In 2002, during the Lott-Thurmond scandal, Senator Dodd of Connecticut lit a petard, an explosive. Remember when Lott said we’d all be better off had Thurmond been elected president in 1948? There was a racist element, since Thurmond ran on a segregationist plank.

Well, Dodd said that if a Democrat had said such an insensitive thing, within “several hours” there would have been a unanimous call for him to leave office. Well, a few weeks ago on the floor of the Senate, Democrat Dodd said that West Virginia’s Robert Byrd would have been a great senator at any time in U.S. history. Trouble is, Byrd just happened to have been a card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan in earlier days.

Not surprisingly, the same conservatives of African ancestry who objected to Lott’s comment objected to Dodd’s. Oddly, however, the doors of the Senate haven’t burst open, and Dodd hasn’t been hoisted out. His old political statement turns out to be a bad prediction. The Democrats don’t police their own like he said. Why? He’s up for reelection.

Maybe Democrats are willing to let the voters decide given Dodd’s mountain of incumbent advantages. Or perhaps it just strikes people as goofy to kick out one politician for praising another, no matter how vile either of them may be. Or maybe the charge of racism only counts against Republicans. Whatever the reason for the lack of haste, it’s a pity Dodd’s still in office. We wouldn’t miss him if he flew out the door. Or Byrd, either!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Google, the 800-pound gorilla of search engines, has decided to offer a free web-based email service, called GMail. It’s no ordinary email service: they’re offering each user a gigabyte of space for saving messages. That’s 500 times more than Microsoft’s Hotmail.

The catch? Google’s software will place ads alongside your email, based on the content of your messages. If a friend invites you to play tennis, you might see ads for tennis racquets on the same page as the email. This targeting will help Google sell more ads, but it makes some privacy advocates uneasy.

The service isn’t even available to the general public yet, and already a few have raised the alarm. California senator Liz Figueroa threatens to write legislation to stop the service. Consumers have a right to privacy, she says, and Google is trampling on it. Google responds that the ads are chosen by computer programs, not human beings. It’s no different from spam filters, they say, which also look at users’ mail to decide which messages are spam.

Now, GMail itself looks a bit like spam a way to deliver ads you didn’t ask for. But hey, non-Google ads will be treated as spam and filtered out. While Google’s targeted ads are part of the terms of service. Storing thousands of user emails costs money; Google has been honest about where that money will come from. If you don’t like the deal, don’t make the deal. In any case, prohibiting such a voluntary service is out of line. Let consumers decide. Gee, you’ve got freedom!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

A century ago, it was difficult to get accurate information about the food we ate. Slaughterhouses were not being inspected; there were no labeling requirements. Upton Sinclair’s 1906 meatpacking expos, The Jungle , changed all that. Sort of.

When the Meat Inspection Act became law on the heels of Sinclair’s novel, the meat industry kicked up a ruckus. But who’s against testing and consumer notification today? It’s not the meat packers, it’s the US Department of Agriculture. Yes, the USDA says that American farmers can’t legally test their beef for “mad cow” disease.

Creekstone Farms is not only willing to test all of its cattle, it wants to. That makes good sense, both for satisfying countries Creekstone exports to, like Japan, which has banned US beef, and for helping consumers make informed choices. But the USDA bureaucracy says if Creekstone tests it might suggest American beef is somehow unsafe. Of course, it would have the opposite effect for the meat tested, bolstering perceived safety.

But consumers, through the market, might compel others to test. The USDA also argues testing every cow is, “not scientifically warranted.” Okay, but testing every animal as opposed to just a few can’t hurt. It may be the only way Creekstone Farms, with nearly 800 employees, can stay in business. A century after the meat industry tried to suppress Sinclair’s account of filthy meatpacking, it is the USDA that is suppressing information. That sounds like a very different cattle byproduct to me.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Republicans believe in certain things and Democrats believe in certain other things. But, once in office, they both believe in one thing above all else: incumbency.

A case in point is the April 27th Republican U.S. Senate primary in Pennsylvania, between Senator Arlen Specter and U.S. Representative Pat Toomey. Both men are Republicans, but the similarities end right there. Toomey went to Congress to put Washington on a diet. His voting record shows he has kept his word. The National Taxpayers Union ranks him seventh best in the House on taxation and spending issues.

Anti-incumbent Toomey pledged to serve no more than three terms in the House and he’s keeping that pledge, too. Specter, on the other hand, has been in the Senate for the last 24 years. He’s a Republican, but most famous for voting against Reagan’s nomination of Judge Bork for the Supreme Court. If reelected, Specter will take over the Judiciary Committee. The National Journal rates Specter nine points more liberal than conservative on economic issues and three points more liberal on social issues. Meanwhile, Toomey was rated more conservative than liberal on economic issues by 47 points and on social issues by 32 points. Quite a gap. Not to mention that Specter is being funded by many of the same folks, such as George Soros, who are funding the effort to oust President Bush.

Why then is President Bush traveling to Pennsylvania to promote Specter over Toomey? Specter is the incumbent and, in the rulebook of Washington, incumbency comes first.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Remember the $600 hammer? Back in the ’80s, defense contractors realized that nobody was looking and inflated their prices. Taxpayers paid through the nose, until those shady practices hit the spotlight. It’s time to break out that spotlight again.

There are plans afoot to build an impressive bridge, higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and as long as the Golden Gate. More impressive is the cost: the pending highway bill includes $120 million to erect this engineering marvel between Ketchikan, Alaska, population 8,000, and lonely Gravina Island, home to 50 souls.

Yup: $120 million for a bridge to an island that has 50 people on it. But that’s nothing compared to the bridge being built between the Port of Anchorage and Mackenzie Port. Whats that? You’ve never heard of Mackenzie Port? You don’t know why it needs a $200 million bridge? Maybe that’s because Mackenzie Port has a permanent population of one. Not 1,000, not 100; just one.

Representative Don Young, the spendthrift responsible for Alaska’s newest goldrush, brags, “If I had not done fairly well for our state I’d be ashamed of myself.” Alaska small businessman Mike Salle explains it more honestly: “Everyone knows it’s just a boondoggle that we’re getting because we have a powerful congressman.” The defense contractors who charged Americans $600 for hammers were crooks. What do you call a Congressman who charges $320 million for two bridges to nowhere?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.