Grizzly DNA

(via Yglesias) I too remember McCain mocking Grizzly DNA research in Alaska as an example of pork spending. This was right after I heard a report on the study on NPR. So, today Chris Hitchens has a piece on the value of these studies to the Endangered Species Act. Yglesias is right - (as I remember thinking when McCain brought it up) that McCain doesn't have any good examples of pork-barrel spending - not all pork is bad. As Yglesias rightly points out, the problem is with the system for distributing earmarks where powerful senators get to make the decisions - which is an effecient and disproportional way of distributing funds.