable, you get to keep the Ticketless Travel funds with Southwest and apply them to later travel. For someone who flies a lot, occasionally has to cancel travel, and is cheap^H^H^H^H^H frugal, this is great. As soon as I know I'm probably making a trip, I make the reservation so as to get a cheap fare. If it turns out that I'm wrong, I cancel it and just apply the funds to the next time I fly Southwest, which is never very far off.

But the brilliant part is that they don't let you look up ticketless travel funds by name or frequent flyer number or anything else you're likely to know offhand. Instead, you have to access them by confirmation number. This is a pain, but not so much so that I'll change my habits and either quit juggling flights or fly United instead. After all, I have all the confirmation numbers stored in my email so I just have to look them up, no big deal.

Except that I switched email addresses earlier this year. And my old email isn't very searchable*. So I'm not entirely sure how many sources of ticketless travel funds I have. I'm pretty sure I'm going to remember to slog through the old email and make sure I've redeemed all the funds by the time they expire, but there's a non-negligible chance that I won't find them all.

I wonder how much money they make off unclaimed ticketless travel funds.

*Gmail, of course, deserves props here - w00t for speedy email searches.

# : 9:58 AM : :

Thought-provoking post from Yglesias.

He captures why I think sports tribalism is so disturbing. Not because it's harmful in itself, but because it's a manifestation of the same irrational attitudes you see in much more important conflicts: I don't care if my candidate lied, I don't care if your commentators are actually telling the truth, rough tactics are OK if it's my side, anything your party puts forth has to be wrongheaded, my people have to keep this land all to ourselves, and on and on. That sort of thing is really freaking scary, and I don't understand why the majority of people appear to think it's just fine.

(I'm not sure why I'm not as put off by the New York City and Texas love. Probably because, while natives of those places don't understand why anyone would want to live elsewhere, they don't bother to actually attack those choices, preferring instead to exalt their own. It gives a different vibe.)

# : 8:18 PM : :

If Max had opposable thumbs I'd be locking up the car keys.

First he learned how to open the cabinet door to get at the kitchen trash. Whenever I leave them for what they think is too long, they go and raid the garbage. I find empty cat food cans and lunchmeat wrappers strewn around the apartment. (They even eat stuff that I threw away for having gone bad.) We finally installed childproof locks this weekend, so that should be fixed.

Awhile ago I bought the cats a scratching cardboard that came with catnip. So I applied some catnip, then closed up the bag and put it in my jewelry box, thinking that would be a safe place to keep it. He spent a week trying frantically to get in, and I thought it was pretty funny, until I walked in one day and found a Very High Kitten playing with the shreds of the catnip bag. He was so high that I had to consult the internet to find out whether it was possible to overdose on catnip (apparently not).

There's no more catnip left, but he still pries open the jewelry box hoping for another fix.

Now he's broken my closet door. For some reason, the cats love to go in the closet, where they are not allowed. Apparently he got it in his walnut brain that he needed to get in there, but he can't turn the doorknob. So he sticks his paw under, curls it up, and yanks. Over and over again. This makes the door knock against the frame, so it's a fairly effective technique for being let into the bedroom, but there's no one in the closet to answer the door. But he's nothing if not persistent.

Finally the latch broke, and the little spring that holds it shut is sprung. So the door doesn't latch, and he can easily open it with a paw. I can't say for sure whether he is responsible for this, since I didn't see it, but I don't know anyone else who stresses the door. Now I have to leave the hamper up against the door so they can't get in and shred my clothes.

I'm torn between being frustrated and proud. My kitten is clearly unusually bright.

# : 10:40 AM : :

I am slightly obsessed with making my bed the most comfortable bed ever. I currently have a fancy soft mattress, high thread count sheets, a poufy down comforter, and a soft stripy duvet cover. Everything is shades of cream, because I think it looks cozy like that. Last weekend I bought two more pillows because I always think the beds in department stores look very inviting with their many pillows, and because I have pillow shams that go with the duvet cover (I need separate pillows for those because I insist on sleeping on pillows with pillowcases that match the soft sheets, and it takes too long to remove the shams at bedtime).

The new pillows are nice and puffy, but a little too big for the pillow shams, which makes them look like sausages. Also, when I changed the sheets, it turned out that I'm short a pillowcase for the 800-thread-count sheets. (Not really; I know I have it somewhere, but I can't find it.) Since the next-best, 600-tc sheets are in the laundry, I had to substitute with a pillowcase from the cheap yellow sheets I use when I feel like color. This means the effect is slightly lessened. I can deal with it, although I keep thinking that I COULD go buy a set of flatter pillows, and additional pillowcases. That would make me happy, but would probably be unnecessary. I think I do still need some little throw pillows.

Tess likes my bed too. Right now she's snoozing right in the middle of it, which is a huge change from earlier today when she was racing around the bed pouncing on my fingers every time I tried to adjust the bedclothes. She tried to gnaw on the corners of the pillow shams, and squirmed underneath the pillows.

