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."
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.
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: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 it.
REJECTED would mean exactly that. throw this line out of the bill.
each line needs a spot to initial as this would make sure that it was at least looked at if not read. It would also be able to show exactly what a politian is for/against. No more spinning a bill that feeds hungrey children and slaughters baby ducks into my apponent wants to slaughter ducks, or my apponent thinks children shold starve.
I am typing on my phone so I will end this for now. please discuss.
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.
Re:Down with big government! (Score:2, Interesting)
This train of thought is perpetuated by the media and is self-defeating. Penn Jillette addressed this brilliantly in his novel "Sock". From the POV of a sock monkey he said:
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 take for granted today and cities would be goners. Everyone would be back to subsistence farming since that is probably the only way you could reliably survive without a functioning transportation system. Unfortunately I doubt you could go back to subsistence farming at this point without cataclysm since our population is so great now, and most people would have neither the land or the ability to feed themselves if they had to.