Eideard

Here’s where Congress’ principled motivation came from

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill on Thursday to ban insider trading by members of Congress and to impose new ethics requirements on lawmakers and federal agency officials. Doesn’t that look meaningful? Look further for the reality.

The 417-to-2 vote came less than three weeks after President Obama demanded such action in his State of the Union address. The Senate approved a similar bill by a vote of 96 to 3 on Feb. 2, but the lopsided votes concealed deep disagreements over the details of the legislation.

The swift response and the debate in both chambers showed lawmakers defensive and anxious about the low esteem in which Congress is held. The public approval rating of Congress has sunk below 15 percent…

Democrats said that House Republican leaders had weakened the Senate-passed bill by stripping out a provision that would, for the first time, regulate firms that collect “political intelligence” for hedge funds, mutual funds and other investors. Under the Senate bill, such firms would have to register and report their activities, as lobbyists do.

In place of this requirement, the House version of the bill calls for a study…blah, blah, blah.

Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York, who has been pushing ethics legislation since 2006, said that House Republican leaders apparently “could not stomach pressure from the political intelligence community, which is unregulated and unseen and operates in the dark…”

In the Senate, the bill — the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or Stock Act — was written by members of both parties. In the House, it was revised by Republican leaders, without consulting Democrats, and it was considered on the House floor in a way that precluded amendments…

Please, don’t expect too much bona fide work on ethics from a Congress dedicated to achieving little or nothing. Given the lack of concern for the life and economics of ordinary citizens by our elected elite – I wouldn’t expect much more than the odd sound bite’s worth of useful lawmaking to spill from the Congressional maw.

Even this halfway useful bill resulted from media pressure. Congress members who have been introducing such legislation for years have gotten nowhere. Only election year publicity on a couple of TV shows lit a fire under political butts.

Not the tallest crook they ever busted in Eatonville

A 10-year-old elementary-school student broke into a town impound lot…stole an Eatonville pickup and was chased by the police chief, who arrested him.

The Eatonville boy scaled a 10-foot chain-link fence about 3 p.m., climbed into the white pickup and drove through a fence at the lot on Mosely Avenue, near Kennedy Boulevard at the west side of town, police Sgt. Eric McIntyre said.

Someone noticed the child behind the wheel and called police, who tried to stop him. However, the boy threw the truck into reverse to avoid officers’ patrol cars and drove a couple of blocks before crashing into a light pole at College Avenue and Lemon Street, McIntyre said.

An electric wire fell, setting a house there on fire. The Maitland Fire/Rescue Department put out the flames, and there were no serious injuries, he said.

The child got out and ran, but police Chief Joseph Jenkins and a detective caught and handcuffed him a little more than a block away. The boy was taken to the Orange County Juvenile Assessment Center…

He was arrested on charges of burglary of a conveyance, grand theft of a motor vehicle and resisting arrest.

The boy told officers a relative had taught him to drive.

Now, they just need someone to teach the Eatonville, Florida, police department something about security and safety. The kid did $4000 damage to the city-owned truck. No one offered a guess on the cost of damage to the house.

On a sunny day on the outskirts of Shanghai on Sunday, 20,000 hopeful, curious and in some cases desperate Chinese gathered for the world’s largest dating event.

But it would be misjudging the mood to say love was in the air. Instead, in a business convention centre, a stream of pragmatic men and women briskly exchanged vital statistics and contact details…

Like New York or London, Shanghai has become a city of career-obsessed workaholics, the organisers said, leaving many people with little time to find their perfect match. So 40 of the city’s dating agencies decided to hold Shanghai’s first “Marriage and Love Expo”, to a dramatic response.

Just over 10,000 tickets for the event were officially sold, but Shu Xin, one of the organisers, claimed that 20,000 people had visited yesterday and 18,500 on Saturday…

At least a third of the attendees were parents, either chaperoning their children, acting as go-betweens for the more bashful, or brokering deals with other parents for arranged romances…

The attendees, meanwhile, had some very rigid ideas about what they were looking for. Men said they wanted a “kind-hearted” wife, not too beautiful and flighty, but modest and homely. The “minimum requirement” for the women meanwhile was straight-forward: a man with his own house, and preferably also a car…

The government has tinkered with the law to try to dissuade women from marrying for money, rather than love, but there was little sign yesterday that the message had sunk in.

