BS: Porkbarrel Politics Remains Bipartisan

Subject: RE: BS: Porkbarrel Politics Remains Bipartisan
From: Skeptic
Date: 19 Mar 01 - 08:56 PM

Read all about it at This Site which puplishes the Congressional Pig Book with all the pork-barrel projects neatly categorized. The 2001 edition is now on-line.

Plus the "Porker of the Month" (This month a tie: Sen Ted Stevens R-Alaska and Sen Daniel Inouye D-Hawaii

And you just thought you knew how bad it was.

As LH has argued and I concur, the difference between the democrats and the republicians is minimal.

Regards

Skeptic

Subject: RE: BS: Porkbarrel Politics Remains Bipartisan
From: raredance
Date: 19 Mar 01 - 08:03 PM

Thanks to the money spent over the years on sunflower research, the plant breeders have developed strains that produce oil that is healthier for human consumption (called mid-oleic for the chemically inclined). That oil is trademarked under the Nu-Sun label. Two major potato chip makers, Frito-Lay and Barrel-o-fun, now use it exclusively for their chip cooking. Not does the oil have a healthier fat content, it doesn't break dow as fast in the cooker. I expect that Nu-Sun will eventually make it to the grocery store shelves, and maybe give rape-seed oil a run for its money. MOre sunflowers are processed into oil than are used to line the floors of baseball dugouts.

The Greyhound museum funding is a bit silly, probably ranks up there with Lawrence Welk's boyhood home. A pittance though compared to the millions that have been plowed into a Pennsylvania location called Steamtown, or something like that. Besides if it hadn't been for the dog, Bob Dylan might never have gotten out of town. Those pits are big and deep. And while your visiting the Greyhound museum you can also take in the Hockey Hall of fame just down the road in Eveleth and sit on the giant walleye with the saddle at Kabetogama. All part of a carefully conceived plan to put the pressure on Disney.

rich r

Subject: RE: BS: Porkbarrel Politics Remains Bipartisan
From: Kim C
Date: 19 Mar 01 - 03:32 PM

I love Dave Barry. He is just a hoot. What's really scary is that everything he says is true. He has a great talent for bringing real-life ridiculousness home to roost.

Of course, here in Tennessee, the Governor keeps saying we have a budget crisis, but for some reason, the State has plenty of money to have every major thoroughfare in and out of town in a state of construction right now. I'm not kidding when I say that easily half to 3/4 of my commute is under construction and has been for awhile. For traffic reasons I take a different route home --- but now since THAT is under construction too, it doesn't make much difference which way I go. Harumph.

I am all for keeping the roads up - but all at the same time?

Subject: RE: BS: Porkbarrel Politics Remains Bipartisan
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Mar 01 - 03:20 PM

That's OK MT..........Since we're being open and all, I visited Hibbing twice in the late fifties. We were on our way elsewhere and my Dad had an Army friend who lived there. Mainly we went out and looked at the Messabi Iron Pit where Johnny worked. As far as Dylan goes, "I didn't see him walkin' round nowhere."

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Porkbarrel Politics Remains Bipartisan
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Mar 01 - 03:13 PM

Ooops. Sorry. For some reason I had read Hibbing, Michigan.

Ignore me.

Subject: RE: BS: Porkbarrel Politics Remains Bipartisan
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Mar 01 - 03:10 PM

What has Hibbing to do with Dylan? I thought he was from Minnesota?

Subject: RE: BS: Porkbarrel Politics Remains Bipartisan
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Mar 01 - 03:01 PM

Interesting that Hibbing has nothing to say about Dylan on their home pages (although you can order up birth and death records) but they do have a section on the Greyhound Bus Museum. For only 3 bucks you can look at 8 buses! Gawd, I'm having an orgasm just thinking about it.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Porkbarrel Politics Remains Bipartisan
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Mar 01 - 02:50 PM

Kind of comforting, in an odd sort of way.

