And No One Gets Fired

I like to goof off at work as much as the next person. But I've decided that I want to take my shenanigans to a whole different level. And I want to be all shenanigan-y and not have to worry about any repercussions. That's what I want. Ergo, I want a job with the federal government.

I'm sure that by now you've heard the story of how the Justice Department spent outrageous sums of money on minor items. What we're talking about specifically are things like spending sixteen dollars for one muffin and spending $8.24 for one cup of coffee and five bucks for a Swedish meatball. And all of this ridiculous gastronomical spending took place at conferences that the Justice Department held at places like the Hilton in San Francisco. Real smart.

Now look, I've been to plenty of conferences in my time. And this is what I can tell you about them: They're boring as can be. No one really looks forward to them, though they do appreciate a day or two away from the regular grind whilst still getting paid. There isn't a single thing at a conference that can't be conveyed to the attendees in some memo or packet form. Oh, and the notion that you have to travel somewhere to attend a conference? Completely ludicrous. There's nothing that you need/want to "learn" that you need to travel to. Ask anyone. It's all bull.

And after an audit revealed that the Justice Department spends money with less restraint than a drunken sailor on leave (my apologies to all drunken sailors, and thank you for your service), everyone was suddenly up in arms. Arms everywhere! And we heard quotes like this one from a one Charles E. Grassley as quoted in the Washington Post: "Sixteen-dollar muffins and $600,000 for event planning services are what make Americans cynical about government and why they are demanding change." Um, well, yeah. He's partially correct.

See, the follow up to revelations like this, again according to the Washington Post, went like this: "The Obama administration reacted to reports of $16 dollar muffins served at Justice Department conferences by ordering agencies to review the spending of taxpayer dollars at such meetings." Wait. That's ALL?!

ALL that they're going to do is ask agencies to REVIEW the spending of MY money?! Why in the bloody hell are they not doing that in the first place?! Remember all of that hope and change blather? Nothing has changed! Thus, my lack of hope! Don't you think that if "change" was your priority that you would have "changed" things a long time ago? Are you kidding me?! Some softhead out there (getting paid with MY money) thinks that it is OK to spend $16 each on many, many muffins and they don't get fired?!

I think that most people just assume that there is going to be waste. What makes us angrier than the waste is that nothing ever happens to the people who are buying all of these $16 muffins! They get to keep their job. Why is that?! It's MY money! I want them fired! I want people who have not a care in the world as to how they spend someone else's money on someone besides themselves FIRED. I don't want those people working in the federal government and I certainly don't want them in charge of anything having to do with accountability of finances! It's NOT irresponsibility. It's incompetence!

And I swear to you, if I read one, just ONE account of any of this incompetent spending having originated during the Bush administration, I am going to lose it. I don't care. This is what is happening now. And people need to be held accountable...by being fired. Also, if anyone out there has any idea what a $16 muffin tastes like, I'd like to know.

Sphere: Related Content

Don't Waste Your Waste

Ever just feel the need to tell someone to "eat s***"? Well, now you can do that and it's actually a possibility for them, thanks to some Japanese scientists who "...have actually discovered a way to create edible steaks from human feces." Oh, Japan. Is there anything that you can't do?

According to an article over at Yahoo! News, a one "Mitsuyuki Ikeda, a researcher from the Okayama Laboratory, has developed steaks based on proteins from human excrement." That's right. There are proteins in your poop. It's really not so much "Who knew?" as much as it is "Who cares? But I'll tell you who cared. Tokyo Sewage, that's who. Well, they might not have cared about the protein part, but they were concerned about the poop part. They had too much sewage mud. So they went to a wacky Japanese scientist and asked him what he could do with it. I don't know that they were expecting to get lunch out of the deal, but that seems to be what has happened.

I'm going to just interject a thought right here. What's wrong with fertilizer? Isn't poop good fertilizer? Don't they have crops that need...boosting or whatever you want to call it? Why wasn't fertilizer this scientist's first thought? How come he went right to"I wonder if we could eat it?"

I guess the poop, er, sewage had a lot of bacteria in it because there was a lot of protein in it. That's when they "... extracted those proteins, combined them with a reaction enhancer and put it in an exploder which created the artificial steak." OK, I think that someone is taking their liberties just a bit too far to start describing this stuff as "steak". Seriously? I'm thinking that if you're going to go with anything other than poo, you really can't just jump to "steak". They claim that "The “meat” is 63% proteins, 25% carbohydrates, 3% lipids and 9% minerals." Hmm. Now, if I read that right, the sewage is where the protein was. So that means that almost two-thirds of this little treat comes from waste. I don't even want to KNOW where the carbohydrates come from, so don't bother asking. I am NOT researching THAT.

