Pork Barrel Tech Projects On The Rise 217
An anonymous reader writes "News.com has a large article up exploring the increase in 'pork barrel'-style technology projects floating through government spending bills. The water-free urinals discussed on Slashdot last year are one such project, as is a 'Virtual Reality Spray Paint Simulator'." From the article: "Earmarks for favored recipients--known colloquially as pork--have become easier than ever for politicians to secure because of the rapid growth in homeland security and military spending, especially if they can find some plausible technological veneer. Exact figures are difficult to obtain, mostly because spending bills tend to be intentionally obfuscated and specifics are usually absent from legislative text. Government watchdogs, however, say earmarks ostensibly related to technology are clearly on the rise."
Down with big government! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, wait...
Re:Down with big government! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
Except when the big, stupid government is a front for the sleek, functioning oligarchy really runs the show from behind the scenes.
You know, kinda like here in the U.S.
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
While we're on the subject - there are lots of publicly-traded small defense contractors out there, so making money has been pretty easy in this environment, even if you're not politically-connected.
What publicly-traded companies/industries stand to make easy money when the Democrats get their turn at the pork barrel in late-06, and particularly if they have the House/Sen
Back In The USSR (Score:2)
Isn't this what helped collapse the old USSR?
Re:Back In The USSR (Score:2)
In part, yes. In full, it was trying to spend more on defense and the military than they could afford, trying to keep up with SDI, aka Star Wars. That, of course, was the whole point of SDI: competing with the USSR on our turf (ability to spend money) rather than on theirs.
Re:Down with big government! (Score:5, Insightful)
The truth is the only parties which advocate fiscal conservativism tends to be the ones which have no control of the purse strings.
In practice modern Republican's do still want to slash spending on Democratically backed Socialist programs like Welfare, Medicare, Medicaid or anything they perceive as transferring wealth from affluent tax payers to the poor. But at the same time they are just as eager to redirect extravegent sums in to Defense and espionage something which was true of both Bush and Reagan who are the two biggest creators of national debt in U.S. history. And also in to gigantic give aways to corprate benefactors which they've done in a huge way in Medicare D, corporate farm subsidies, their "energy" bill, and massive defense contracting and Iraqi reconstruction bonanzas.
Massive tax cuts coupled with massive defense spending is the Republican strategy for bankrupting the U.S. government and when it heads to bankruptcy because of their policies they will solve the problem by dismantling entitlements and blame it all on them (though Social Security surpluses for example have been helping fund rampant spending elsewhere).
Basically the two political choices Americans have today are:
A. A Democratic party which is Socialist leaning and which will squander big sums on social programs and pork if in power
B. A Republican party that is Fascist leaning and which will squander vast sums on military spending and filling the pockets of the big corporations and wealthy party members who back them and reap windfalls out of the pockets of taxpayers.
There simply is NO viable political option today which advocates slashing the size of the American government and its out of control spending. Its not clear you could stop rampant growth of the U.S. government at this point without economic upheaval. The American economy has become massively dependent on government spending and it keeps the economy afloat at a time when the U.S. economy manufactures or exports next to nothing. Health care spending, and defense spending, much of it paid for with money borrowed from foreigners keeps America's economy.
At this point your two options are to vote Democrat and Socialist or vote Republican and Fascist. There is no libertarian or fiscal conservative option.
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
Re:Down with big government! (Score:5, Insightful)
A case could be made that their form of government would be as bad if not worse than what we have. The fatal flaw in Libertarianism is it would let loose the wolves of Capitalism and they would devour the nation and most of its people in a sea of unchecked greed. My image of Libertarianism in practice would the robber baron's of the late 1800's who manipulated markets, ran monopolies and who accumulated vast wealth unchecked except by feuds with each other. For example railroad tycoons who devastated farmers by charging just enough to ship their goods to market that the farmers made nothing or lost money for their hard work.
My guess is Libertarianism would lead to massive imbalances in wealth distribution, a small number of very wealthy people and a lot of people living in poverty. Of course the current Fascist leaning system under the Republican's is heading down the same road.
I think this creedo is probably the one that will hold sway in the U.S., U.K. and most of the world in the future:
"In the
It really is starting to describe what is happening in the U.S. and the U.K. in particular. If you don't recognize it it is part of Mussolini's Fascist doctrine the word to fill in the blank "......" is the "Fascist" State.