Subject: RE: BS: Porkbarrel Politics Remains Bipartisan
From: Naemanson
Date: 19 Mar 01 - 02:48 PM

SNAFU

Subject: Porkbarrel Politics Remains Bipartisan
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Mar 01 - 02:38 PM

Budget surplus crisis solved ... build a bus museum By DAVE BARRY

URGENT TAXPAYER BULLETIN: The Federal Budget Surplus Crisis has become so severe that there is now serious talk in Washington of letting you keep slightly more of your own money.

That is correct: The government has been taking in so much of your money that EVEN CONGRESS is having a hard time spending it all. Not that Congress isn't trying! In fact, in recent years Congress, faced with the alarming buildup of your money, has come up with some truly creative things to spend it on. My favorite is the Greyhound Bus Museum.

I am not making the Greyhound Bus Museum up. It's located in Hibbing, Minn. (``Gateway to the Greater Hibbing Area''). As every history student should know, Hibbing is the birthplace of Greyhound, which started as a small bus company and then grew, in historic fashion, into what it is today: a large bus company.

I'm sure that every taxpayer -- especially every taxpayer who has ever had to take a long bus trip sitting near the toilet -- often thinks: ``I hope and pray that at least some tiny portion of the tax money I worked so hard for is used to help finance a bus museum in a city that I will probably never visit unless I happen to be in a plane that crashes there!''

Well, taxpayers, your prayers have been answered, thanks to U.S. Rep. Jim ``Jim'' Oberstar, who represents (surprise!) Hibbing. Not only did Jim procure $80,000 in federal money for the Greyhound museum, but he also boasted about it in a press release, which I imagine you taxpayers also paid for.

This press release states that the $80,000 came from an act of Congress called the ``Transportation Efficiencies Act for the 21st Century.'' The release further states that, initially, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MN/DOT) ``wasn't certain'' that the Greyhound museum ``fit the criteria'' for the Transportation Efficiencies Act. But as Rep. Oberstar points out, he was ``a key architect of the legislation,'' and thus was ``in a better position to help MN/DOT understand how Congress intended the money to be used.''

You tell 'em, Jim! Don't let those dopes at MN/DOT prevent you from spending our money as you see fit! If a bus museum doesn't epitomize the true meaning of Transportation Efficiency for the 21st Century, then I don't know what does!

Of course the bus museum is only one of many, many examples of how Congress is working to ease the dangerous buildup of your money in Washington. Thanks to Congress, you're also paying $1.5 million for sunflower research, and $176,000 for the Reindeer Herders Association. No, really!

Unfortunately, we cannot put a serious dent in our dangerously high budget surplus by spending pathetic amounts like $1.5 million. That is why we should be thankful to leaders such as U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.), who has, over the years, spent more than one billion taxpayer dollars in his relentless ongoing effort to improve West Virginia by covering the entire surface of the state with a gigantic slab of federal concrete (which will be named ``The Robert Byrd Concrete Slab'').

And let us not forget Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., a man so concerned about our naval preparedness that he demanded that the U.S. Navy be given -- for starters -- $375 million for a helicopter assault ship to be built in (surprise!) Sen. Lott's hometown. In pushing this vital naval project through, Sen. Lott had to overcome the resistance of ... well, the navy. That's right: The navy did not want this ship. Fortunately, Sen. Lott is not the kind of candypants leader to let some upstart outfit like the U.S. Navy tell him what our naval needs are, any more than Rep. Oberstar is going to let the so-called ``Minnesota Department of Transportation'' tell HIM about transportation.

I could talk about many other heroic efforts by our leaders to reduce the federal budget surplus. But the tragic fact is, they have failed. The surplus has reached such alarming levels that it now appears likely that Congress may actually reduce your taxes slightly. Of course, Congress must first argue for months about exactly which of you taxpayers are worthy of being allowed to keep slightly more of your money. And no matter what Congress decides, the odds are that you, personally, won't get much tax relief -- certainly nowhere near Reindeer Herder Association money.

But still, thanks to the generosity of Congress, some day -- perhaps as early as next year -- you might be able to afford a slightly nicer summer vacation! The Greyhound Bus Museum is open from May 15 through the end of September.