And get this: "The scientists hope to price it the same as actual meat, but at the moment the excrement steaks are ten to twenty times the price they should be thanks to the cost of research." Ten to TWENTY times MORE than REAL meat?! No thanks! I don't care how many greenhouse gases this would eliminate! I'm not paying twenty times more than I need to in order to eat a burger made out of poo! What say I pay twenty times less than that and get a meal with NO POO in it? OK?

This scientist claims to understand "...the psychological barriers that need to be surmounted knowing that your food is made from human feces." Wow. Psychological barriers. That might be the understatement of my lifetime. But do you know what they're hoping will persuade people to dive right in? They're hoping that "...people will be able to overlook that ugly detail in favor of perks like environmental responsibility, cost and the fact that the meat will have fewer calories."

Environmental responsibility? I recycle, for cryin' out loud! I feel as if I'm doing my part. I am not going above and beyond sorting out my cans and bottles by eating a s*** sandwich! Al Gore weighs four hundred pounds and I'll bet that he wouldn't eat one of those things either. And are they really going to throw the "fewer calories" at us? Seriously, this thing could make me drop twenty pounds each time I ate it and I still wouldn't touch it. You know why? Because it's made of human excrement, that is correct! And do you know what has even fewer calories than eating the Japanese s*** sandwich? NOT eating the Japanese s*** sandwich.

This is a terrible idea that needs to be filed away in the "They Mean Well" category. There are plenty of other examples out there of things that were made, but they just didn't turn out so well. The Yugo. A McPizza. Geometry. All had humble beginnings but just never really panned out. This needs to go in that category. Immediately.

Sphere: Related Content

It's A Circle

The government is telling us what to eat again. That's right. They have revamped the food pyramid and are now giving us advice in the shape of a plate. They call it MyPlate. I don't know if they're trying to be all hip and make it sound like MySpace, but just the name alone irritates me, so you can only imagine how I'm going to feel about their new guidelines overall.

I'm going to be referencing a very informative article over at the Washington Post and from which I will share fascinating aspects of this insanity.For instance, the entire tone of the program is that everyone is an idiot and needs something that is almost an exact representation of the concept of eating in order to understand something that really isn't that freaking complicated! For example, let's take what a one Robb MacKie, who is the head of the American Bakers Association, had to say about it. "It’s brilliant in its simplicity...It’s something the average American can look at and get a visual feel for how they can fill up a plate at a meal.” No, it's something that an American with a below average IQ could maybe get a feel for. And brilliant in simplicity? Seriously, if you think about it and it's so freaking simple, why is everyone so fat? Do you really think that it is complicated guidelines that are making so many people look like the Michelin Man? I don't think that's it at all. If the "average American" need this simplistic sort of guidance for something as instinctual as eating, then we're going to be doomed much sooner than I had originally anticipated.

But that guy wasn't the only one with that sort of a tone. Here are some thoughts from a one

Robert Post at the USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion: "It’s grabbing the consumers’ attention that we are after this time, not making it so complicated that perhaps it is a turnoff....There is something really inviting about this familiar setting for meal time.” So,because it looks like a plate, people can relate it to their plates? When it was in the form of a pyramid, people just got so confused because they didn't eat off of pyramids and, therefore, they had NO idea what to do? Is that the argument? God, people are dumb.

Now, I'll admit that the revamped food pyramid was a piece of crap. Behold!

Yeah, I don't know what that is supposed to be, nor who thought it was a good idea. It's like kind of a pie chart and kind of a bar chart and kind of a graph chart all rolled into one unintelligible piece of crap. What was wrong with the original pyramid? Behold!

See, I don't see why they had to change that to the crazy one. What about it is so confusing to people? What weren't they getting? What's that? Ohhhh. You think it isn't that people weren't understanding it as much as they weren't caring about it? Huh. Interesting theory. But, that can't be right because the government went through all of the trouble to make us MyPlate so that we could healthy. It can't be because we don't care! If we didn't care, then we'd be surrounded by gazillions of fast food joints and kids would be fat. That's what would happen if people didn't care. Geez. That seems obvious. Now, where was I? Oh, right! Stupidity.

