By the way, if earmarks come up anywhere, the Delaware delegation posted this:

[Muttocracy]

Which lists a lot of the appropriations.

http://biden.senate.gov/press/press_releases/release/?id=10e150a6-8bb7-459b-bfd1-09b6d4cee651

[jillan]

1. Love the openess of it, but I have to wonder

what is considered normal?

You hear all these figures and it seems like alot of money.
But is it?

[Muttocracy]

2. Joe on one of the talk shows was putting it in perspective of the federal govmt

and it's pretty small even for a national total. I think it's hard to have a sense of big numbers but I've worked for programs that get hundreds of thousands of dollars for science research projects, so they don't seem that big to me.