Nope, I'm not kidding you. During my brief absence, both the House and the senate passed breakfast resolutions! Here they are:
Senate Resolution 67: A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that providing breakfast in schools through the national school breakfast program has a positive impact on the lives and classroom performance of low-income children.
House Resolution 210: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that providing breakfast in schools through the National School Breakfast Program has a positive impact on classroom performance.
Yep, both the House and the Senate, in all their glory, felt the need to say how awesome the school breakfast program is. Did they pass legislation to allocate funds designated to expand or support the program? No. Did they create a commission to study its success and recommend similar programs in other areas? No. As usual, they patted themselves on the back and made a big show of how awesome they are.
Good job, guys.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
A New Kind of Stupid Vote
Labels:
House,
Wasting Time in Honor of the Dead
Just when I thought things couldn't get more stupid, congress gives me a reason to add a whole new variety of stupid votes to the list. So with no further ado, the issue in question is this:
House Bill 131: To establish the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission.
For those of you who liked Reagan, let me assure you that my reasons for adding this to Stupid Votes has absolutely nothing to do with him or his politics. My concern is the nature of the commission that this bill attempts to create. I took a look at the text of this bill; let me quote a choice snippet:
The Commission shall--
(1) plan, develop, and carry out such activities as the Commission considers fitting and proper to honor Ronald Reagan on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth;
(2) provide advice and assistance to Federal, State, and local governmental agencies, as well as civic groups to carry out activities to honor Ronald Reagan on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth;
(3) develop activities that may be carried out by the Federal Government to determine whether the activities are fitting and proper to honor Ronald Reagan on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth...
Yes, you read that right. The people cannot be trusted to properly celebrate Reagan's birth on their own; we have to create a whole new government bureaucracy to determine in what manner it is right and proper to honor him. This sort of thing disgusts me. If people really want to honor Reagan, do they really need a government commission to hand-hold us in the process? Is that the purpose of government?
Really?
House Bill 131: To establish the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission.
For those of you who liked Reagan, let me assure you that my reasons for adding this to Stupid Votes has absolutely nothing to do with him or his politics. My concern is the nature of the commission that this bill attempts to create. I took a look at the text of this bill; let me quote a choice snippet:
The Commission shall--
(1) plan, develop, and carry out such activities as the Commission considers fitting and proper to honor Ronald Reagan on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth;
(2) provide advice and assistance to Federal, State, and local governmental agencies, as well as civic groups to carry out activities to honor Ronald Reagan on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth;
(3) develop activities that may be carried out by the Federal Government to determine whether the activities are fitting and proper to honor Ronald Reagan on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth...
Yes, you read that right. The people cannot be trusted to properly celebrate Reagan's birth on their own; we have to create a whole new government bureaucracy to determine in what manner it is right and proper to honor him. This sort of thing disgusts me. If people really want to honor Reagan, do they really need a government commission to hand-hold us in the process? Is that the purpose of government?
Really?
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Stupid Votes is back!
Labels:
Website Updates
Sorry for the extended absence, guys. I've been working on several projects, not the least of which is the creation of new tools to help me more easily track new stupid bills and resolutions. You'll noticed that I've just updated the Worst Offenders list to make it current to today. You'll also notice if you dig deep that there are a few bugs in it. Bear with me; I'm still getting it converted to the new system.
The new system allows me to use data from http://www.govtrack.us/ to more automatically fill out the Stupid Votes database with new congresspeople and stupid resolutions. It will never be completely automated, because there isn't any way for me to tell the server what is and is not a stupid vote, but now the process is little more than clicking a few buttons on my part.
So it is with a big thank you to the guys at GovTrack that I will be posting again, starting with a few of the more egregious examples of stupid bills and resolutions that came up over my absence.
The new system allows me to use data from http://www.govtrack.us/ to more automatically fill out the Stupid Votes database with new congresspeople and stupid resolutions. It will never be completely automated, because there isn't any way for me to tell the server what is and is not a stupid vote, but now the process is little more than clicking a few buttons on my part.
So it is with a big thank you to the guys at GovTrack that I will be posting again, starting with a few of the more egregious examples of stupid bills and resolutions that came up over my absence.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