Of course, I'm assuming that the USDA has given some sort of a guideline on what size plate to use for this insanity. Because if you think about it, a 12-inch plate filled up with all of the food that MyPlate recommends is going to be a heck of a lot of food. They still haven't defined a serving. Naturally, that brings up the question of how high one can pile their plate. They've got the two dimensional thing down. Now what about the three dimensional aspect. Are towers of meatloaf ok? And of course, God forbid if anyone mentions the connection between food intake, exercise and weight. Madness, I tell you. Sheer madness.

Oh, and speaking of madness, I'd like you to just take one more glance at the MyPlate illustration. Now I'd like you to know that the Robert Post that I quoted above "...has spent two years developing the plate and the website". That's right. Two years to come up with a circle. Two years to come up with that? You have GOT to be kidding me. What in the hell were they doing doing those two years? How many shapes did they reject before finally deciding on the miraculous plate shape (ie, the circle) divided into four fairly equal sections?! This is what my tax dollars paid for? Two years of this crap? How much was this, exactly? Two million dollars?! If I had known that they were looking for someone to do this for two million dollars and they had two years to do it, I would have gladly done the work for half that amount and it would have taken me an hour. But that's only if I was drunk. If I wasn't drunk, I would have been able to crank that puppy out in five minutes. You know why? Because it's a CIRCLE, that's why! God, we're doomed.

Sphere: Related Content

Department of Redundancy Department

I don't know how I've made it through this week. I swear that it is just one more ridiculous things after the other that I keep hearing about. I'm going to need to start posting videos of cute little kittens if this keeps up. Today's exercise in futility is President Barry's newly formed Fraud Squad.

See, President Barry decided that it was about time that someone look into why gas prices are so freaking fracking high. And according to the Huffington Post "...President Obama unveiled a new working group to combat any fraud or manipulation in the oil and energy markets that may be contributing to near-record gas prices." Uh-huh. Hey. Wait a minute.

Are you telling me that we don't already HAVE something like that in place? I could have sworn that we did. We have the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, but it's hard to tell what their role actually is. Apparently, they're supposed to see if "...Wall Street speculation was helping drive up oil prices". I'm not quite sure why they need a commission for that, as I could tell you that it most likely has a lot to do with it. After all, isn't that kind of what happened just a few years ago when we were in a very similar petroleum predicament? But get this: Even if that is the reason why gas prices are going higher, the CFTC has "...not yet issued key regulations intended to rein in Wall Street gambling on food and energy prices." Which kind of begs the question, "What in the hell are you people freaking waiting for?!"

Hard to say. And for some reason, President Barry thinks that his new Fraud Squad (I don't even know if it has a real name, but that's what I'm calling it because who doesn't like a rhyming name?) is going to get to the bottom of things. As far as what their duties are supposed to consist of, let's see...oh. Here we go. According to the above cited article, completely useless Attorney General Eric Holder, "...who is in charge of the new inter-agency taskforce, specifically instructed members of the new taskforce in a Thursday memo to look into "the role of speculators and index traders in oil futures markets". Well. That sounds like something. Wait a minute. Why does that sound familiar? It's almost as if someone was already in charge of doing the thing that he specifically told the NEW Fraud Squad to look into. OH, that's right. That's because that is "...something the CFTC is already required to do".

Oh, you have GOT to be dry shaving me.

Look, I realize that I may be a little worked up here, but if there is already something in place to do something, why would you make up a completely new thing to do the same damn thing that is already supposed to be being done?! Are the people who are on the CFTC incapable of doing their job? If so, don't build a whole new commission! FIRE THEM! And all of this the day after President Barry saying that the first thing that he wants to cut is government waste. I don't know about you, but to me, having two departments that are doing the exact same effing thing is government waste. It's certainly pointless.

I know several people in the private sector who have taken on the duties of at least two employees WITHOUT a raise because their company was making cutbacks. Also, I know several people in the private sector who feel like their ass is constantly on the chopping block if they can't get done the things that they're supposed to get done. How about, instead of forming the Fraud Squad, if Eric Holder and his moustache tell the CFTC to get off of their collective arses and start looking into things. And setting some new regulations to help reign in all of this wouldn't hurt either. Way to go, President Barry. Well, at least he's consistent. Consistently doing nothing. Is it November yet?

