No Earmarks on that Pork Barrel!

President Barack Obama's ban on earmarks in the $825 billion economic stimulus bill [AKA a giant barrel of pork] hasn't stopped interest groups, lobbyists and lawmakers who won't be able to funnel money to pet projects - they're just working around it, and being more secretive about it.

Some of those bacon-y projects? A Metrolink station that needs building in Placentia, Calif.; a stretch of beach in Sandy Hook, N.J., that could really use some more sand; a water park in Miami, a bridge to nowhere to no-wheres-ville... you know, pork.

Typically, thousands of useless tax-funneled projects would have been staple gunned upfront to get'er passed.... but now they have to try to get in on the back end of the process as "ready to go" jobs eligible for the stimulus plan.

The result, as The Associated Press learned in interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers, lobbyists and state and local officials, is a shadowy lobbying effort that may make it difficult to discern how hundreds of billions in federal money will be parceled out.

"'No earmarks' isn't a game-ender," said Peter Buffa, former mayor of Costa Mesa, Calif. "It just means there's a different way of going about making sure the funding is there."

So, to boil this ham down - they're just changing the name 'earmark' to 'job appropriations.' As long as that Miami water park employs someone, then it'll get Congressional money. Sorry, your money.