I wish this was a joke...

Ever encountered something so morbidly ironic that you just wanted to find a corner somewhere and cry?

It just so happened this afternoon that my official duties required me to pick through something called Schedule C of the New York City Council's 2008 Adopted Expense Budget. For the layman, that's big stinking piles of municipal pork.

As I understand it, one activates this particular trough (there are others) by getting together with a few other council members and requesting money for a certain city-wide need, which can then get doled out to various favored non-profits.

In any case, I was hardly surprised (this is New York) to discover that one of these items lists Planned Parenthood as the recipient of a cool $50,000. My only question: Did they really need to fund it through the "Infant Mortality Reduction Initiative"?

Yeah.