FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents searched the home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens on Monday.

Stevens, who was formerly chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is the latest lawmaker reportedly under investigation for exchanging federal contracts for bribes, illegal gratuities and unreported gifts.

All I can say is it’s about damned time.

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CATEGORY: KETCHIKAN

BYRD ADMITS HE PLACED A HOLD, NOW LIFTS IT

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd admits that he placed a ‘secret hold’ on legislation that would make uncovering the Byzantine world of federal contracting as easy as typing a Google search.

Tom Gavin, spokesperson for Byrd, confirmed to Cox Newspapers that the senator placed the hold on legislation introduced by Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., before voting on the measure.

Byrd joins Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, for holding up the bill right before Congress left town on August 4.

Its nice to see a Democrat and Republican get together and agree on something for a change.

Senators Tom Coburn and Barak Obama have proposed S.2590, legislation that would create a single website with access to information on nearly all recipients of federal funding. The bill cannot proceed, however, because one or more Senators placed a “secret hold” on it.

Who is the secret holder? We want to know, and we want your help finding out. Call your Senator, and ask them to go on the record denying that they placed the hold. Then e-mail Porkbusters and let us know what they said! Senators who issue denials will be removed from the suspect list — and those who do not, won’t!

My money is on Ted Stevens. Just take a look at the stories in the Ketchikan category on this site to see why.

Senate committee to debate $463 million set-top-box subsidy, new DTV transition date

To comply, Sen. Stevens concentrated on a provision from the bill on which the current DTV Bill is based, which will spend as much as $463 million to procure set-top boxes – digital-to-analog converter units – for distribution to “eligible persons” who apply to receive these set-top boxes from the Federal Communications Commission. If Stevens had delayed action on this provision, the Committee would have been prohibited, under the so-called “Byrd rule” (named for Sen. Robert Byrd (D – West Virginia), the former majority leader), from debating the entire bill, including the hard date, for the remainder of this session of Congress.

emphasis mine.

With all that as a backdrop, some members of Congress from both political parties are likely to argue whether it’s prudent for the federal government to be spending half a billion dollars to ensure that lower-income citizens – some of whom along the Gulf Coast remain without homes – retain their right to watch TV.

Television is a right? When did that get added? I must have been sleeping.

Last July, although the full amount of the expenditure had yet to be determined, some Committee members spoke out against the appropriation of funds for what are essentially consumer electronics devices. Sen. John Ensign (R – Nevada) reminded the committee that current analog TVs won’t “go black” after the hard date, especially if they’re connected to cable systems, or to set-top converter boxes available through retail channels. Ensign referred to the PC industry – which recovered in the US after the rapid growth of the Internet – as proof that even lower-income consumers will pay premiums for services whose value could be substantiated. “We don’t need a subsidy,” he concluded.

emphasis mine. again.

Yup. And if you need proof of that, just go read all the blogs written by people bitching about how poor they are (in some cases even posting about how they happily recieve EIC from the government at tax time because they’re ‘so poor’). Yet they have blogs. And computers. And also post about their Netflix and Gamefly subscriptions, their DVD collection and in many cases, their car(s).

Here’s an idea. They should model this after the 8-track to casette program. Or the casette to CD program. Or the VHS to DVD program. You know, the ones where the Government gave people free upgrades to their outdated technology. Hell! Why stop there? Lets put together an XBox to XBox 360 program! A CRT to DLT Plasma program! WooHoo!

I can hear you already… ‘but those weren’t government mandated changes’. Well ok then. lets model it after the ‘seatbelts and airbags for old cars’ changeover. They didn’t do that? Oh… ok, how about the the ‘Sarbanes-Oxley’ mandate where the goverment subsidised the salaries and equipment required to meet…. they didn’t do that either? Hmmmm, ok…. how about portable propane tank changeover. You know, they one where they bought everyone new propane tanks and grill connections because of the Government manadated ‘safety’ change on the valves. What? They didn’t buy new tanks for the ‘lower income’ grill owners? Bastards.

Ah well. At least we now know how important it is to the government that they keep the masses plopped in front of their TV’s watching Fear Factor.

Enough already with kid gloves

Purple is replacing red as the color of choice for teachers. Why, you may ask? It seems that educators worry that emphatic red corrections on a homework assignment or test can be stressful, demeaning — even “frightening” for a young person. The principal of Thaddeus Stevens Elementary in Pittsburgh advises teachers to use only “pleasant-feeling tones.”

I’m dealing with this crap right now. My kids teachers grade their papers with purple ink. Its a pain in the ass when I go over my daughter’s tests with her. She takes it in blue pen, the teacher grades it in purple. Looks identical to me. I have a hard time determining who made what mark on the tests. If it was graded in RED, there wouldn’t be a problem. And I really don’t think my kids would be upset with a red grade. A red F is the same as a purple F. It’s an F. Of course with the grading scale they use now, anything 64 and below is now considered an F. I’d pretty much be royally screwed if they used that scale when I was in school (side note: its all Bush’s fault by the way. The teachers use every oppurtunity they have to say that No Child Left Behind forced them to change the grading scale. Funny thing is, they can’t tell me when the scale was actually changed (hint: before Bush)).

Anyway, back to the article.

It seems that many adults today regard the children in their care as fragile hothouse flowers who require protection from even the remote possibility of frustration, disappointment or failure. The new solicitude goes far beyond blacklisting red pens. Many schools now discourage or prohibit competitive games such as tag or dodge ball. The rationale: too many hurt feelings

…

Which games are deemed safe and self-affirming? The National PTA recommends a cooperative alternative to the fiercely competitive “tug of war” called “tug of peace.” Some professionals in physical education advocate activities in which children compete only with themselves, such as juggling, unicycling, pogo sticking, and even “learning to … manipulate wheelchairs with ease.”

Tug of Peace? Are they kidding me? Look, I can understand taking steps to stop people from calling dodgeball ‘smear the queer’. Outright banning dodgeball is outright stupid. And seriously, if they really wanted to protect kids ‘feelings’, they’d isolate every single one of them from each other. I can tell you from experience, third grade girls can be vicious little shits.