# : 8:58 PM : :

Today's crop of stuff that's going to get me fired for laughing too hard:

From The Two Percent Company, Based On a True Story? White Noise and EVP, in which they debunk "electronic voice phenomena" (also known as the aural equivalent of seeing religious figures in grilled-cheese sandwiches). You might think that this is so clearly garbage that it doesn't even need to be debunked, but trust me, it so does. Mousing over the links is a must - they have added extra jokes in the tips. (Best one: "the dead sound like radio announcers")

And from Language Log's Geoffrey Pullum (who makes me laugh more than anyone else on the internet), Phrasal prepositions in a civil tone. I guess this might only be funny to linguistics geeks, but funny it is.

# : 5:28 PM : :

Today I've been told that I look:

• preppy
• kind of sixties
• like one of those moms on TV

I wasn't able to determine whether any of those were meant to be complimentary. I would be worrying that I look like June Cleaver, but a larger number of people have told me that I look nice, pretty, cute, gorgeous, and things along those lines. So I guess it must be OK.

(For those who are wondering what in the world I'm wearing to get so many comments, it's a standard Amanda outfit. Jeans, pink top, white blazer, black/white/pink scarf. My hair is flippy and more voluminous than usual, so maybe that explains it.)

# : 3:35 PM : :

The other day at the hospital it hit me that, if all goes as planned, in about six months I'll be quitting my job and moving to med school. Six months!

As it gets closer, it gets more real - I'm actually going to stop working, quit this whole career path, and do something entirely different. My entire life trajectory will change. I was wishing that I'd gotten the chance to have more of the sort of medical experiences I'm asked about in interviews - shadowing doctors, working in a hospital, that kind of thing. But I didn't, so my new life is pretty difficult to imagine. Strange to think about.

I'm really excited - every time I go to the hospital or visit a medical school I look forward to learning medicine. And my career path is wide open; there are so many different specialties, and so many options. It's thrilling.

But my life now rocks too. I'm living in a city I love, with plenty of free time and plenty of money with which to enjoy it. Obviously the carefree twentysomething life isn't something that can or should last forever, but I kind of wish I had more than six more months.

# : 5:42 PM : :

So, it's Groundhog Day today. I never really understood the concept. OK, so if the cute little guy sees his shadow, it's six more weeks of winter; if not, early spring. (Or vice versa, who can remember?) To someone who grew up in Cleveland, having spring start March 16 (six weeks from today) IS early! As my grandpa says, it always snows at least once after St. Patrick's Day. And it was hardly unheard of to have baseball snowed out on Opening Day.

I guess in most of the country you can expect spring a bit earlier. This makes so much more sense now.

# : 1:01 PM : :

Lots of stuff to talk about in the Post today.

Decoding Why Few Girls Choose Math, Science

Although all Thomas Jefferson students are required to take computer science, the more advanced elective courses are heavily populated with boys, as are advanced physics, engineering and math, teachers and students say; biology and chemistry classes are more attractive to girls, as are the humanities.

Students, teachers and administrators attribute class enrollment to factors including personal interests and personality, levels of exposure at younger ages and the subtle -- and not so subtle -- stereotypical signals sent by adults.

This is pretty much my view - actual innate ability differences are probably quite minor, while all sorts of other differences, innate and otherwise, have larger effects. It's a pretty decent article. The following portion, though, made my head explode:

One traditionally male-dominated laboratory already has attracted more girls by taking "gender out of the classroom," said Rick Buxton, director of the prototyping laboratory, where students often use heavy equipment to build things.

Buxton stopped making assignments by sex -- "We stopped saying, 'You can't do that because of your size' " -- and banned profanity and off-color jokes. Now enrollment is split evenly.

So, they used to specifically prevent girls from doing things, with the rationale that it was physically impossible, but now they let them and the girls succeed. Apparently that whole size thing was a canard. Way to show off your sexism, there. AND, they used to ALLOW profanity and off-color jokes in a high-school classroom? What the heck kind of school is that?

Brain Immaturity Could Explain Teen Crash Rate

A National Institutes of Health study suggests that the region of the brain that inhibits risky behavior is not fully formed until age 25, a finding with implications for a host of policies, including the nation's driving laws.

"We'd thought the highest levels of physical and brain maturity were reached by age 18, maybe earlier -- so this threw us," said Jay Giedd, a pediatric psychiatrist leading the study, which released its first results in April.

I will never understand what makes the popular media write stories at particular times. This research isn't new. But all of a sudden, it shows up on the front page of the WaPo. I guess there haven't been any teen car crashes to write about lately.

Va.'s Excess Tax Revenue Could Top $1 Billion

The money quote:

The upbeat news comes as the House and Senate prepare to offer competing spending plans this weekend. Lawmakers in both chambers have been eagerly anticipating the chance to spend even more money in a year when voters will elect all 100 House members and a new governor.

Let's hope they'll go for tax cuts rather than spending increases.

Pentagon to Raise Death Benefits

The initiative follows a mounting effort on Capitol Hill to correct what some lawmakers have decried as paltry compensation at present for survivors of U.S. troops killed in combat. The political concern has reflected growing public distress over the deaths, injuries and long hours of duty being endured by U.S. forces in Iraq.

Does this sound like a payoff to anyone else? "Oh, sorry about that whole sending-your-son-to-be-killed thing. Here, take some money. That'll fix it right?"

(It sounds like the current benefits really are insufficient, and I certainly support compensating families for their sacrifices. I just have a cynical view on the motives of the lawmakers.)

# : 2:56 PM : :