You’d think it was a joke, but it’s not. That’s the headline of a post on the The Hill‘s Floor Action blog: “Senate Dem Seeks Federal Funding for Diapers.”

The bill is S. 1778, and according to the write-up, the bill

would amend the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990 to allow diapers and related supplies to be bought with grant money provided to states. Under current law, the money is meant to subsidize child-care services to parents who are entering the labor force or are in job training and education programs. It also helps subsidize child-care services for certain eligible families.

Let’s be clear. This is a pro-diapers blog. We think kids should wear diapers. Yes, we do.

But it’s a different question whether or not this is a job of the federal government. Seems to us like it might be making the feds a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Below is the current vote on S. 1778. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article on the bill.

S. 1742 would prohibit fraudulently representing a product to be maple syrup.

S. 1753 would require operators of Internet websites that provide access to international travel services and market overseas vacation destinations to provide on such websites information to consumers regarding the potential health and safety risks associated with traveling to such vacation destinations.

S. 1620 would “ensure the icebreaking capabilities of the United States.”

S. 1041 would ensure the equitable treatment of swimming pool enclosures outside of hurricane season under the National Flood Insurance Program.

Won’t someone please think of the swimming pool enclosures?!

The House breezed past 1,000 bills introduced so far in this young Congress. Are you keeping track of them all?

H.R. 1000 would increase the number of people appointed to the military service academies from Puerto Rico by the Resident Commissioner from that territory.

It’s why we have a category on this blog for “Jack of All Trades – Master of None.”

Keep on truckin’, House.

Here’s your proof.

You’ve heard of helicopter parenting? S. 1693 would require the Secretary of Agriculture to enhance coordination with states and schools operating school meal programs in the case of a recall of contaminated food.

I think states and schools systems can handle it.

Happy Fourth of July!

What better way to celebrate the founding of our nation than . . . um, by . . . blogging?

Those were the words that introduced the WashingtonWatch.com blog one year ago yesterday – well, one year and two days ago.

That’s right, this blog debuted exactly one year ago, give or take a day. For reasons I don’t recall, the introductory post saluting our nation’s founding went out on July 3rd in the evening, rather than the actual 4th of July. So, why not, let’s celebrate our one year anniversary on the 5th!

It’s been a fun and interesting year of blogging. We scored some early blogging success by calling out the big bedbug issue. It’s an example of Congress getting into just about everything, and we’ve dedicated a whole set of posts to that kind of thing, which we call Jack of All Trades, Master of None.

Needless to say, there are people that disagree – they believe that Congress should handle this issue. Their comments are important and welcome.

Another fun category is something called “And a pony . . .” In it I’ve pointed out bills that over-promise what Congress can do. Everyone gets a pony!

But those fun categories were overtaken in the past year with lots and lots and lots of writing about the financial services bailout and economic stimulus bills. It’s been a huge year for big, expensive legislation.

We worked hard to get the bailout text up online as quickly as we could. Our bailout scandal post got some of the most traffic the blog has seen. (More posts on bailouts here.)

But the highest traffic has been for our post containing the text of the stimulus bill. It seems that people want to know what goes on in Washington. (More posts on the economic stimulus here.)

And the people – you – how you like to be heard. The comments on the site are in the tens of thousands each year. As we detailed in our 2008 year-end post, there were about 19,000 comments that year. As we’ve pointed out here, there is lots of entertainment in the comments. There’s ugliness too, as we highlighted in a post called “Racism Exists.”

Speaking of numbers, we’ve had about 150,000 visits to just over 450 posts here on the blog. Hopefully, the posts have helped to weave the bills in Congress together with the real world. It’s all a part of making Washington, D.C. a little more accessible to the people whose money it spends.

Speaking of money, there are endless things we would do to improve this site if money grew on trees. It doesn’t. But it does trickle in when more people visit. WashingtonWatch.com is advertising-supported (for the most part). So we need more visitors.

If you like what you find here – if you care enough to have read this whole self-congratulatory blog post – please take a little time to tell your friends about WashingtonWatch.com and how they can use the site to be better citizens – to be a little more like you. Thanks for reading!

S. 1244 would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect breastfeeding by new mothers, to provide for a performance standard for breast pumps, and to provide tax incentives to encourage breastfeeding.

That’s right:

• Breastfeeding as a civil right.
• A “performance standard” for breast pumps.
• Tax incentives to encourage breastfeeding.

There really is nothing that Congress won’t make the federal government’s business.

See also H.R. 2819.