ABANDONING TRANSPARENCY FOR EARMARKS:

Weren’t Democrats supposed to bring honesty, ethics and openness to Congress? That was Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s promise upon taking control. But after a little more than six months on the job, the new majority is going back on its word. Transparency on earmarks appears to be just a farce.

In each house of Congress, Democrats are showing signs of returning to business as usual. In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid has been holding up the ethics reform package because he wants to strip it of a earmark transparency provision that he and 97 other senators voted for in January.

Despite facing pressure from his own leadership, conservative Sen. Jim DeMint (R.-S.C.) won’t relent, insisting the language be preserved. It’s causing all sorts of headaches for Reid, who is now facing criticism from liberal advocacy groups that don’t like the fact he refuses to release the text of the legislation. . . . Trouble is that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.) might just go along with it. According to Roll Call ($), conservatives fear that the consequences of Republican capitulation could be devastating. “For our leadership to vote against earmark reform and be AWOL on this debate is no way to win back the majority,” one conservative staffer told the newspaper.

Read the whole thing.

MORE ON THAT LANCET STUDY: “Much of the math here is mind-numbingly complicated, but Kane’s bottom line is simple: the Lancet authors ‘cannot reject the null hypothesis that mortality in Iraq is unchanged.'” That’s kind of a fizzle, isn’t it?

APOORVAH SHAH:

“Trade not aid” can only work if Africans are able to effectively produce and market things to trade. So the question is not whether there should be more innovators and entrepreneurs in Africa, but how? What concrete steps must be taken in order to develop the business sector?

Read the whole thing.

SCOTT THOMAS AND JAMIL HUSSEIN: Some sensible thoughts at The Mudville Gazette. “The New Republic’s new ‘war hero’ is not exposing bad behavior of others that’s condoned by his seniors – he’s confessing to that behavior himself. Since the New Republic won’t release his identity, we can only conclude that either they support this sort of behavior by US troops or know that he isn’t one. Neither option speaks well for anyone involved.”

Related item here.

UPDATE: A Duke lacrosse comparison. Facts or not, the narrative is certainly the one they want.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Hey, maybe “Scott Thomas” is really this guy. It all makes sense, now!

THOUGHTS ON WARD CHURCHILL, from David French of F.I.R.E.

UPDATE: More background, including the University letter on the decision, here.

SO HOW MANY MECHANICS WILL THIS GADGET PUT OUT OF WORK? Not as many as if you integrated it with a Web service that took the codes and gave you step-by-step instructions on what to do, specific to vehicle type. I wonder if anyone will try that?

GUNBLOGGER JEFF SOYER OF ALPHECCA has fallen on some hard times and is having a fund drive. Donate if you’ve enjoyed his work and feel so inclined. I did.

A CONGRESSIONAL IRAQ VISIT: “Tennessee U.S Rep. David Davis returned from Iraq this week saying that U.S. troops are making significant progress there and feeling more confident than ever that now is not the time to start bringing them home.”

RICHARD MINITER INTERVIEWS TOMMY THOMPSON, who seems strangely confident about Iowa.

MEGAN MCARDLE: “Not that I in any way disbelieve them, but I am flabbergasted by the number of progressives who have to wait months to see a doctor.” Yeah, we see a lot of doctors and waiting a week is a big deal for us. The Insta-Daughter once had to wait two weeks to see a pediatric cardiologist, but there are only a couple in town. And for anything urgent it’s quite fast. Knoxville, being a university town with cheap housing, may be a bit oversupplied with doctors. But when I lived in DC I don’t remember the waits being much, and I had an HMO.

UPDATE: Reader Donald Hertzmark emails:

My ICD was implanted six days after I collapsed in my kitchen in 2005 with Sinus pause and arrhythmia (Wenkebach pause) and no diastolic blood pressure (been there, done that, got the T-shirt). The Washington Hospital center cardio unit had me in for a full day of tests five days after the collapse (there was a weekend intervening, hence the delay) with the top specialist in my particular problem. I shared a room with two uninsured patients, both of whom were receiving surgery from top cardio guys, and they were treated promptly as well. I simply do not believe these stories from the Left about medical care. In the UK they would have told me to come back in a year with a “no driving, no airplanes and no ladders” admonishment for that entire period. It is likely that part of my $29k was used to cross-subsidize the two uninsureds, but it is a lot better than waiting for a year for the hammer to drop again.

Yeah, my mother-in-law is on TennCare, and she gets in fast, too.

ANOTHER POLL SHOCKER: “Support for suicide bombings drops throughout Muslim world.” But read the whole thing for more shocks.

COOL PHOTO.

THE WEEKLY WORLD NEWS GOES BELLY-UP: Is this another sign of newspapers’ decline? Or was the WWN product too, um, unique to be an indicator?

MONSTERS OF the deep.

RICK MORAN: Will a crooked zebra destroy the NBA?

CATOPIA: I don’t do catblogging any more, since we no longer have cats. Others, however, are keeping it up. Complete with ridiculously cute cat photo.

HOW TO GET FIRED FROM A summer associate job. It’s not easy, but it can be done.

QUICK, SOMEONE get me a Pulitzer!

TERRORIST DRY RUNS? “Airport security officers around the nation have been alerted by federal officials to look out for terrorists practicing to carry explosive components onto aircraft, based on four curious seizures at airports since last September.”

WHO CARES IF WE’RE BREAKING THE LAW?

Many public schools will stop drug testing athletes this school year after an opinion from the state attorney general’s office said it violates state law.

But a few schools plan to continue testing because school officials said it deters children from drug use.

See, it’s okay to break the law if . . . you really, really want to. What’s telling is that nobody is arguing that the Attorney General has the law wrong — they just don’t want to follow it. That’s educational, all right.

ALI ETERAZ: Huge News: Egyptian Mufti Kills Death Penalty for Apostasy.

TRUCK-MOUNTED laser guns.

SEXONOMICS: I’m guessing it wouldn’t be hard to get undergraduates to sign up for a course with that name.

THINGS ARE JUST AS MUCH FUN AS EVER over at Protein Wisdom

HELEN AND I went to Market Square Saturday night. They were doing The Tempest as part of the “Shakespeare in the Square” series. We were just there for dinner with Austin Bay and his daughter, who were passing through town, but it looked good.