Congressmen and Congresswomen feel compelled to "bring home the bacon." So they add self-serving appropriations to various bills to aid certain constituents or to make a name for themselves. These appropriations never go through committee scrutiny. You can browse through the "Pig Book," below, to see the plethora of pork projects. Some of these projects are likely in the national interest but many appear either frivolous or too narrowly focused at the expense of higher priorities . Here is a list of some that may seem frivolous:$107,000 to study the sex life of the Japanese quail.
$1.2 million to study the breeding habits of the woodchuck.
$150,000 to study the Hatfield-McCoy feud.
$84,000 to find out why people fall in love.
$19 million to examine gas emissions from cow flatulence.
$144,000 to see if pigeons follow human economic laws.
$219,000 to teach college students how to watch television.
$2 million to construct an ancient Hawaiian canoe.
$20 million for a demonstration project to build wooden bridges.
$160,000 to study if you can hex an opponent by drawing an X on his chest.
$100,000 to study how to avoid falling spacecraft.
$1 million to preserve a sewer in Trenton, NJ, as a historic monument.
$6,000 for a document on Worcestershire sauce.
$57,000 for gold-embossed playing cards on Air Force Two.
For more see: 2008 Pig Book and CNN and Fox News
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