Sphere: Related Content

All Encompassing Government Waste

Yesterday, President Barry had a little sit down with the Internet on Facebook. I call it a "sit down". You may call it a "town hall". Whatever you call it, I'm still not really sure what the point was. I'm sure that people wanted to think that he was trying to reach out to the young and hip crowd that uses Facebook and has actually taken the time to "Like" him on Facebook. Granted, of the 19 million-plus people that "Like" him on Facebook, only about 23% are 25 and under. About that same percentage of people who "Like" him on Facebook are 45 and older. You know what that means, right? It means that people all across the age spectrum "Like" President Barry. (Translation: It doesn't make a fat rat's ass worth of difference.) Big whoop.

And look, I didn't expect any revelations to come out of this thing. But I at least thought (or maybe I just hoped) that perhaps he could have gotten past the first question before tossing out a bunch of BS, not unlike a monkey throwing his feces its a cage. I thought and/or hoped wrong. Here's how it went: The first question he was asked (and I'm paraphrasing here) was to the effect of "What cuts would you make to help out our country financially?" It's a reasonable question. So why in the hell couldn't he give a reasonable answer? I don't know either, but he didn't. Instead, he just skirted the question and went on with something else. Do you want to know what he said? Seriously? His answer to "What would you cut?" was "Government waste."

::: blink ::: ::: blink :::

Government waste? Um, was I the only one who heard that and thought, "No s***, Sherlock."? Government waste? That's the best he can come up with? He can't get ANY more specific than that? Government waste? Well, I should hope to hell that he wants to cut government waste? Who doesn't?! But that's the best answer he can give? With NO specifics? Does he mean government waste like the entire Department of Energy? Does he mean government waste like the Department of Education? (Oh, come on! Doesn't it seem a bit redundant when you consider that there are Departments of Education at the federal, state, city and county level? How many freaking departments do we need? And why do we need a federal one? For funding? Fine. Let them fund. I'm fairly certain that it doesn't need to be as gigantic as it is to just dole out funds.) Who knows?! He just said "government waste".

We're so screwed. And we're so doomed. The problem is that whenever a program or a department gets started in this country, it never goes away. The spending never stops. It doesn't matter how useless or outdated or duplicitous that it is, it will never go away. I don't know why that is. All I know is that we're scroomed.

Sphere: Related Content

No Mo Spending!

Holy crap. Someone in Washington (well, more than one someone) has actually come up with a list of proposed cuts to cut Federal spending. It actually happened. I'm stunned. Now, there's no guarantee that any of these things are going to actually get cut. But as I read the list, I was wondering how in the world we ended up spending a freaking DIME on some of these things! Seriously. Did you know that annually, the Federal government shells out $1 million in (wait for it) mohair subsidies?! Subsidies for the hair of a mo! I've never even seen a mo! How much hair do they have? How much do they need? Why do the mos and their hair require my money?! Ah, so many questions, so few answers. Let's look at some other proposed cuts that I can't believe we're already spending money on. (For the record, while I am a proponent of almost any sort of cut in spending, I am against any cuts to any sort of non-wasteful, effective spending on our military and for our veterans. Listen, you take a job knowing that you could end up stationed in one of the crazy, crazy Sand Lands for a few years, the least I can do is help you out a little bit when you get back.)

Get this: Did you know that there is a "death gratuity" for members of Congress? There is. Do you know what that means? I didn't, but when I looked it up, I was appalled. If you're a member of Congress and you die, your family gets a payment (that is paid for by the taxpayers) that is equal to one year's salary. According to something called The Daily Caller, when crooked ol' John Murtha croaked it "his family got a $174,000 payment". When the overly ancient Sen. Robert Byrd died, "...his family received $193,400." When Sen. Ted Kennedy died, "...taxpayers footed the bill for $174,000 in payments to his family." Do you think that ol' Ted Kennedy's family needed almost $200k? I can't possibly imagine that they did. Apparently, this thing "...was at one time meant to act as a form of life insurance for the families of Members who met an untimely demise". But now that almost every single Senator is a millionaire, I'm hardly thinking that this is necessary. (By the way, when my dad died, do you know how much the Social Security payout was to my mom? $252. Not $252 thousand. $252. I was so insulted I almost told them to keep it. Oh, and this was in 2005, not the fifties or anything. And I know that it's sort of apples and oranges, but they're both fruits, so there's some parallel here. Man, I like fruit.)

