Does Solitaire threaten our country?

Hmm, this photo seems to be making the rounds on blogs and e-mail threads:

Here's the accompanying text:

House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, pictured standing, far right, speaks while colleagues Rep. Barbara Lambert, D-Milford and Rep. Jack F. Hennessy, D-Bridgeport, play solitaire Monday night as the House convened to vote on a new budget. (AP)

The guy sitting in the row in front of these two....he's on Facebook, and the guy behind Hennessy is checking out the baseball scores. 

These are the folks that couldn't get the budget out by Oct. 1 (last year) , and are about to control your health care, cap and trade, and the list goes on and on…. 

Should we buy them larger screen computers - or - a ticket home, permanently? 

This is one of their 3-DAY WORK WEEKS that we all pay for (salary is about $179,000 per year).

Okay, it is a funny picture, and it very well could be real. A few points, though. First, this is the Connecticut statehouse, not the U.S. Congress. And legislators there are only paid $28,000 per year. I'm not saying that justifies goofing off, but whoever wrote this text clearly thinks this is the U.S. Congress.

Also, if you've ever served on a committee or attended a seminar of any sort, you know how boring business can be at times. Solitaire and Facebook strike me as pretty minor offenses, and they don't necessarily impact productivity, particularly when the only other thing members might be doing at that time is listening to some other member go on and on about a youth baseball team in his district. Still, it's bad form to be photographed doing this.