Monday, May 09, 2005
Real ID Again
I wrote about the Real ID Act in February, but it's become a hot topic this week as it comes up for a vote in the Senate. Security expert Bruce Scheiner explains the problems better than I can. unrealid.com has a form that you send email to your senator to vote against it but they've apparently succumbed to high traffic and are down. The Real ID Act has been attached as an amendment to a Senate bill funding the military in Iraq, so it looks like it's going to pass regardless and without any debate >in Congress (there was none when it passed in the house). I honestly don't understand how our government is supposed to work. And before I get another comment like I did last time, it's not necessarily the ideas in this bill that are bad, it's how they are written (broadly and with issues) and how it moved through congress that I object to.
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3 comments:
"I honestly don't understand how our government is supposed to work."... Me neither. So, last week I listened to audio book "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction". I think there was a lesson there on how to hide a purchase of the book in the larger appropriation bill. Even though I did not do all the excercises accompanying the material :), clearly, the book has some answers :).
Good pointer. I own the book but got a little bored by it. I just read chapter 4 on Congress. "Once a bill has been widely debated and minds have been made up as to its efficacy, it's amendment-sneakin' time." it then goes on to explain pork which it turns out was named for the plantation practice of distributing rations of salt port to slaves from wooden barrels.
By the way, I can't imagine the audio book is anywhere near as good at the printed version. There are many footnotes and sidebars that are very funny. Did the audio format include The Congressional Cafeteria Menu? or footnote 8 "If you can't fill in the blank with the word 'balance' by now, you are clinically retarded."
No footnotes in the audio version but, as a small compensation, you get the voice :).
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