Re:Down with big government! (Score:5, Insightful)
I especially like how you complain about people who don't want the government to be able to control and regulate things like railroads, then use as your example a situation where special interests bought off the politicians because the government had the power to grant them severe railroad-right-of-ways monopolies and regulated pricing by the government, but controlled by the special interests.
Isn't that the exact opposite of what the libertarians and capitalists want the government to be able to do?
Re:Down with big government! (Score:5, Insightful)
So in a Libertarian system how would you do railroads differently or at all. Let two competing interests build two railroads to serve the same markets so there is competition but twice the capital required and twice as much land wasted on right of ways. Why stop at two, how about three or four. Or of course maybe you couldn't build a railroad at all because one or a handful of Libertarian land owners could refuse to grant a critical right of way.
I think what I am saying is we are gravitating to government and social systems at extremes.
We do need government and a state to engage in activities that are for the common good and to check those that seek to take advantage and abuse their fellow citizens. But at the same time the state needs to be ruthlessly held in check to keep it from growing beyond reason and intruding in to the lives of its citizens where it doesn't belong.
Todays Socialist Democrats and Fascist Republicans are building a state that is completely dominating our lives in partnership with their corprate benefactors. The Libertarians would put us in a world without sufficient government to keep a society of hundreds of millions of people functioning properly which is why no one takes them seriously.
Moderation is the key to good government and we have no moderate leaders. We need politicians who abhor passing laws and creating government programs and bureaucracies but who are willing to do just that when there is a real and legitimate need and it is in the public interest. Right now we have professional politicians who live to churn incomprehensible bills that are pandering to one special interest after another but when looked at holistically are giant piles of steaming crap, not sound policy. Today's politicians seem to live to churn out bad legislation that each year costs us more and more money and produce less and less for benefit for the public good.
Re:Down with big government! (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting; you share much of the same views that I do. Yet, I call myself a libertarian; even though I don't agree 100% with the philosphy; I'm about 80% or so. I identify myself more with the Chicago school of economics than I do with the Mises school of economics, even though I base much of my viewpoints on both schools.
My only beef with the Libertarian Party is that its views are a bit too far on the libertarian scale, almost borderlining on anarchocapitalism. Anarchocapitalism advocates the remova
Re:Down with big government! (Score:3, Interesting)
The obvious one already cited, you wouldn't be able to build roads, railroads or pipelines because land owners would inevitably refuse the right of ways or charge so much for them they would make the projects impractical.
Now there might be some real merits in not having these things, since we would have smaller, simpler less dehumanized societies that are back to earth. But you would give up most of the conveniences you t
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
As much as I'd like to believe you, 5-10% of the vote would cause the Demolicans and Republicrats to rig the system so it's even more hostile to third party candidates. Look what they did to Nader. I mean, I think Nader's a kook and only ran because he's an egomaniac, but I was still really ticked
Re:It's ONE party (Score:2)
Republicans have their constituents to support with projects and legislation, Dems have theirs. PAC's don't care too much who is running the show because it's pay to play all the way.
The other thing to understand is if American's really wanted fiscal spending, then it would happen. Ideally the candidates running on fiscal conservativism would win. There's been a whole bunch of fiscally conservative legislation that gets gutted every time the budget c
Re:Down with big government! (Score:3, Interesting)
Instead of giving that power to the president, let's keep it in cogress with 'line item voting'
Each line of a bill would have 3 options:
(required) (accepted) (rejected)
Of these a congress person must select one for each line.
REQUIRED would meabn that this line is required in this bill or I am 100% against it.
ACCEPTED would mean that it is ok to have but isn't important to me and the bill would be ok with or without i
Re:Down with big government! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course. But the Republicans have spent decades portraying themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility and enemies of big government, compared to those "tax-and-spend" Democrats who will just make government big and expensive.
So is the Federal government appreciably smaller or cheaper than it was 6 years ago?
The fact of the matter is that neither party is really in favor of small government, but only the Republicans have claimed to be. And while a few of them (McCain, for instance, based on this article) seem to mean it, most just go along with business as usual.
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
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Ya...what this guy said.
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2, Insightful)
Ya'all here, in the states need to remember that Democracy is NOT 'majority rule' but the result of an active, committed minority.
