Friday, April 11, 1997

1. LINE-ITEM VETO: JUDGE SAYS CONGRESS CAN'T DUCK RESPONSIBILITY.
Passed just one year ago (WN 29 Mar 96), the line-item veto was a key promise of the "Contract With America." Hailed as a cure for pork-barrel spending, others saw it as a gimmick that would be found unconstitutional. The President never got a chance to use it; it didn't go into effect until January 1, and was immediately challenged by a group led by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), the King of Pork. Yesterday, Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson declared the act to be a ploy by Congress to pass off "the vexing choices of which programs to preserve and which to cut" to the President -- a responsibility the Constitution reserved to Congress.

2. NO-SHUTDOWN BILL: ANOTHER EFFORT TO DUCK RESPONSIBILITY?
Meanwhile, back on Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) was doing it again. He introduced a bill that would put federal government spending on autopilot in case Congress and the President fail to come to agreement on a budget by the start of the fiscal year. The bill is meant to avoid the political backlash that fell on the Republicans two years ago when they twice allowed the government to shut down in an attempt to force the President to sign. Concern is that the measure would make it easier for Congress to drag out the appropriations process.

3. SPACE STATION: CONSTRUCTION WILL BE DELAYED ANOTHER YEAR.
NASA announced at a hearing on Wednesday that construction would not begin before late fall of 1998 because of Russia's failure to meet its commitments. An exasperated Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI) said "I told you so." Otherwise the hearing was the usual claims from NASA that micro gravity research has directly led to drugs to treat everything from heart disease to flu; new AIDS drugs are "just around the corner." With a single exception, Committee members declared their devotion to the station. A spacecraft traveling in circles in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, and dodging garbage from hundreds of previous missions, is referred to in Congress as "exploration." The token critic among the witnesses, an obscure physics professor from the University of Maryland, suggested that Congress has a responsibility to find out why there is such an enormous disconnect between the views of the scientific community and the picture presented by NASA.

4. MAGNETIC FIELDS: MS PATIENTS TREATED FOR ENERGY DEFICIT.
The University of Washington yesterday released a study of multiple sclerosis treatment with pulsed 4-13 Hz magnetic fields at 50-100 mG. A device the size of a watch was attached to an acupuncture point and tuned to frequencies the patient was deficient in. So how does it work? "The brain is an organ that emits electrical energy," explained Dr. Todd Richards of the Radiology Department. "This magnetic device acts like a vitamin supplement by giving back to patients those frequencies they are deficient in." Oh!



Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
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