Washington Calling: Ready meals; smoke-free; New Orleans

WASHINGTON — Instant granola, chipotle snack bread, vegetarian lasagna and Irish-creme-flavored coffee. That may sound like the menu at a groovy eatery, but it's actually a list of some of the items that U.S. troops will be getting in their Meals-Ready-To-Eat in 2009. A recently concluded taste test by 400 soldiers gave a big "hooah" to those, as well as to far-less-trendy vanilla-and chocolate-flavored pudding, hot-and-spicy Cheez-its and toaster pastries.

Getting a big thumbs-down was the stuffed-cabbage entree. According to the Combat Feeding Directorate, the troops were concerned about its aftereffects, the military-oriented newspaper Stars and Stripes reported.

"They said, 'You wouldn't want to be sleeping in a tent next to someone who had stuffed cabbage, would you, ma'am?' " said senior food technologist Judy Aylward.

• History will be made June 12 when Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., becomes the chamber's longest-serving member. Once majority leader and always the expert on the Senate's arcane rules, Byrd, 89, took office in 1959, and has served 17,237 days since. Hoping to add another 2,190 days, he's running for a ninth term in November.

• On the other side of the Capitol, a new effort has begun to tamp out the remaining smoke-filled rooms in the House of Representatives. Exempt from the executive order that all federal buildings must be smoke-free, and untouched by the District of Columbia's ban on smoking in offices, the House still allows smoking in its cafeterias, lawmakers' offices and the Speaker's Lobby, an area off the House floor where lawmakers can catch a quick puff.

Nineteen House Democrats want Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois to end the special treatment for smokers, arguing that the health of legislators, employees and visitors is at stake. But, given that new House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio is a smoker himself, this request is likely destined for the ash can.

• Retired soldiers looking for a little extra cash now can earn $1,000 for each prospective enlistee they refer to Army recruiters — provided the individual completes basic and advanced training. Just the latest in an array of bonuses the services are offering for help in bulking up the ranks, this one has already generated 100 recruits who have begun training, the Army says.

• New peril for New Orleans? Electrical Contractor magazine reports that so many corners are being cut in restoring electrical power to homes there that a real danger exists for fires, injuries and other calamities. City electrical inspections have been waived since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and reports now are surfacing of power being restored to buildings that contain the same electrical components that were submerged during the flooding — posing a serious safety risk.

• Hispanic teens are almost twice as likely as white or black youths to have tried the highly addictive stimulant methamphetamine, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, which is launching an anti-meth advertising campaign aimed at Latino youths and their parents. About 13 percent of Hispanic teens in grades seven through 12 say they have taken the drug in one form or another, while only 7 percent of white youths and 6 percent of blacks say they have.

• And speaking of drugs, Pentagon chief Don Rumsfeld wants to end U.S. military participation in the drug-smuggling fight in the Bahamas. For more than 20 years, Army Black Hawk helicopters have patrolled the area, helping to seize more than 25 tons of cocaine and 82 tons of marijuana. Now, the war on drugs takes second fiddle to the war on terror, the Pentagon says, noting also that drug traffickers have shifted their smuggling routes away from the coasts of Florida and toward the border with Mexico.