You are sooooo much more educated, talented and capable then those of us who said "NO MORE" in the 60's and 70's.
You have already changed the whole world, as we knew
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
True... However, it is the Republican party which has planked on "smaller" government. We have seen big government grow much more than under democratic rule. The dirty little secret is that you can't have the worlds largest economy, strongest military and project dominating geo-graphic power unless the government is of substantial size.
Re:Down with big government! (Score:4, Interesting)
As I've stated before: McCain will become president in 2008 with a platform including reduced spending, paying down the national debt and government reform. He's not exciting for a lot of conservatives, but oh well, better than Hillary.
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
McCain's Presidency will only be achieved by giving in to the militancy (hence spending-craziness) of the new American political picture. After all, Hillary is going to continue to play the "s
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
I agree with you that McCain's greatest challenge will be getting the nomination.
His greatest asset may just be that a lot of the charges being thrown at Bush won't stick to McCain (I mean, any mention of the word "torture" in a debate and McCain
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2)
One mans pork (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:One mans pork (Score:2)
Re:One mans pork (Score:2)
Pork comes from pigs. Steak comes from cows.
Re:One mans pork (Score:2)
Re:One mans pork (Score:2)
Is another mans steak
When I worked in contracting, I learned they don't care if it is even meat. Entrails and hooves are fine.
Re:One mans pork (Score:2)
Re:One mans pork (Score:2)
I believe the proper term is "Ham Steak".
Bad image. (Score:2, Funny)
This is surprising how? (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW, in other nations, we would call this type of influence bribery and corruption. Here we now call it business as usual.
Re:This is surprising how? (Score:2)
Re:This is surprising how? (Score:2)
Also, you may wish to google Hefley, a congresman who is proposing good laws for limiting corruption, and find out what party he belongs to.
Now, if you are trying to tie dems to the republicans just because the bulk of the sleeze is tied to them for the minute, well, that is a redherring. Since the republicans are in control and appears to be the mo
Re:This is surprising how? (Score:2)
Re:This is surprising how? (Score:2)
Re:This is surprising how? (Score:2)
You forget: it was the republicans that awarded the Diebold voting machine contracts. So what makes you think that Democrats will win congress back?
Re:This is surprising how? (Score:2)
Would you care to educate the rest of us? Or would you rather just watch people spread misinformation?
Re:This is surprising how? (Score:2)
Re:This is surprising how? (Score:2)
The main one was no more election contributions, except limited from local private citizens; No Businesses; No Unions; No PACs; no person outside of the voters. This prevents undue influence. The money for the election is to come from the taxpayers once a candidate has a certain amount of support.
In addition, no junkets. No honouraium. In return, we would increase the pay to the congresman and the president. It it a small price to pay somewhat honest gov. A
Waterless toilet (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Waterless toilet (Score:2)
Re:Waterless toilet (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree. I've seen them in national parks/forests and they allow sanitary waste disposal without having to run massive lengths of plumbing. They're also popular at some ski resorts, but no self-respecting skier would ever use a urinal. That's why God made snow: For man to practice his urinary penmanship.
Here is a link (Score:3, Informative)
They smell bad (Score:2)
We have them in a new "green dorm" on campus. That plus dim lights in conference rooms and a fuel cell backup generator. A new 5kW system, nearly 100x more expensive than a gas powered system of similar size...
Hippies.
Pissed off (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, the anguish (Score:2)
I'm so torn!
I dunno... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, while a dollar is a dollar, even a hundred million here and there is rounding error on the federal budget. The real pieces are Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, pensions, the military and debt servicing; arguing about anything else is mostly a distraction from the structural problems.
Virtual Reality Spray Paint Simulator (Score:2)
Re:I dunno... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I dunno... (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's a visual breakdown of govt spending (Score:2)
The project page [deviantart.com].
Re:Here's a visual breakdown of govt spending (Score:2)
Re:I dunno... (Score:2)
Just to ad to your point about rounding errors, Social Security is paid separately out of social security money, not out of regular federal tax revenue, so it doesn't even belong on the list with Military Spending etc...
Re:I dunno... (Score:2)
That's FUCKING BULLSHIT.
The Iraq CPA *lost* $9 Billion.
And NOBODY is investigating it.