For many couples, the money for the house and car comes from the parents, giving those wandering yesterday’s fair plenty of influence when it comes to picking their in-laws.

Pretty scary. The parents for sure. Marriage culture in China is still obviously having a rough time breaking away from the past.

We went through the same thing in the West – several centuries ago. I don’t envy the current generation in China the struggle on this question.

When Teresa Culpepper called Atlanta police to report her car stolen, the last thing she expected was to land behind bars for 53 days in a case of mistaken identity.

Mistaken for a woman of the same first name who was wanted on a battery charge, Culpepper is now trying to return her life to normal after the ordeal cost her home and her car. Her attorney said none of it would have happened if police had followed basic procedures…

Culpepper’s saga started August 21, whe she called police to report that her car was stolen, attorney Ashleigh Merchant said. An officer took information from her, but never filed a report. Shortly after, police dispatchers called out a bulletin, alerting officers to look out for a woman named Teresa Gilbert who was suspected of aggravated battery.

Police returned to Culpepper’s house and arrested her. And the differences between the two women didn’t stop at their last names, Merchant said.

“The birth dates didn’t match. The addresses were different. The description didn’t match. Other than the name Teresa, nothing matched,” Merchant said. “All they had to do was show a picture of Teresa to the victim and none of this would have happened…”

Weeks later…the battery victim came forward in court and cleared Culpepper’s name. Released on October 12, Culpepper found herself homeless and her car in the impound lot.

“After investigating this matter thoroughly and discussing it carefully with the Atlanta Police Department, we have concluded that the wrong person was arrested,” District Attorney Paul Howard Jr. said in a written statement to CNN affiliate WSB. “The fact that both of the women in question had the same first name and lived in the same police beat led the officer to believe Ms. Culpepper was responsible … Unfortunately, the officer never presented a picture or any form of identification to the victim.”

Culpepper is seeking legal action against the Atlanta police, Merchant said.

“It is scary, really,” Merchant said. “Because it is not like Teresa is an uncommon name. It makes you feel that it could have happened to anybody.”

Well, at least anybody who is Black and named Teresa – in Atlanta.

There is absolutely no doubt that the human condition thrives on challenge. Fresh from creating the world’s cheapest car, the US$2500 Tata Nano, Tata Corporation is now intending to create the world’s cheapest house.

The flat-roofed 20 sq meter house will cost $715, can be built in a week and came about from an aim to deliver a viable package for beneficiaries of the Indira Awaas Yojana shelter rehabilitation scheme in Tata’s native India. The scheme provides Rs 40,000 per house for people below the poverty line, scheduled castes and tribes, freed bonded laborers and ex-servicemen.

If Tata can hit its targets, the scheme will bring much greater access to shelter for millions of Indians. India is world’s second most populous nation with 1.21 billion people and it is growing at such a rate that it is expected to pass China by 2030. It has already surpassed China for the number of people who live in poverty (800 million people).

Utility can be inexpensive – no doubt. And kudos to Tata for trying on the project. Not exactly a corporate profit center.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

A coalition of House Republicans and Democrats voiced its frustration at President Obama’s policy in Afghanistan, amassing more than 200 votes on a plan to speed up the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

The move for a quicker exit from Afghanistan was narrowly defeated on a 204-215 vote. In all, 178 Democrats and 26 Republicans voted for the plan by Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Walter Jones, R-N.C. Similar legislation last year got 138 votes, with far less GOP support.

Today’s action was the first test in the House of Representatives of Obama’s Afghanistan policy since the president announced May 1 that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan by U.S. special operations forces.

Obama is set to begin withdrawing some of the 100,000 troops from Afghanistan starting in July. But lawmakers have become increasingly impatient about U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and have been asking for a clear strategy for success.

Now that bin Laden is dead, people say America’s longest war should end. Nearly 60% of Americans said in a recent USA TODAY/Gallup Poll that they agreed with the statement that the United States “has accomplished its mission in Afghanistan and should bring its troops home.”

“There is no clear mission. The Karzai government is corrupt. We continue to borrow money to pay for this war,” McGovern said. “We need to rethink what we’re doing in Afghanistan…”

McGovern and Jones got an interesting coalition of liberals and conservatives to support their amendment, including votes from the top Democrats in the House: Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md. On the GOP side, Tea Party favorites such as Joe Walsh of Illinois and Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina were among the conservatives to support the amendment.

