Virginia and Maryland find that nature pollutes itself:

Does a bear leave its waste in the woods?

Of course. So do geese, deer, muskrats, raccoons and other wild animals. And now, such states as Virginia and Maryland have determined that this plays a significant role in water pollution.

Scientists have run high-tech tests on harmful bacteria in local rivers and streams and found that many of the germs — and in the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, a majority of them– come from wildlife dung. The strange proposition that nature is apparently polluting itself has created a serious conundrum for government officials charged with cleaning up the rivers. [Snip]

That leaves scientists and environmentalists struggling with a more fundamental question: How clean should we expect nature to be? In certain cases, they say, the water standards themselves might be flawed, if they appear to forbid something as natural as wild animals leaving their dung in the woods.

“You need to go back and say, ‘Maybe the standards aren’t exactly right’ if wildlife are causing the problem,” said Thomas Henry, an Environmental Protection Agency official who works on water pollution in the mid-Atlantic.

Nature, heal thyself!

Readers’ attention is invited to Scott Johnson’s analysis today of Larry Sabato’s charges against senator George Allen.

Johnson yesterday had raised questions about Sabato’s statements.

Powerlineblog, written by three lawyers, ranks among the very best of conservative blogs.

One hopes that Allen can move promptly to get the public’s focus back on national policy issues and the record of his opponent. Continually responding to ad hominem attacks of this nature becomes a mug’s game for the Senator. It is long since time for a scrutiny of Jim Webb’s public record and his views over the years.

The House-Senate conferees on the FY 2007 Department of Defense authorization bill reportedly have dropped the House of Representatives-approved safeguard allowing military chaplains freedom of conscience and speech in their public prayers. (For background, see my earlier post.)

The House safeguard had stated:

Each Chaplain shall have the prerogative to pray according to the dictates of the Chaplain’s own conscience, except as must be limited by military necessity, with any such limitation being imposed in the least restrictive manner feasible.

But Defense Department voices had objected:

This provision could marginalize chaplains who, in exercising their conscience, generate discomfort at mandatory formations. Such erosion of unit cohesion is avoided by the Military’s present insistence on inclusive prayer at interfaith gatherings–something the House legislation would operate against.

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(***Scroll down to an important Loudoun County meeting on the “Hallowed Ground” scheme next Tuesday.)

The “culture of governmentalism” can beguile even long-time Republican House and Senate incumbents, and certainly their unwary staffs.

Such appears to be the case with H.R. 5195, “Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area Act of 2006,” whose principal House sponsor is Frank Wolf of Virginia, and its Senate counterpart, S.2645, sponsored by George Allen.

In prepared testimony this morning before a House of Representatives panel, Peyton Knight of the National Center for Public Policy Research declares:

“Worse than run-of-the-mill pork, which wastes federal tax dollars, this legislation would actually purchase preservationist special interest groups, many of which have histories of anti-property rights activism, and encourage them to urge State and local lawmakers to restrict land use, modify zoning and even acquire private property or interests in private property.” [Emphasis added.]

Knight, the director of environmental and regulatory affairs at the National Center, explains:

“Specifically, H.R. 5195 would create a 175-mile long federal corridor, the boundaries of which encompass portions of Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. It would assign a ‘management entity’ consisting of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground (JTHG) Partnership (an umbrella group of preservation activists and lobbyists who stand to directly benefit from the bill’s passage) and the Interior Department to oversee development and land use in the area.”

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I must confess I don’t understand the hooplah about whether Senator George Allen is Jewish or not. According to Washington Jewish Week:

In addition to having a Jewish mother or father, “personal observance” of Judaism is a factor, and one must identify with the religion.

Since George Allen was raised a Christian and did not observe Judaism, she said he would not be considered Jewish.

Who cares? What’s the difference? Faith is a profoundly private matter. We live, after all, in the land of religious freedom. I just can’t see how the Jewish heritage or lack thereof is a really a “gotcha” moment against Allen.

Indeed, I am of the view that identity in America is mostly self-constructed. Senator Allen decided to be a conservative, Christian American. Then that is what he is, regardless of who his maternal grandfather was. That’s the kind of country in which we live, where the past does not dictate the present or the future.

I wrote of this from a personal experience of being a naturalized American of Asian descent and origin a while back in the Seattle Times. I reproduce it below:

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The Connection: Third Party Candidates Offer Alternatives
The Connection: County Manager Announces Human Services Cuts
WaPo: Fairfax Supervisors Board Addresses Vehicle Mileage
WTOP: Fairfax County Schools Receive Foreign Language Grant
Fairfax County Times: Fairfax City, county residents live longer
Clarke Times-Courier: Growth, new schools and disasters
Potomac News: Pandak, Stewart battle at forum
Loudoun Times-Mirror: Loudoun’s transportation tourniquet
Loudoun Times-Mirror: County and town to jointly review development applications

Readers: if you have any tips or news links worthy of consideration, please contact me here.

The Good: Last week, all sorts and conditions of Virginia House Republicans came together to support the Federal Election Integrity Act, H.R. 4844, requiring photo-identification to vote in Federal elections and proof of citizenship to register for Federal elections.