What else? Oh, they want to eliminate the Davis-Bacon Act (which has been screwing taxpayers since 1931) to save more than $1 billion annually. This Act basically made it so that government contracts must pay a prevailing wage. According to Wikipedia (take it for what it's worth), "All federal government construction contracts, and most contracts for federally assisted construction over $2,000, must include provisions for paying workers on-site no less than the locally prevailing wages and benefits paid on similar projects." So, there's no getting anything done cheaper if you can. Nope. No sense in even bidding low. Nope. That it costs over a billion dollars a year makes me insane. That it has been in effect since 1931 (even though it has been suspended from time to time), makes me even crazier. Wouldn't you think that someone would realize that if it is being suspended (for reasons such as faster recovery from hurricanes) on occasion and things are just fine without it, shouldn't it pretty much be deemed unnecessary? Oh, wait. It's a government program. Never mind.

Did you know that we provide economic assistance to Egypt? We do. Do you know how much assistance we provide Egypt? $250 million per year. Do you know WHY we assist Egypt? Neither do I. Their economy ranks 27th in the world. That's not too shabby. Their unemployment rate in 2009 was 9.37%. Um, that's kind of about the same as the unemployment here in the US. You don't think that we could have used that $250 million to economically assist our own citizens? Unbelievable. By the way, we're also giving $17 million dollars each year to Ireland. No answer for that one, either.

And this little recap wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention that we spent $76 million annually on something called the Appalachian Regional Commission. According to their website, "The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is a regional economic development agency that represents a partnership of federal, state, and local government." Why just in the Appalachian region? Let's see...well, it was established in 1965 by an act of Congress. OK. I'm noticing that it seems to encompass all of West Virginia, so I'm going to have to assume that a Senator from West Virginia was heavily involved in this getting started. Hmm...I'm also reading that it has something to do with the War on Poverty in the mountains. OK, that's it. What a bunch of crap. $76 million? Really? For 40 years? Unbelievable.

Below is the entire list of cuts that are proposed by my new heroes (well, for today), the Republican Study Committee (courtesy of The Huffington Post). Their study claims that "The plan would reduce federal spending by $2.5 trillion over a decade". So when you hear some softhead say something to the effect of "it's just a drop in the bucket", please remind their dense, non-functioning selves that if you don't start putting drops of water IN the bucket, you're never going to fill up the bucket! You have to start somewhere! What part of that don't people understand?! Stop spending my money on the hair of the mo!

➢ Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy. $445 million annual savings.

➢ Save America's Treasures Program. $25 million annual savings.
➢ International Fund for Ireland. $17 million annual savings.
➢ Legal Services Corporation. $420 million annual savings.
➢ National Endowment for the Arts. $167.5 million annual savings.
➢ National Endowment for the Humanities. $167.5 million annual savings.
➢ Hope VI Program. $250 million annual savings.
➢ Amtrak Subsidies. $1.565 billion annual savings.
➢ Eliminate duplicative education programs. H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon, eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.
➢ U.S. Trade Development Agency. $55 million annual savings.
➢ Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy. $20 million annual savings.
➢ Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding. $47 million annual savings.
➢ John C. Stennis Center Subsidy. $430,000 annual savings.
➢ Community Development Fund. $4.5 billion annual savings.
➢ Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid. $24 million annual savings.
➢ Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half. $7.5 billion annual savings.
➢ Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20%. $600 million annual savings.
➢ Essential Air Service. $150 million annual savings.

➢ Technology Innovation Program. $70 million annual savings.
➢ Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program. $125 million annual savings.
➢ Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization. $530 million annual savings.
➢ Beach Replenishment. $95 million annual savings.
➢ New Starts Transit. $2 billion annual savings.
➢ Exchange Programs for Alaska, Natives Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts. $9 million annual savings.
➢ Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants. $2.5 billion annual savings.
➢ Title X Family Planning. $318 million annual savings.
➢ Appalachian Regional Commission. $76 million annual savings.
➢ Economic Development Administration. $293 million annual savings.
➢ Programs under the National and Community Services Act. $1.15 billion annual savings.
➢ Applied Research at Department of Energy. $1.27 billion annual savings.
➢ FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership. $200 million annual savings.
➢ Energy Star Program. $52 million annual savings.
➢ Economic Assistance to Egypt. $250 million annually.
➢ U.S. Agency for International Development. $1.39 billion annual savings.
➢ General Assistance to District of Columbia. $210 million annual savings.
➢ Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. $150 million annual savings.

