Billy’s Swamp Safari, Trip 2

This past Friday Debbie, who was down visiting again, wanted to go see the alligators for real, instead of just maybe eyes.

This trip wasn’t quite as good as the first time. This time, when we got into the middle of the swamp

the boat did not stop and we didn’t feed any of the alligators there. In fact, we only saw one, underwater, and not well at that.

We did go to another place were there were several alligators with their heads above water, just vegging out:

Over all, I believe she had a good time though. It was still OK, but just not the same as when we got to feed the Gators and look at them real close!

Going to check out another place the next time!

More Politics, and the Wonder of it!

Ok, I know I said, at least to myself, I’d not post any more about politics, but I have a burning question/comment about what I see and hear about one issue in particular…

Over the years, I have heard many, many comments about a politician not supporting one side or another on an issue because they didn’t vote for something, or that they did support something (that may not be popular thing) by voting positive for something. One thing that is never stated in these comments is what else is attached to the bill.

When a bill is submitted to the members of the House and Senate it is a FAT document (oftentimes) that deals slightly with the issue at hand, and then has MANY, MANY other issues touched on as well. What do I mean?

Ok, let us say that the stated reason of the Bill is to “allow Stem Cell Research”. The bill has some comments on why this is good and that it should be allowed. It goes from the Creator of the bills hands into a Committees hands for a review. They agree or disagree with it and make some changes. At this point one or more interest groups will add an addendum to it that says something like “Congress will receive another 3% pay increase”, then it goes to another groups hand that group adds an addendum to it that reads “Abortion will now be allowed in all 50 States”. This goes on until we know have many issues covered, and many things are actually getting ruled on under the original title of “allow Stem Cell Research”.

So, a good Congress person reads it over from cover to cover before they vote, or has one of their staff do so for them. They happen to be anti abortion in a BIG way, but are happy to allow stem cell research. They find the addendum that now allows abortion. They make a motion to remove that addendum, it is turned down. They now vote against the whole package.

This announcement is made public that the Congress person is against Stem Cell Research, when in fact they aren’t, they are just against abortion that was tagging along on the same bill.

(Keep in mind, this is just a BROAD example, and does not pertain to any issue currently going on, other than the issues currently going on brought this back to my fore brain and made me post these comments…)

So, the underlying problem here is that a Bill is not restricted to ONE item! Why is that? I know that many times a VERY controversial item will be attached to a Bill just to kill a Bill. We need to get back to basics and make each Bill an independent Bill with out any attachments, not allowing side things to be put into it.

We also need to FULLY disclose what is in a Bill when we say that So and So did not sign it and is against it, when in fact they may support the primary Bill, just not the tons of things added to it!