Crack cocaine, it is widely known, causes irrational behavior. I speak not of irrational behavior among the drug's users, but rather among politicians. It has done so ever since crack appeared on the scene in America during the 1980s. Today it was announced that Congress has approved a bill (which will now head for President Obama's desk) which will scale back the worst of the irrational legislation which passed in the Reagan era. Somewhat. In true incrementalist fashion, Democrats have now made things slightly less unfair, but fell far short of actual fairness. It's as if, right after the Civil War, Congress announced that black people would now count as four-fifths of a person, instead of the previous three-fifths -- in other words, a step towards equality, but not exactly the giant leap of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Which makes it rather hard to praise such an effort, even though it does represent (some) progress.

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We are back at home base, as is the car... to which I can only respond: "don't ask."

I apologize for the interruption in our normal column service, and promise everyone that a Wednesday column will appear at least pretty close to normal posting time.

I just drove 500+ miles, and for the first time in a whole week, the temperature dropped below 95 degrees. In other words, we're glad to be home! The temperature when we arrived home was 55 degrees, which is exactly half of the average of what we experienced for the time we were gone (the top record was 115 degrees, the day the car broke down...).

Anyway, just wanted everyone to know that the car repair nightmare is over, things are back to normal, and to offer my apologies, once again, for the interruption in our normal service here.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

[Program Note: Sorry, no Friday Talking Points column today. The good news is that this will be our final "encore presentation" of an old column, and new columns will begin again on Monday. This column ran approximately a year ago, and was rather prophetic, since a report just out by the folks at RAND -- not exactly a bunch of hippies, in other words -- confirms exactly what I predicted here. The report said that the price of marijuana would drop (if legalized) from $375 to $38 per ounce -- the exact ten-to-one ratio I predicted last year. So it's good to be confirmed in such a fashion, I have to say. Of the two proposals discussed in this column, the first (the one with the 25 square foot limit) is the one which will go before California's voters in November as Proposition 19.]

California voters may soon get a chance to weigh in on whether marijuana should be legalized and taxed by the state. If enacted, this may help the state's budget by providing revenue from a brand new source, while also freeing up money that previously went to enforcement efforts against marijuana growing. Of course, marijuana would still be illegal under federal law, but this may be a turning point in the legalization movement -- the point where politicians desperate for tax revenues see dollar signs instead of prison bars when looking at the cannabis plant.

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Another dispatch from our resident cartoonist, C.W. Cunningham. And you thought there would be nothing here but a reprint of an old column today... surprise!

About the Cartoonist | Reprint Policy

[Program Note: We will be running repeats of a few past columns this week (except tomorrow, tune in...). New columns will return next Monday. The following column ran one year ago today. For all the forgotten geeks of the world, I thought it was worth running once again.]

Quick -- who was Michael Collins?

No, not the Irish patriot who had a movie named for him, but the American Michael Collins. Don't recognize his name? Even today, after watching yesterday's news?

You're not alone. Very few people remember the name Michael Collins. And yet, without him, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin wouldn't have been able to take those giant leaps for mankind down on the surface of the moon. Because Michael Collins was the guy who had to stay aboard Columbia, the "mother ship" of Apollo 11, which orbited the moon while the Lunar Entry Module (LEM) Eagle descended to the lunar surface.

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[Program Note: For the rest of the week, we will be presenting encore presentations of some favorite columns here (which sounds ever so much nicer than "re-runs"...). By request, the first of these is the very first column I ever wrote on the "Tea Party" phenomenon, which I enjoy because it makes me look prophetic at the end, with the warning to the Tea Party folks to police their own ranks (which makes it relevant today, after the schism between the Tea Party Express and the rest of the movement over racism). In any case, later in the week we'll have an original cartoon for you, so it won't all be old stuff, I promise. Regular columns will resume next Monday. Thanks for your patience.]

Tea doesn't get much respect in America. This historical snubbing will continue Wednesday, with protests across America meant to evoke the Boston Tea Party, a seminal event in the foundation of our county. How effective these protests will be is going to be open to interpretation, however.

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The White House is, quite obviously, getting back into campaign mode. This is a good thing for Democrats, because it means putting the last spadeful of dirt on the carcass of President Obama's hopes of bipartisanship in Washington during his term of office. But while Obama has recently begun to make the case to voters why electing Democrats this November is a good idea, Vice President Joe Biden has apparently been doing a much better job in terms of framing the debate on Democratic terms. Which means the smartest thing Obama could do right now is to send the Vice President out in front of the media and in front of campaign events to make the case a lot more strongly than Obama could (or should). In other words: more Biden, please.

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This week, Congress -- moving with its usual less-than-blinding speed -- passed a Wall Street reform bill, a mere two years after the crisis hit. Wall Street responded by pulling a secret lever which caused the biggest earthquake Washington has ever felt.

Well, actually, that's not strictly accurate. The D.C. area did experience a mild (by Californian standards) 3.6 earthquake, but I would pin its cause on the fact that the Nationals baseball team now has a hot pitcher. Anyone who laughs at the possibility of baseball influencing plate tectonics obviously wasn't in the San Francisco Bay area for the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, which happened at the exact time the third game of the World Series was about to begin -- between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics. It was obvious to anyone who felt the quake that fault-line tension among baseball fans across the bay was the reason the stresses in the earth were triggered.

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President Obama got two pieces of good news today: the Senate passed Wall Street reform, and the volcano of oil on the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico may finally have been brought under control. Whether this does him any good with the public remains to be seen, however.

The passage of Wall Street reform today is very big news indeed, but -- unlike with the healthcare reform effort -- most Americans simply aren't paying that much attention. Even the ones who are paying attention to this landmark legislation are often hard-put to describe all the ins and outs of the new law. Financial markets are very complicated and confusing, and regulating the financial markets is equally arcane and mind-numbingly boring to most folks (who wouldn't know a credit default swap if one came up and offered to rub sunscreen on their back). The fight -- both pro and con -- on Wall Street reform never really echoed much outside of lower Manhattan and Washington, D.C. Which means that the success of passing the new law may also go unnoticed by many folks out there.

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The next few weeks could turn out to be the most important politically in the remainder of this year. Because this may be the last chance Congress has of passing any big or contentious legislation, before politics consumes everything (even more than at the current time). This is due to a combination of factors, but mostly boils down to the congressional calendar and the midterm election season.

Congress is back in session in Washington, D.C. In another few weeks, they'll be taking their traditional five or six weeks off for August. September they'll get back together again, and go through the motions, but don't expect a lot to be passed so close to the actual election. Then, if the past is any measure, they'll all take most of October and the beginning of November off again, to finish campaigning. After the ballots are counted, there may be a rousing lame duck session, and then we'll be into next year and a new Congress.

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