Gee, that didn't take long. Democrats complained bitterly about how the Republican majority Congress did business by inserting pork into spending bills at the last minute behind closed doors. They swore to the voters they would run things differently. How differently?
Well, they're stuffing pork into spending bills behind closed doors at the last minute. See, they changed the order in the sentence.
But the new majority is already skirting its own reforms.
Perhaps the biggest retreat from that pledge came this week, when House
Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.) told fellow lawmakers
that he intends to keep requests for earmarks out of pending spending bills, at
least for now. Obey said the committee will deal with them at the end of the
appropriations process in the closed-door meetings between House and Senate
negotiators known as conference committees.
Democrats had complained bitterly in recent years that Republicans routinely
slipped multimillion-dollar pet projects into spending bills at the end of the
legislative process, preventing any chance for serious public scrutiny. Now
Democrats are poised to do the same.
"I don't give a damn if people criticize me or not," Obey said.
Obey's spokeswoman, Kirstin Brost, said his intention is not to keep the
projects secret. Rather, she said, so many requests for spending were made to
the appropriations panel — more than 30,000 this year — that its staff has
been unable to study them and decide their validity.
"I have to sign off on that stuff," Obey said. "And I'm going to make damn sure
that we've done everything we can do to make sure that they're legitimate
projects, so that you don't get embarrassed by some idiot who is putting in
money for a project that happens to benefit himself and his wife."
Republicans reacted with outrage. "This is a huge step backwards on earmark
reform," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). "As bad as the earmark process is now,
this would make it immensely worse."
Meet the new boss – even worse than the old boss.
A couple of unusual citations for an all too usual offense these days: Driving While Intoxicated. Now this crime usually doesn't make the national news these days unless the offender is famous, a la Paris Hilton or the circumstances are unusual.
Such as DWI while ordering food at a drive-through.
CAMDEN, Ark. - A man who was a little slow in picking up his fast food has been
charged with drunk driving. Police said they found Terrance Forte, 32, asleep
behind the wheel in the drive-through lane at a McDonald's restaurant.
Restaurant employees called police about 12:30 a.m. Saturday after waiting 15
minutes for Forte to drive from the first window to the second window in the
drive-through.
In a police report, Officer William Mahon said he found Forte asleep inside the
car with the engine running and his right foot on the brake. The report said
Forte offered Mahon $10 for his food order when Mahon tried to wake him.
Forte's blood alcohol level was registered at 0.19, more than twice the legal
limit.
Hey, at least he tried to pay for the food order.
In another case, a German man was cited for having a blood alcohol level 10 times the legal limit when he was pulled over. Which would usually be enough for a mention in the news.
The wheelchair he was driving at the time is just overkill.
"He was right in the middle of the road," said a spokesman for police in the
northeastern city of Schwerin Tuesday. "The officers couldn't quite believe it
when they saw the results of the breath test. That's a life-threatening figure."
The 31-year-old told police he had been out drinking with a friend and was a
little over a mile from home when a squad car stopped him as he passed through
the village of Ventschow.
Police said that because the man was technically traveling as a pedestrian, he
could not be charged with a driving offence.
What? No DWI? Isn't there a WWI on the books? Want to bet there will be shortly?
Well, we will not be going ashore again today. The weather is not cooperating and there are high winds and rough seas that prevent tendering operations again. So another sea day will mark our last day on the cruise. But I can get WiFi today, so I'll have a few post up during the day.
It turned out to be a pretty nice day in Nassau yesterday. Sunny and warm, but with a pretty high wind all day. On of the local people said it was more like January than May, exactly echoing what the captain of the ship told us over the loudspeakers on Tuesday (and again today when we diverted from the private island again.) I signed us up for two tours. They were supposed to be scheduled far enough apart so that we'd have an hour between them to get changed or grab a bite to eat.
This schedule did not take into account “island time”.
The first tour took us around the city of Nassau, showing us the various historical sites, including the old forts, the Queen's Steps (carved by 600 slaves over a 16 year period; named for Queen Victoria after she freed the slaves) and ended at the local pirate museum. But it ran an hour late. We sprinted back to the ship just in time to take the second tour.
The second tour took us around the city of Nassau, showing us the various historical sites, including the old forts, the Queen's Steps (carved by 600 slaves over a 16 year period; named for Queen Victoria after she freed the slaves) and ended at Atlantis resort to take a look at the massive aquarium. It ran about an hour longer than schedule.
I take it you noticed the large overlap in the two tours. They were basically interchangeable with the exception of the end points and the relative merits of the tour guides, the first one being the better of the two). We all felt a bit cheated. But the very large manta ray in the aquarium made the trip worth it for the kids – they had been complaining about the two tours being the same until they saw that monster swimming around. The size of a dinner table, it was. It made the whole thing worth it for them (even if it was kind of a waste).
A very little bit of shopping in Nassau followed then back to the ship. Nassau is nice enough to visit, but you really can tell the economy is completely centered on tourism.
Politics | Gaius Thursday, 24 May , 2007 | 
Comments (2) 
