Tom Coburn's weird assed stimulus rider: No funds for pastel lights or zero-G chairs.

[Bucky]

I shit you not. OK (but not REALLY okay) Senator Tom Coburn has introduced a rider onto Obama's stimulus package. It reads...

None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available under this act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, arts center, or highway beautification project, including renovation, remodeling, construction, salaries, furniture, zero-gravity chairs, big-screen televisions, beautification, rotating pastel lights, and dry heat saunas.

"You got that, you zero-gravity chairs out there? Fuck you!"

Oklahomans used to be pretty smart.

[Skidmore]

1. 'Scuse me, but what's a zero-gravity chair?

And why does anyone need one?

[Bucky]

2. I'm guessing it's an exercise device. At the link you find out some EPA office has one

And apparently Coburn has a beef with the EPA. So he's out to screw them out of stim funds.

I sure hope this rider fails.

[NV Whino]

11. A zero G chair is

a recliner that takes the pressure off the hips and distributes the weight equally (hence zero G, I guess) along the back. I have one and it's great.

By the way, the La Fuma deck chairs are considered zero G as well.

[Wildewolfe]

3. Notice

how he lumps disparate things in. It's a way to get support for the arts out of the stimulus plan. Let's lump the arts in with Casinos.

Put in the list things that folks would by common sense exclude as luxuries or should excludes like Casinos, weird things like zero gravity chairs, dry heat saunas, big-screen TVs (which could have perfectly legitimate uses in things like say ... oh... museums) and you have a not so subtle end around being done.

Things that don't belong in that list... aquariums, zoos, swimming pools, community parks, museums, theater, arts centers. It's just more of the same let's cloak our real agenda in a thin veil of legitimacy as normal from them.

[DeepBlueC]

5. yeah, I noticed that

bastard

[crimsonblue]

4. well it's a good thing the rider won't make it into the bill

because it sounds like somebody forgot to take his meds and took the crazy train into town.

[Thrill]

6. He hates this country. I don't know what the hell is wrong with TX

continuing to send that asshole to Congress

[Bucky]

7. Texas

Oklahoma.

[Thrill]

8. Sorry mixed him up with the other windbag Cornyn

[Bucky]

Yep, I was about to be insulted until I realized...

that in your little crossed scenario, I could at least say I lost either Cornhole or Kay Baily Hutchinson in the transfer.

[Oregone]

9. Tell me this isn't going to pass

I need my zero G chairs.

What the hell is wrong with highway beautification projects? Does he realize how many people they can employ, and how much economy they can stimulate?

[Canuckistanian]

10. That's ROTATING pastel lights

Stationary pastel lights are acceptable.