Congressional steroid probe begins. **** update:  If it’s any indication of the overall quality of these hearings, a member of Congress just asked renowned Cato scholar Jose Canseco whether or not the government should consider universal drug testing for athletes at all levels of competition. On my tax dollar. A note to House Panel members:  Jose Canseco is an expert on hitting the belt-high fastball, sticking himself with a needle,

…I never used to like asparagus, but now I do.  How crazy is that…?

From the Weekly Standard’s “Scrapbook,” March 21:  “A January 1, 1995, [New York] Times editorial on proposals to restrict the use of Senate filibusters: In the last session of Congress, the Republican minority invoked an endless string of filibusters to frustrate the will of the majority. This relentless abuse of a time-honored Senate tradition so disgusted Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, that he is now willing to forgo

…there was Halabja.  And yesterday marked the 17th anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s chemical attack on the Kurdish village. 7000 civilians were killed. **** (h/t condrieu)

From Erick Pfeiffer, NRO’s Beltway Buzz: NYT Arrives Locked and Loaded You can expect the mainstream press to ask its share of loaded questions in presidential press conferences. However, Elizabeth Bumiller of the New York Times asked Bush a question that caught even the White House press off-guard. When discussing Paul Wolfowitz, Bumiller described Wolfowitz as “a chief architect of one of the most unpopular wars in history.” The president

According to co-stars Richard Anderson and Lindsay Wagner, Lee Majors spent his first two seasons as “The Six Million Dollar Man” convinced the term bionic was the “Kraut word for man witch.” Consequently, the superstitious Kentuckian took to wearing a string of garlic under his jeans and flight suit in an effort to ward off what he insisted was a sound stage full of “angry Bavarian demons.”

Kerouac:  “Heh.  Double ones!  Pucker up and kiss Jack’s ass, Electric Company…!”

“Baretta” star, who spent a year in jail awaiting trial, moved to tears by verdict.

Meanwhile, in less important news, “Israel transferred security control of the West Bank city of Jericho to the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday”—“the first of five cities where the Palestinian Authority will be allowed to resume control.” Israeli forces began pulling back from Jericho earlier Wednesday, but the signing of a formal agreement to hand over control of the city was stalled at the last minute. Without offering specifics, the Israel

Ah!  The healing balm of diversity! Some white students at a South Jersey Catholic school walked out of classes Tuesday in protest over a speech by the New Jersey Secretary of State Regina Thomas. Tensions have been building up at Paul VI High School since Thomas’ speech on racial justice last week. Many students and faculty members walked out of the speech offended. They said that she lambasted one student