A few hundred mil here and there as a rounding error, yeah, fine. But compared to $9B, the "evil social spending" is chicken feed.
Pe
NMCI (Score:3, Insightful)
Just look at the Navy's NMCI project. What a boondoggle. 8 billion dollars for a computer system where many users have to resort to using their own equipment to get anything done.
Of course the contract award to EDS didn't have anything to do with EDS being in Bush's home state. We all know how honest government contract awards are under our glorious Republican leadership, dedicated to bringing accountability into government affairs and responsibility into government spending.
Re:NMCI (Score:2)
So, while the NMCI might not be so great, and, while Bush may not be so great either, I don't think that the two are related.
Re:NMCI (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.nmci.navy.mil/Press_Room/NMCI%20AT%20A
NMCI was talked about while I had a summer job doing network support at a Navy base as an undergraduate. The contract was awarded in October, 2000. Bush wasn't even elected yet.
Re:NMCI (Score:2)
I generally think that, in reality, people are unwilling to believe that the government can't take care of them. They look at it as this omnipotent thing. When it fails, they look for reasons that it failed. Terrorists attacked the WTC? No way, the government must've done it!
Re:NMCI (Score:2)
Welcome all to Slashdot, where a poster can mention any crazy conspiracy theory and someone will be along to defend it! Heck, there are people who believe that the president is a "Reptoid", a shape shifting lizard-like alien!
(Wait for it.)
Re:NMCI (Score:2)
While all of it was deployed during Bush's term, that alone should tell you the the planning (such that it was) began long before that.
I know; I worked for the Navy and spent many a frustrating hour on NMCI systems. Your post was a frankly pathetic attack on Bush. Especially since there are far more egregious messes you could have pinned on him.
Water-free urinals (Score:2)
Virtual spray-paint (Score:2)
Based on my days in
Re:Virtual spray-paint (Score:2)
You could do it for ten or twenty *dollars* if you used secondhand hardware like the Power Glove. Or, better yet, why not just buy a gyroscopic mouse or a graphics tablet and use Photoshop/GIMP?
Re:Virtual spray-paint (Score:2)
"Sure, we can do it, cheap ass PC and an off the shelf light gun hacked into a paint sprayer. We'll use the GIMP to keep software costs down. Lets call it a grand, there's no way it'll cost us more than a couple of hundred in parts."
Re:Virtual spray-paint (Score:2)
Come on, now, I think $19,900 for beer is padding the budget a bit much, don't you?
Some ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
a VR program that can train a congressman how to count, so the budget can get balanced
or
a robot teacher to teach science to Republicans
I'm sure I can come up with more pie-in-the-sky ideas.
a recent cringely column (Score:2)
FYI (Score:2)
While the bill isn't very groundbreaking, and doesn't change much, it does make a new policy for earmarks. Now all earmarks must be published 24 hours in advance, and the earmark can be stripped from the bill if 40 members of congress wish it to be removed.
Of course, if you tried to remove an earmark placed by a powerful
One party rule (Score:5, Insightful)
Before you slam Pork Tech projects... (Score:4, Interesting)
After all, Pork is the onething that's guaranteed not to be outsourced! Think about it -- you can finally ignore all those teaser /. articles about the newest company to invest $1B in India... you won't give a crap, because your job will be safe for 10 years or more, which in the Tech industry is an eon.
Now the only thing you'll have to worry about is getting the right Pork project, so that your skills don't languish in those 10 years, so much so that you become outmoded even for Pork projects.
Cheer up fellow /.tters. It's Washington to the rescue!
Re:Before you slam Pork Tech projects... (Score:2)
This is great! Oh, wait - we'd have to be French for this to work.. Oh well...
Re:Before you slam Pork Tech projects... (Score:2)
One man's pork is another man's state-craft. (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's be honest, some people complain if you spend money on anything other than what they personally like. Which would be fine if you represented everyone, and were fairly omniscient. Alas, nobody seems to listen to me when I say we should cut the War Department's (AKA Department of Defense) budget in half, and give the money to the national lab's, NASA, and health coverage for all American's
Because to me the pork in the economy is the military.
