Let's take a look at those Mormon crickets. The senator could have looked long and hard and probably never found an earmark with a bigger role in the history of a state and a religion. The crickets aren't really crickets. They are a type of katydid, and a most unattractive type, as well. They were here long before the Mormon pioneers, and the bugs made life so miserable for those early residents that they looked to divine intervention, in the form of seagulls, to save their fragile crops.

Stephen King couldn't invent creatures this disgusting. Not only are they ugly, persistent and ravenous, they actually eat their friends who have died along the way. Witnesses describe the swarms as making an eerie sound as they approach, like a tide washing in from some invisible brown sea. In 2004, they destroyed 2.8 million acres of alfalfa and grain crops in Utah, at a cost that far exceeds the $1 million the federal government invests just about every year to combat the problem.

Last year, they destroyed only 37,500 acres, but that was likely the low point in what has become, according to the state Department of Agriculture, a seven-year cycle. In the '90s, the Clinton administration and Congress cut off funding, and the problem quickly got out of hand.

All of this would be easy to explain in an open debate in Congress, but that won't come.

So now, back to the tweeting, smirking senator:

"$2 million 'for the promotion of astronomy' in Hawaii — because nothing says new jobs for average Americans like investing in astronomy"...

Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com. Visit his blog at www.deseretnews.com/blogs.