CONGRESSIONAL Republicans are suddenly taking a strong interest in lobbying reform. Speaker Dennis Hastert and the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, are rallying behind a reform package that will include measures like increasing disclosure and doubling the length of time after leaving Congress before lawmakers and staff can lobby their colleagues. These are commendable and desirable reforms. But to get to the root of what ails Washington's political culture, a more basic change is necessary.

In 1987, when the majority Democrats once - and only once - stretched a budget vote to 30 minutes because they found themselves unexpectedly down by one vote when time was supposed to expire, the minority Republicans loudly protested, with their whip, Dick Cheney, saying it was the worst abuse of power he had ever seen in Congress. Now it is routine to bring up a bill and troll for enough votes to pass it, even when a clear majority of the House - 218 members - has voted nay.

Great bipartisan discussion of Washington's political culture and what the real problems are. What is needed is not only more transparency and an independent investigatory group in the legislative branch. Why? Because no one can be trusted to police themselves. Another solution is public financing of elections.

They were loyal conservatives, and Bush appointees. They fought a quiet battle to rein in the president's power in the war on terror. And they paid a price for it. A NEWSWEEK investigation.

With Bush's poll numbers in the high 30s and low 40s; it looks like the administration is aiming lower. And the only way to do it is to start alienating traditional conservatives and the libertarian wings of the GOP.

And this is in addition to the GOP break over Abramoff's records and over the domestic surveillance program

Welcome to the home of Tomcat Probe. Tomcat Probe is a FREE and powerful tool to manage a single Tomcat host in real time. It is Web based and features almost all the functionality of standard Tomcat Manager. In addition to standard functionality the Probe has a few features that would help both web developers and systems administrators to make Tomcat a more transparent server.

Hands down the nicest Java Web Development tool I've seen in years. The biggest problem with development of applications in Tomcat has always been the really horrid admin and management tools for Tomcat. Allows you to monitor both database access and session objects without any additional code.

An iPod Nano Kitty.

Usamah Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri murdered 3,000 Americans, and they both issued tapes in the past week, blustering and threatening us with more of the same. Most of us aren't wild about paying for the Bush administration with our taxes, but one thing we have a right to expect is that our government would protect us from mass murderers and would chase them down and arrest them. It has not done that. When asked why he hasn't caught Bin Laden, Bush replies, "Because he's hidin'." Is Bush laughing at us?

Well written and a must read. A good counter-weight to the right wing noise machine insisting that they are the post 9/11 party.