In addition to pork and earmark legislation, should we be monitoring our Congress to ensure they're not writing stupid legislation?

While it’s a good idea, and to borrow a line from Enemy of the State, who’s gonna monitor the monitors of the monitors?

Yes, we should, but we need to be careful. One problem with monitoring is that it kills people’s ability to be honest when the truth is difficult to accept.

Something like Obama’s original plan (which I don’t think he has followed through on) of having every piece of non-emergency legislation on a website for a week (or something) before its signed into law would probably be a good starting point.

Rots of ruck!

so @iamthemob you are in favor of human-animal hybrids?

it’s not far fetched. and it might be better to debate the merits and ethics before a biotech firm starts working on one.

@zenvelo Heck, I’m in favor of human animal hybrids. Think of the possibilities!

@iamthemob Reminds me of a bill in the California legislature (although it was passed as a joke—and it’s pretty funny if you read the body of the bill)
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=21982

@zenvelo – Yes. Yes I am. And I don’t think it really is – this is really, in my opinion, just the kind of a priori legislation that stops innovation.

In theory, there could be a lot of testing at the cellular level, virus splicing, etc. that could fall under this. Firms aren’t going to invest in R&D if they’re not sure if what they’re doing is totally illegal.

@Rarebear – Uhm, I don’t know what you’re talking about. That bill is exactly what this country needs. That shit was a violation of Pluto’s civil rights.

There are jobs for people who do exactly that. They can work as journalists, or political staffers, and get paid to read proposed legislation and root out problems.

The thing is there are a lot of fairly transparent sites where we can look at bills and see some short descriptions and write our reps right from there – we’re not talking about the earmark stuff here – but we’re talking about the really, really stupid ones (and there’s a tone).

If you just look at the Congressional record as it’s released, and see what they’re talking about…

Yes. I wish every single person in Congress was far wiser and way more knowledgeable than me.

@iamthemob You know, someone might look back one day and say it was wise to pass that law when it was. In all seriousness, I know passing the law won’t prohibit the hybrids from ever being created, but they raise an excellent point that it could create lethal viruses. Not to mention the ethics.

Sorry, I work in biotech so you may not have chosen the best legislation to make your point for me. But I do get your point.

@YARNLADY you were exactly right when you said, “There are jobs for people who do exactly that. They can work as journalists, or political staffers, and get paid to read proposed legislation and root out problems.” It’s been going on for many years. Excellent point.

@YARNLADY I agree with you “there are jobs for people who do exactly that…” but the first thing that popped into my head when I read it is that I don’t recall the last time any of those job titles mentioned actually “rooted out problems”, at least not in a way that honored “the people” or were non-biased.

When I read @iamthemob ‘s question though what popped into my head was not the rooting out of problems as much as the not causing them in the first place. Like the animal/human bill mentioned (‘though I’d love to have some great amphibious traits so I could breathe under water) I have seen (on the resources where they are posted well in advance of a vote) bills for honoring Gandhi’s birthday or for congratulating Turkey on their independence etc. that seemed a bit idiotic considering the state of the union at the time these bills were drafted.

I’m all for wishing people well, saying happy birthday or happy independence day etc. but when we have deficits and arguments over healthcare and corporate greed/involvement in politics sanctioned by the supreme court and job loss and bank fraud and the fed and bailouts and so on and so on what the heck are those goofballs doing?

Why are they out of one side of their mouths bitching about how they don’t have time to read the thousands of pages in some of those bills (though they have staff for that) and out of the other side of their mouth they’re spending time planning birthday parties for dead people? It doesn’t make much sense to me & personally I figure just like there are TV shows now and then highlighting stupid things our money is spent on when people receive grants – there should be shows showing that representatives are drafting stupid and useless and time wasting bills that should have no place on any priority list.

@Jenniehowell – my point exactly.