Certainty

WASHINGTON - "The only certainty is that nothing is certain," said the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder. With that kind of attitude, he never could have made it in today's media world. As the Terri Schiavo case illustrates, today's top commentators tend to be unalterably certain, even in the face of scientific evidence. In the view of certain sultans of certainty, for example, anyone who did not want to intrude in the family dispute over Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube was some kind of a natural-born killer.

The 90-day legislative session in Annapolis wrapped up at midnight Monday to mixed reviews among environmental advocates, who hailed the passage of a bill promoting offshore wind development but had little else to celebrate. Gov. Martin O'Malley, who had pushed for the bill offering state incentives to put turbines off the Maryland coast, was scheduled to sign it Tuesday.  Karla Raettig, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, called its passage "a great day for democracy," while Tommy Landers of Environment Mary land praised it as a "landmark victory for our climate and for our children and grandchildren.

GOV. PARRIS N. Glendening halted all Maryland executions this month, saying no one should be put to death before a study he commissioned determines whether racial bias pollutes the capital system. But the governor's not the only person with misgivings. Over the past few years, the courts that hear Maryland death penalty cases on appeal have been weighing in with serious doubts about how fairly this state seeks to take life -- and their concerns go far beyond matters of race. Judges have questioned whether the state has adequately proved death row inmates' guilt.

The House of Delegates gave preliminary approval Friday to a bill that would give Maryland farmers a 10-year reprieve from new Chesapeake Bay cleanup requirements, in return for their voluntarily doing more to reduce polluted runoff from their fields. Lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected a series of amendments to SB1029 , including ones that would have limited the scope of the program to 50 farms for now, and that would have required participating farmers to disclose some information about their farms.

Princeton, New Jersey. -- The front pages of many of the world's newspapers were even more startling than usual the other day. Somebody seems to have gotten the right answer to one of the world's vexing problems.Andrew Wiles of Princeton University announced from England that he had solved ''Fermat's last theorem,'' a problem that has bedeviled mathematicians for more than three centuries. News of the solution, understandable to only a few in the world today, flashed globally across E-mails and faxes in minutes and got to the front pages within hours.

Seldom has the outcome of the NCAA tournament seemed more certain before the first dribble. Duke's top-ranked Blue Devils are so good, and seemingly so superior to everyone else, that playing the tournament almost seems pointless.But it also seemed pointless eight years ago, when an undefeated Nevada-Las Vegas team loomed large over everyone and lost to Duke in the national semifinals.Eight years before that, a Houston team including Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler also seemed vastly superior to the rest of the field until it lost to North Carolina State in the final.

Spring training is just days away, and Baltimore Orioles first baseman Randy Milligan doesn't know if he's coming or going.The only destination he's reasonably sure of is Chicago, where he is scheduled for a salary arbitration showdown with the club on Tuesday. The outcome of that case could have a bearing on more than just his future earnings.The club seems adamant about holding down his salary, even though the likelihood of the Orioles paying a penny of it next year seems remote. But there is a method to their miserliness, because his trade value figures to go south as his salary heads north.

WITH INTEREST rates repeatedly hitting 40-year lows, millions of American borrowers have been rushing to apply for mortgages or to refinance their homes. Not surprisingly, the Mortgage Bankers Association of America logged a record number of loan applications the week before last. Why not? The difference between 5.25 percent and last year's 6.75 percent on a 30-year, $200,000 loan means savings of $193 a month for homeowners. The windfalls are being plowed into savings, paying off other debts and, mostly, into cars and other purchases - in turn sustaining a terrible economy.

Quote: "I feel a lot better about our club. We seem to be playing with a lot more certainty." - New York Yankees manager Joe Torre about his team's recent play. New York leads the AL East by 3 1/2 games over Boston. It's a fact: The Seattle Mariners lead the majors in drawing 521 walks. Who's hot: Seattle also has the best home record (36-17) in baseball after beating Toronto yesterday at Safeco Field. Who's not: Rolando Arrojo lost his fifth straight decision yesterday against Oakland as he gave up five runs in 6 1/3 innings in his Red Sox debut.

THE LESSONS of Sept. 11 come from the responses to it as much as from the acts. These lessons have less to do with airport security, intelligence or foreign policy than the two ways in which people generally interpret human events. One reacts to catastrophe by asking questions. The other instantly declares that the problem at hand -- and the solution -- is obvious. Generally, the more spectacular or devastating the event, the more questions are posed by the former group, the more certainty is displayed by the latter.

