ShareThisWASHINGTON - For the first time since it was created in 2003, the Department of Homeland Security looks likely to have what one official described as a "declining budget" when the Obama administration presents its 2011 federal spending plan in February.
But not to worry: At least one DHS agency -- the Transportation Security Administration -- has had $1 billion of economic stimulus funds heaped upon it, about half of which will be available to use next year.
With some portion of that money -- which is supposed to be used to provide jobs and goose the economy -- the TSA intends to spiff up its digs at the nation's airports by buying desks and chairs for the offices of Federal Security Officers, furniture for airport-screener break rooms and stools at checkpoints for the screeners to sit on, according to Government Security News, a security-industry online newsletter.
Arugula -- that pretentious salad green that caused presidential candidate Barack Obama no little ridicule -- has made its first official public appearance at the White House.
The specialty plant had a prime place on the menu served Tuesday at the first White House state dinner of the Obama administration, held in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The first course consisted of potato-and-eggplant salad, and "White House arugula" with onion-seed vinaigrette. (Both accompanied by a 2008 sauvignon blanc from California.)
It was in an Iowa cornfield during the 2008 campaign that Obama became forever linked with a salad ingredient little known in America outside the circle of elite "foodie" sorts. It certainly was unknown to the clutch of Iowa farmers to whom Obama lamented the high price of arugula at Whole Foods -- apparently unaware that the farmers hadn't a clue what he was talking about.
The arugula served to the black-tie assemblage Tuesday apparently was grown in the garden that first lady Michelle Obama planted outside the Executive Mansion. Guess you don't have to worry about the price if you grow it yourself.
Here's an issue that is leaping the partisan divide in Congress: Curbing those annoying commercials that blare at you at a decibel level louder than the TV show they interrupt.
Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., has an answer -- the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act. It would require advertisers to adopt technology that modulates commercial sound levels to be close to those of the programs.
Eshoo says the bill -- which made it out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this past week and is now bound for the House floor -- was heartily embraced by fellow lawmakers, Democrat and Republican.
"In my 17 years in the House of Representatives, I've never carried a bill which has been received with so much enthusiasm," Eshoo said in a statement. "Only the 'Do Not Call List' has even come close."
Current policy of the Federal Communications Commission is to recommend that consumers mute the commercials if they find them irritating.
"This legislation gives the control of sound back to consumers where it belongs," Eshoo said.
A companion Senate bill is being shepherded by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is embarking on what will be the most comprehensive study of women veterans of the Vietnam War to gauge the effect of their service on their long-term mental and physical health.
The $5.6 million study, beginning this month and to last more than four years, will use a mail survey, telephone interview and a review of the medical records of about 10,000 women.
VA doctors will study women vets who had direct exposure to traumatic events as well as those who served outside Vietnam and were more removed from the worst of the war. In all, about 250,000 women vets served in the military during the war, and about 7,000 were in or near Vietnam, the VA says.
(E-mail Lisa Hoffman at hoffmanl(at)shns.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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