And, as a bonus to fiscal conservatives, Virginia Representative Eric Cantor teamed up with Indiana Representative Mike Pence to offer legislation, H.R. 6057, eliminating the capital gains tax on inflation. Some tax authorities argue that the Administration could do this by executive order. (Full disclosure: your correspondent was one of 20 signers of a coalition letter to Congress urging an end to taxing inflation on capital gains.) The Club for Growth has made H. R. 6057 a priority. That pro-growth voice reports 67 co-sponsors of the measure last evening.

The Bad: In a time of porous U.S. borders, one would think members of all parties would be eager to secure the US voting system. Lamentably, Virginia U.S. Representatives Robert Scott, Rick Boucher, and James Moran voted not to do so.

And Tenth District challenger for the U.S. House Judy Feder crows:

People in this district—indeed, all across Virginia and across America—are desperate for change and accountability in Washington, DC.”

But apparently that promised accountability does not extend to explaining where she stands on securing our voting system. NoVaPolitics asked Ms. Feder for her views on the Federal Election Integrity Act. She failed to respond.

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Some Democrats are apparently hopeful that Northern Virginia is becoming more “creative class,” which supposedly translates to more votes for the political Left:

But there is a third, critical factor working against the Republicans that is unique to Northern Virginia, and that is the marked demographic shift in the region credited with providing Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine with almost his entire margin of victory in his statewide gubernatorial race last November.

Not only did Kaine carry all areas of the region, including the more outlying Loudoun and Prince William counties, but Democrats

The results were, in part, attributed to the rise of the high tech, government contracts industry in the region, creating the fastest-growing job creation numbers in the nation in the last three years. While the boom is the result of the Bush administration’s war on terror and related initiatives, it is ironically adding to a voter base in the region that overall is anything but supportive of Bush and especially conservative GOP politicians.

This “new demographic” corresponds to what George Mason University’s Dr. Richard Florida calls the “Creative Class,” composed of well-educated, pragmatic, younger scientifically-based folk ranging from engineers to artisans who are critical thinkers and, above all, believe in fairness and equal justice.

Gee, apparently “better looking,” “taller,” “thinner,” “healthier,” “more stylish” and “affluent” were left out. This is a set of ridiculously subjective (or dare I say, unscientific) descriptives smashed together to make the Left’s ideal vision of itself look hip and noble at the same time.

Nonetheless, I will go along with at least this much: Northern Virginia’s demographics have changed substantially in the last several years, as can be expected given the enormous population and job growth, particularly in the exurban (as opposed to closer-in D.C. suburban) parts of the region. And, indeed, this shift will pose challenges to both Republican and Democrat incumbents and their entrenched powerbrokers.

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Last July 17, in one of the House of Representatives leadership’s less prescient moments, that body approved arguably the largest earmark of modern times — $1.5 billion to the management-challenged Metro transit system. This stand-alone package (HR 3496) authored by Representative Tom Davis and supported by Representative Frank Wolf, two Virginia Republicans, has a special gift for the unwary taxpayer. In Heritage’s Ron Utt’s words:

As troubling as this inequitable transfer would be, Mr. Davis’s proposal also requires that, as a condition of Metro receiving the $1.5 billion federal bailout, all communities in its service area establish a “dedicated funding source” (a euphemism for a tax increase) to match the federal subsidy.

The danger is that this succubus could be attached to a genuinely urgent Senate vehicle and slide through to the president’s desk where veto pens may still be on order, if not under construction. Mr. Davis has no shame about standing behind this measure, and, consistently, voted for greater transparency on earmarks last Thursday. Mr. Wolf, on the other hand, appparently believes that the less sunshine the better on such dark matters and voted the other way on sunshine.

Some old-line Virginia Republicans, even if not entirely comfortable with these raids on the U. S. Treasury in behalf of local outstretched hands, nonetheless object to such public scrutiny of Republican spending during an election year. What they entirely miss is that this kind of egregious spending jeopardizes the House Republican majority nationally even if such Congressional largesse may go down relatively smoothly in northern Virginia.

In the public debate, you are either a winner or a loser. That part, everyone knows. How to get there though is a different story. Across all levels of politics, from the local school board up to the board of supervisors and state houses on to Congress and the White House, people spend an inordinate amount of time trying to influence and manipulate policy so that it meets their ends.

Some are successful and some are not and often times the ones who aren’t end up being victimized by the one’s who are.

I saw a presentation here in DC recently that really laid out the process of transferring power between constituents and elected official in a very clear manner. How this process works is often a mystery to the average person, who is convinced that politics is a game of insiders conducted in smoky backrooms that they will never have access to. It need not be, because of one simple truth . . . which is true across the political spectrum: If you don’t get elected, you haven’t been elected.

What this means is that the first and only priority of any politician, be they George Bush, George Allen, Tim Kaine, or Gerry Connolly, is to get elected. As a result, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see which side they are going to come down on more times than not.

In fact, you can pretty much sum up the tiers of political influence as follows (this is based upon the average 646,952 person congressional district but it operates the same across all levels):

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