Political maneuvering and Orwellian thought

[elfs]

The ever-interesting Phil Plait documents a truly cynical attack on science funding. Using the arcane parliamentary procedures of Congress, Congressman Ralph Hall (R-Texas) attached language to the America COMPETES Act, a regularly refunded grants bill for science funding, then using other arcana called for the bill to be "recommitted," sent back to committee-- which had already filled its calendar and didn't have time on its schedule to reconsider the bill. Hall effectively killed the bill.

It could have avoided the recommittment via a voice vote on the floor, which could have quashed Hall's addition. Here's the ugly part: Hall's language called for the banning of pornography on government employee's computers. Which means that Hall either gets what we wants-- the bill killed-- or he gets what we wants-- a claim that Democrats quashed an effort to get porn off government employee's computers.

Okay, that's sad enough. We're rapidly falling behind in competitiveness, and Congressman Hall is okay with that.

What annoyed me, though, was Bart Gordon (D-Tennesse), who followed up with: "We’re all opposed to federal employees watching pornography." I find that very sloppy language. Does he mean ever? Or just on taxpayer time? Will there be porn testing in the future, like there's drug testing now?

Comments

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

porn stays in your system for weeks after use, you know, and pornography residue can be detected in your hair for months!

[taerin.livejournal.com]

/sigh

I apologize once again for the behavior of politicians from my state.

[kengr]

This is why I think we need to take the language used in many state's rules for initiatives and make it a constitutional amendment.

Basically limit bills to single subjects or closely related ones. No unrelated riders allowed.

If they had to have straight up votes on these things, you'd see a lot of politicians in trouble. Or being a lot more honest with their constituents.

[whatthehay.livejournal.com]

You've called it exactly right as a political game.

Our computers are already monitored for every key stroke and every website we visit. Anything that smacks of porn or social sites (Facebook, Myspace etc) are blocked and *cannot* be viewed.

In these days, many employees have their own laptops they bring to work and can put anything on them they please. It's supidity to try to do forbidden viewing of materials at work.

You will get fired. Big Brother starts by watching big brother.