Word: pet
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...bombs (Solaris), his critics (Los Angeles Times reviewer Kenneth Turan, who says Clooney throws "everything but the kitchen sink onto the screen"), his embarrassing roles (the giant-nippled Batman), the people he doesn't like (director David O. Russell) and the hubris of having a potbellied pig as a pet (Max, now 300 lbs.), but he also gives reporters his home number (which this reporter should really remove from his cell phone because of the temptation to make prank calls as Robin) and invites them to his house. People who have met him just once have got offers to stay...
...reason the $388 billion spending measure that Congress rushed to approve by Thanksgiving is 3,320 pages long is that lawmakers have stuffed it with pork-barrel prizes. The bill has 11,772 pet projects costing a total of $15.8 billion, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a government watchdog group. Congressional leaders of both parties have always allowed appropriations bills to be larded with stuff to ensure votes for the final measure. But in the past decade, when Congress has been dominated by the supposedly fiscally conservative G.O.P., the amount of pork in appropriations bills has more than tripled...
...projects that, like the Punxsutawney Weather Discovery Center, were tacked on by legislators to curry favor with their constituents. While no one can come to a clear consensus on whether a certain issue qualifies as so-called pork barrel spending, estimates of the total set aside for these pet projects range from $11 billion to $16 billion. Other questionable giveaways in the bill include $250,000 for the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, $500,000 to renovate ski trails in Alaska, $4.9 million to refurbish historic bathhouses in Arizona, and $75,000 to the Paper Industry International Hall...
These projects might seem harmless enough. (After all, who doesn’t love historic bathhouses and weather folklore?) But what Peterson and his fellow champions of pet projects presumably won’t be including in their glossy re-election campaign brochures is that Congress also approved an adjustment to the chronically under-funded Pell Grant program, the principal means by which American students receive need-based government grants to attend college. Eligibility for the awards is determined in part by an examination of state tax information, but lawmakers chose to use tax tables that were out of date...
...victory in the legislative election would give Chen a new mandate to push through two pet initiatives: buying an $18 billion arms package from the U.S., and holding an island-wide referendum on changing the constitution, which was promulgated on the mainland in 1947, to make it more relevant to today's Taiwan. (China considers both moves hostile.) At the same time, Chen has in recent weeks repeatedly pledged that he won't declare independence or have it written into a new constitution. That's not just campaign rhetoric. Though it is Taipei's main backer, Washington is currently enjoying...