Today’s edition of quick hits.<\/p>\n
* Paid sick days — an idea whose time has come<\/a>? (Our friends on the right are not only experiencing apoplexy, they’re trotting out a new “red” scare<\/a>.)<\/p>\n * Incoming Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) believes the president should be “terrified<\/a>” of his subpoena power. Unlike “some in the administration,” Leahy said, he’s “actually read the Constitution.”<\/p>\n * Outgoing Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) said that there is a “moral obligation<\/a>” for the Bush White House to work with congressional Democrats on crafting a strategy on Iraq. I don’t disagree, and I appreciate Warner saying it, but if we carry the logic forward a bit, doesn’t this suggest Bush has been failing to meet his moral obligations for nearly four years?<\/p>\n * A very unfortunate setback<\/a> for mandating a paper trail for electronic voting machines.<\/p>\n * As if we needed another reason to oppose William Myers’ judicial nomination, he apparently has Jack Abramoff ties<\/a>.<\/p>\n * A very<\/i> hard-hitting piece<\/a> in Salon today: “9\/11 gave America amnesia about the real Rudy Giuliani. He’s an authoritarian narcissist — and we don’t need another one of those in the White House.”<\/p>\n * Remember the Mark Foley scandal? Vanity Fair has a new piece, which manages to make Dennis Hastert look even worse<\/a>.<\/p>\n * Almost every time a company drills for oil or gas on federal property, it’s supposed to pay a royalty or tax to the government, but CBS News found<\/a> that the Interior Department’s diligence in collecting those royalties is little more than a bad joke. * I’m all for space exploration, but NASA’s new plan for a moon base seems a little far fetched<\/a>.<\/p>\n * Kos seems to believe Barack Obama has a very good shot<\/a> in 2008.<\/p>\n * Punishing troops<\/a> with mental health problems is unconscionable.<\/p>\n * The Alps are experiencing the warmest time in 1,300 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n * House Republicans were going to hold a vote today on new oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, but they were going to lose. They pulled the bill<\/a>.<\/p>\n * According to a report by United Health Foundation, the five healthiest states<\/a>, in order, are Minnesota, Vermont, New Hampshire, Hawaii, and Connecticut. The least healthy are Louisiana, followed by Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. That’s right the five healthiest are “blue” states, least healthy “red” states.<\/p>\n
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\n* Just what New Orleans needed, another delay<\/a> in levee construction.<\/p>\n