Just as an aside, our neighbors up in the Great White North – with a conservative Prime Minister – are preparing to reduce the number of Canadians dedicated to making war by almost 10%. Anyone in Congress or the White House ready to start down that road with the Pentagon?

A dog rescued off the Japanese coast floating on top of a house is on her way back to her owner Monday.

The dog wagged its tail and jumped up to a woman described by local media as a relative of the owner as she collected her to deliver back to her family for what promises to be a warm reunion.

It turns out the lucky dog’s name is “Ban,” and she was originally living in Kessenuma before being separated from her master after the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and subsequent fire that swept through the coastal village…

An employee at the Miyagi Animal Care Center told CNN by phone that the owner had been staying in a temporary relocation center in Sendai since being evacuated from Kessenuma.

The 50-year-old man reportedly recognized Ban after footage of the brown and black dog was shown being hugged by Japanese rescue workers while being unloaded from a boat in Shiogama Port this past Friday.

Japanese Coast Guard teams had spotted Ban during a helicopter patrol over debris fields nearly two kilometers off shore. When a patrol boat got the hungry and shivering dog, they found no identification on her other than a brown collar.

Best news I’ve read, today.

Regular readers of this blog know how I feel about the importance, positive effects of humans and their companion relationship with other animals. Fortunately – for our species – I think most people feel that way.

A dog that survived in a house swept away to sea three weeks ago by the devastating Japan tsunami was saved on Friday by a coast guard rescue team flying over an island of debris.

Local television showed an aerial view of a brown medium-sized dog trotting around the roof of the house — the only part of it floating above water — before disappearing inside through a broken section of the roof.

The coast guard rescuers, thinking there might also be people alive inside the house, lowered one of their team onto the roof. He tried to coax the dog out, but then went in after tearing a wider opening. He came out with the dog in his arms and they were transported back to safety by boat.

Domestic media said no people were found inside the house.

Sad and happy at the same time. Too bad the dog’s people weren’t found with him.

At dawn on Saturday 5 March, National Geographic Channel and a team of scientists, engineers and two world class balloon pilots successfully launched a house measuring 16 feet by 16 feet and 18 feet high, using 300 eight-foot coloured weather balloons from a private airfield east of Los Angeles.

The launch – inspired by the Pixar film Up – set a new world record for the largest balloon cluster flight ever attempted. The house and balloons measured more than 10 storeys high and reached an altitude of over 10,000 feet, flying for approximately one hour.

The record will be part of a new National Geographic Channel series called How Hard Can It Be? which will premiere in 2012.

President Obama has made expanding exports a centerpiece of his plan for accelerating the economic recovery, but in recent weeks, his trade agenda has nearly ground to a halt amid partisan feuding.

Although the White House renegotiated a pivotal free-trade agreement with South Korea in December, scoring rare bipartisan praise, House Republican leaders have refused to allow the deal to move forward. They want the administration to make progress first on similar accords with Colombia and Panama that face stiff opposition from labor unions and liberal Democrats.

Wonder what products from those countries are favored by Republicans?

To add to the pressure on the administration, House Republicans in February blocked a big expansion of trade adjustment assistance — which provides cash, training, relocation, job search and other benefits to workers displaced by globalization — from being renewed. Many of the 220,000 workers who took part in the program last year could have their benefits reduced as a result.

Another program, which gives duty-free preferences to 4,800 products from poor countries that are allies of the United States, expired in December after a Republican senator, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, blocked a vote to extend it….

“In 30 years I have not seen trade policy in such disarray as it is now,” said Howard F. Rosen, a trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a research organization here.

The standoffs have come to overshadow what trade proponents had seen as a major accomplishment: the completion in December of a free-trade agreement with South Korea, the largest such deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994…

The Andean preferences, which began in 1991, have lapsed just as the United States was trying to get Colombia to strengthen labor protections as part of the negotiations to revise the 2006 agreement.

A third program, the Generalized System of Preference, also has expired, but for parochial reasons, not partisan ones. Mr. Sessions, the Alabama senator, blocked the program from being renewed past its Dec. 31 expiration unless changes were made to protect Exxel Outdoors, a sleeping-bag manufacturer with a plant in Haleyville, Ala., from competition in Bangladesh.

As usual, Republican ideology is as suspect as any other agitprop they offer whilst electioneering. Unless pork is protected, unless businesses in the Republican family get special treatment, free trade means as little as civil rights.