Have You Seen the Little Piggies in Their Starched White Shirts?

They look awful lot like Republicans. Take a look at the Citizens Against Government Waste’s latest installment of the Pig Book - always enlightening and, of course, uber-depressing. Party of small government, my Scotch-Irish arse. Why is this tolerated? Why are Republican voters so passive? If this was a Clinton-led government with a Gephardt-Congress, Limbaugh et. al. would bust a valve. But alas, GW and Big Denny bleed patriotic red and wear cowboy boots. Surely they would not lead us astray...

Anyway, the list is far too long to post, so I just pulled some examples. Here are some highlights from the biggest scumbag in D.C., Alaska’s own, Mr. Ted “Porky” Stevens, with whom I am perpetually amazed by his ability to spend our money on his buddies – at least he's creative:

$25,000,000 for rural and native villages;
$12,733,000 for Western Arctic Parklands;
$7,000,000 for Alaska conveyance
4,000,000 for a visitors center at the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge;
$2,000,000 for a track relocation study at Fort Wainwright;
$1,300,000 for berry research;
$1,099,000 for alternative salmon products;
$1,100,000 for the Matunuska-Susitna Borough;
$750,000 for the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park;
$500,000 for fruit and berry crop trials for rural villages;
$500,000 for the Arctic Winter Games (BTW – this appropriation is granted under the auspices of defense spending…)
$450,000 for the Bering Sea Fisherman’s Association;
$443,000 for new crop opportunities; $331,000 for food preparation and marketing research; $300,000 for commercialization of native plant materials;
$400,000 for the Ketchikan Wood Technology Center;
$250,000 for ethnobotany research;
$166,000 for salmon quality standards; and $75,000 for seafood waste research. $150,000 for the Alaska Whaling Commission;
$98,000 for the Alaska Sea Otter Commission.

And this is nice too:

$6,435,000 for wood utilization research in Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Mich., Minn., Miss., N.C., Ore., Tenn., Wash., and W.Va. Since 1985, $86 million has been sapped from the taxpayers for this purpose.

Wood utilization?? Arctic Winter Games?? I feel sick.