Supporters and critics of legislation that would grant farmers a 10-year reprieve from new environmental regulations squared off before a House committee Tuesday, with much of the debate focused on provisions in the bill barring any public disclosure of those granted the deferral. Farm group representatives, O'Malley administration officials and others told members of the House Environmental Matters Committee that offering state farmers a shield from new environmental cleanup requirements could boost efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.  Farmers would voluntarily agree to reduce polluted runoff of soil and fertilizer from their farms beyond what they're now required to do, proponents say. Sen. Thomas M. Middleton, the bill's chief sponsor, said many farmers are having to invest in new equipment and facilities now to comply with recently adopted state regulations on how, when and where fertilizer can be spread on the ground.

I would like to add my support for the Maryland Agricultural Certainty Program, which is a balanced approach to protecting farmland for a certain period of time while recognizing the importance of environmental practices. This bill will provide farmers with relief that's badly needed as long as they're contributing to the clean-up of the Chesapeake Bay by reducing pollution from their farms. I've heard critics cite the number of farms being impacted by state regulations as "minimal.

The concept behind the proposed Maryland Agriculture Certainty Program is sound. Farmers would voluntarily agree to meet relatively high standards for pollution runoff and hire third-party inspectors to verify the results. In return, they would be spared from new regulations for 10 years. In a business that is fraught with uncertainty from droughts and floods, rising and falling commodity prices and boom or bust crop yields, the appeal of predictability is clear enough. The model is not unlike the discharge permit of some manufacturers or sewage treatment plants - a kind of contract between regulators and polluters.

It's all right. You can come back in now. I've stopped nagging the children about St. Patrick's Day . All the same, there was an invincible certainty about their St. Paddy/St. Patty views . What they knew, they knew, and any information that conflicted with what they knew was to be swatted down, sometimes with a contemptuous Twitter hashtag, #morons . It is like the certainty that one encounters with the peeving classes, the Clark Elder Morrows * and the Queen's English Society charlatans . They are impervious to doubt.

Call it the "Baltimore Problem." And let's deal with it once and for all, so we can get down to the happier business of enjoying the fourth season opener tonight of "Mad Men," AMC's celebrated and style-setting series about life on Madison Avenue in the 1960s. Last year, "Mad Men" opened with leading character Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and one of his ad agency associates taking a business trip to Baltimore. Like many critics, I had praised the series for its rich period detail through the first two seasons.

T he debate over the $410,000 in bonus payments to former University of Maryland School of Law dean Karen Rothenberg has largely devolved into an argument between two camps. Her defenders say that the focus on the payments is smearing the record of an excellent and transformative leader for the school, and her detractors are appalled by the amount of money being thrown at a public employee. There's truth to both sides, but that argument misses the point. Ms. Rothenberg was, by all accounts, an excellent dean.

It's all right. You can come back in now. I've stopped nagging the children about St. Patrick's Day . All the same, there was an invincible certainty about their St. Paddy/St. Patty views . What they knew, they knew, and any information that conflicted with what they knew was to be swatted down, sometimes with a contemptuous Twitter hashtag, #morons . It is like the certainty that one encounters with the peeving classes, the Clark Elder Morrows * and the Queen's English Society charlatans . They are impervious to doubt.

TAMPA, Fla. -- The long-awaited collective bargaining negotiations between baseball ownership and the Major League Baseball Players Association got under way last night, but the three-hour meeting was only a minor first step toward a new labor agreement.Ownership negotiator Richard Ravitch met with union officials and a group of about 70 players to present a general outline of management's tentative revenue sharing arrangement and the salary cap that the owners hope will accompany it.The players left disappointed that there was no specific proposal, but encouraged that Ravitch promised to share the financial data that was used to formulate the revenue-sharing agreement hammered out among the owners in January.

Longtime readers of this column know that I have a son in the military, so it is no surprise that I listened intently to President Barack Obama's speech last week at West Point, my hands working each other nervously as he announced plans to send more troops to Afghanistan. My son was in a pipeline to go to war no matter what the president said that night - I will say no more than that - so it was not like a different speech would have meant he was going on vacation instead. And I heard candidate Obama say that Iraq was the wrong war, and that he would turn our attention back to Afghanistan if elected, so his decision did not surprise me - although I regret that this campaign promise is one he is so determined to keep.

BlueHippo, the Woodlawn company that regulators just accused of collecting $15 million in electronics orders last year and delivering hardly anything in return, has a cigar-store Indian and a bust of Benjamin Franklin in the lobby. Where's owner Joseph K. Rensin? "Even if I knew, I wouldn't be able to tell you," says a woman at the reception desk. What about Andrew Campbell, the BlueHippo lawyer who said last year that the company had made "tremendous progress" in its customer programs?