Re:One man's pork is another man's state-craft. (Score:2)
Re:One man's pork is another man's state-craft. (Score:2)
I'm tired of flushing -> waiting forever for toilet to reload -> re-flushing. I'm more ti
Just Give Me Some Action! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, let me be the first then to suggest:
http://www.taxpayer.net/ [taxpayer.net]
http://www.taxfoundation.org/ [taxfoundation.org]
http://www.concordcoalition.org/issues/scorecard/
Each spin a different way and I'm sure there's a few dozen more groups out there. One of which is bound to have a message that you agree with.
Ah Fear, what ever happened to Lee Ving anyway?
$100M To "Research" A Commuter Rail (Score:4, Interesting)
All of the important decisions about the rail have already been made, and the "research" mainly consists of trying to convince people that it's worth the astronomical costs to invest more money in such a system. We get so much federal funding from gas taxes specially allocated to mass transit, and Michigan has very little besides cars, so it's use it or loose it, but the proposal is just not going to happen in a region with a local recession, reasonably limited traffic congestion, and stable to declining population.
Sadly, this "research" gets in the way examinig of potentially useful and applicable solutions, which might actually be installed, and might actually have a net positive impact, especially in Detroit where poverty is so aweful and people have a genuine lack of transportation. Cheaper and faster solutions such as Mini Pods, more buses, or even rentable GPS tracked electric motor bikes might be considered instead.
Heck, just toss aside a measly 3% and double the M-Prize [mprize.org] and you'll do the people of Metro Detroit more good.
Water-free urinals? (Score:2, Funny)
-g.
An _entire_ generation? (Score:3, Funny)
Ob "The Young Ones" quote (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Figures (Score:3, Insightful)
Like the "youth" in France? A law that actually allows a company to fire you? WE MUST MARCH!
Bunch of ignorant fools.
Re:Figures (Score:2)
Hey least they are doing something active... Here if they pass a law that violates the constitution or lets people die in a national disaster, we might get irrate enough to post on
Hell... People were in the streets in Egypt to protest the Red Sea ferry sinking. Most of us here were hard pressed to even bother to take notice of the New Orleans
Re:Figures (Score:2)
What if the Supreme Court is also corrupt? Or no one bother's bringing the case to them? I'm not saying they are corrupt now, but what happens if in the future the system completley fails? Are you going to sit there and take it?
I'm sure our founding fathers could have not taken up their concerns with British government in the st
I'm forgoing moderating you down (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, you won't sleep with the boss? Fired.
You called in sick too much this week. Fired.
I don't like how you're dressing. Fired.
We hired on my 40-year-old brother. Fired.
Instead of working with the worker to correct behaviour that is causing a problem (and optionally letting them go after they have time to find another job), it makes firing be a big, ugly stick over everything.
Egalitarian societies [wikipedia.org] should not tollerate such laws.
Re:I'm forgoing moderating you down (Score:2)
Good, because the point of the mod system isn't to mod down people you disagree with.
you can't be fired unless there is just cause (and if so, you get a time unit of notice so you can find another job
If you suck at your job, why should a company keep paying you to work there? Not sure why I should be required to keep paying a worthless employee while they screw around looking for a new job.
The problem is this "just cause" nonsense. In the US, let alone France, "just cause" is
Re:I'm forgoing moderating you down (Score:2)
If the people of France wish to have such a system, then what is the problem? If they elect government officials to carry out a socialist policy than it isn't very democratic if you say they aren't allowed to do so.
Socialism is quite flawed, but if the majority of people of a nation want such a system and want to have strict labor laws and don't mind the high un
Re:Hear! (Score:2)
Communism's antithesis is Capitalism as they are both economic systems.
There is such a thing as a democratic communism.
Anyway's not sure if you were trying to make a joke or what...
Oblig. Civilization Ref (Score:2)
Re:pending bill text archive? (Score:2)
Re:Why is it not Chicken? (Score:2)
Re:Why is it not Chicken? (Score:2)
The option to live as long as you want would be nice. And with enough time, maybe the finite complexity/capability could be addressed.
Re:Where's my pork? (Score:2)
You seem to be trying to do things legitemately. This is not pork fundage, just fundage. If you get funding after talking to your local senator or representative, then it becomes porcine in nature. It's really all about handshaking and golf trips.
A case could be made for the squeeky wheel deserving its oil, but I have to say that the proper routes (such as the NSF, and other grant-giving organisations) seem perfectly capable of properly oiling the right
Re:Where's my pork? (Score:2)