Obama is Awesome!: Secures Earmarks for Lasers & Hummers
Obama helped secure $1.95 Million for the so-called "Compact Tactical Laser" program...Obama also landed $1 million for the Illinois Institute of Technology to develop a cost-effective conversion kit to retrofit Army Humvees with electric hybrid systems.
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Alright. Could be just me but isn't just about everyone and their fourth cousin sick and tired of earmarks. Earmarks are, for those of you who aren't aware, the even higher fat content counterpart of pork. At least old time pork got inserted as an amendment and actually voted on. Earmarks get inserted somehow after all the voting is really done, quite a feat in a democratic bicameral legislature.
Now I am sure that both Senator Clinton and Senator McCain have plenty of earmarks to their credit as well. This is not a rip into Obama for having bowed to peer pressure and inserted them. Nor will I deign to say that they don't seem like relatively worthy projects.
No, my criticism is directed at joy and awesomnimity (yes, I am aware that this wasn't a word but I will take full credit for coining it if you wish to use it) ascribed to Obama for these earmarks. This is not a function of the Senator but rather the "digger".
Earmarks suck.
They need to be gotten rid of.
They are not awesome regardless of their morality or necessity.
Furthermore, could they have "dugg" the post, from Andrew Sullivan, that Wired got this from or, for that matter, the post in The Chicago Tribune's The Swamp. No, we just "dugg" the first story we saw, not the breaker, the perpetuator.
To reiterate, earmarks, no matter how well intentioned, suck. Please don't celebrate their awesomeness.
Finally, kudos should be given to the Obama camp for releasing this stuff in such a user friendly manner: the list.
Comments welcome,
Pat McGovern
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