PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: This is pretty cool. In the Philadelphia Inquirer PorkBusters gets called “the most effective citizen-journalist watchdog movement in a generation.”

I don’t know about that — it sounds like a bit of an exaggeration — but it’s nice to hear. There’s no question that PorkBusters has gotten a fair amount of attention, and that politicians are at least embarrassed about pork.

PorkBusters has certainly irritated Trent Lott, which is some evidence of success, and there’s a report that earmarks are down 37% presumably as the result of public pressure.

That’s not bad for a project only a few months old, run by a couple of bloggers without a budget with help from other folks in the blogosphere. But it’s going to take more than this to make a real difference. Changing the psychology is the first step, and that’s happened. And, perhaps, we’ve even started to change behavior. But we need a lot more of that, and I suspect that structural changes will be needed, too.

Still, it’s always nice to be noticed.