I kid you not

Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? [...] You've heard about some of those pet projects they really don't make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to pet projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.

O discordia.

After months of neglect, I decided I couldn't let this board die.

Check out this revealing exhibit that Dialog:City had at the DNC in Denver.

An artist made 'sight test' charts out of words from Presidential State of the Union addresses by frequency of word usage. There was one from FDR, Lincoln, Dubya, etc. Kinda neat.

Can you guess which President this one was?

You Can Change Congress

Help Larry Lessig and friends Change Congress. Doesn't it make you sad that legislators can legally take campaign contributions from the industries they regulate? Look up some in your home state and see if they would like to take the pledge at Change-Congress.org.

Pardon Me, Congressman, but you dropped your crown...

In a timely pre-game show to the launch of Larry Lessig's Change Congress campaign, Ken Silverstein published a delightful piece in the March issue of Harper's, entitled Beltway Bacchanal: Congress lives high on the contributor's dime . Apparently, the only service our elected officials perform for the public anymore is creating "campaign" jobs for needy college grads, ahem, friends and relatives. Also, I just realized that you can't read the article unless you subscribe to Harper's, which I highly recommend! :)

Despite my post, which is the opposite of timely (March is now nearing an end and Lessig actually launched CC last week), you can still learn a lot about PAC Leadership funds and campaign treasuries from Silverstein's article.

For example, I learned how useful contributor's funds can be when one wants to spend

• $32,036 to golf at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort (Rep. James McCrery, R-LA), or say, slam down
  
• $66,146 on luxury hotels over the 2006 election cycle (Congressman Steny Hoyer, D-MD)