➢ Presidential Campaign Fund. $775 million savings over ten years.
➢ No funding for federal office space acquisition. $864 million annual savings.
➢ End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services.
➢ Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act. More than $1 billion annually.
➢ IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget. $1.8 billion savings over ten years.
➢ Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees. $1 billion total savings.
➢ Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees. $1.2 billion savings over ten years.
➢ Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of. $15 billion total savings.
➢ Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress.
➢ Eliminate Mohair Subsidies. $1 million annual savings.
➢ Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. $12.5 million annual savings.
➢ Eliminate Market Access Program. $200 million annual savings.
➢ USDA Sugar Program. $14 million annual savings.
➢ Subsidy to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). $93 million annual savings.
➢ Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program. $56.2 million annual savings.
➢ Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs. $900 million savings.
➢ Ready to Learn TV Program. $27 million savings.

Sphere: Related Content

Stop Spending My Money On Stupid Crap

When people get all angry and uppity when talk of raising taxes comes around, it's not like there isn't a reason. There are plenty of reasons why so many people are sick of a buttload of wasteful spending and then having politicians tell us that we need higher taxes because there isn't enough revenue. Can't those morons figure this stuff out before they waste a gazillion of our tax dollars? The answer is no and I'm here to give you another example of an insane amount of money that was wasted on a bunch of crap. And by the way, it was pretty much crap from the get-go.

Have you heard of the "virtual fence"? In essence, it was supposed to be a technology based approach that would help secure our borders. No one ever really explained how it would work exactly and when they did try to explain how it would (hypothetically) work, they were still never sure if it would actually work. Even the freaking government knew how far-fetched it was. But do you think that stopped them from going full speed ahead with their project and your money? Of course not.

For the last five years, this unicorn project has been underway. Now, I don't know everything that they have been doing for the last five years, but I do know that they managed to spend ONE BILLION dollars while they were doing it. And if you're thinking that one billion dollars seems like a lot of money, you're damned straight that it is. It's going to seem like an awful lot after I tell you that after five years, this project has finally been deemed un-doable and has been canceled. Finally. One billion dollars later and someone finally pulled their head out of their arse. Great. It would have been a little bit nicer if someone could have pulled their head out of their arse before the one billion dollars had been spent. Perhaps, just maybe, someone could have paid attention to any one of a number of scathing reports that had been put together by the Government Accountability Office and then we wouldn't be in this position. But no. It took a billion dollars to induce said head pulling. Idiots.

And if you're wondering if we got anything at all for that one billion dollars, the answer is yes. Granted, it's not much, but it's something. Is it a billion dollars worth of something? Hell no. According to the New York Times, "In a pilot program in Arizona, it cost about $1 billion to build the system across 53 miles of the state’s border." A billion dollars? For fifty three miles of border? Yes. And mind you that in the "new approach" to border security, "...using mobile surveillance systems and unmanned drones already in the Border Patrol’s arsenal, would cost less than $750 million to cover the remaining 323 miles of Arizona’s border." Uh-huh. I see. Sooooo...if I do the math here, let's see...carry the two...divide into the...bring down the zero...all right then! ONE mile of "border security" cost approximately $18,867,925. That comes out to approximately $3,573 per foot. If you weren't angry before, you should be now.

While I enjoy the thought of unmanned drones whizzing along the border, I have a question. And I'm guessing that I must be missing something because I never even hear this brought up during discussions of border security. What in the world would be wrong with a big ass G-D fence? Have it go about ten stories below ground and about five stories above ground. Make it ten feet thick. Put some barbed wire at the top. Voila! What's wrong with that? I don't understand why it has to be all high-tech. Sure, high-tech is cool as can be, but all I want is for people to be kept out. I don't care if we don't use laser beams or teleporters to keep them out, just keep them out. And stop spending my money on stupid crap that isn't going to work! Spend my money to build a freaking fence and be done with it! At the very least, explain to me why a fence like I've described wouldn't work. But whatever you do, stop spending my money on stupid crap!

Sphere: Related Content

Your Tax Dollars Hard At Waste

Today I learned about ExpectMore.gov. (It's actually called www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore, but ExpectMore.gov will get you there.) It is a website, the purpose of such is apparently to make me very angry. It definitely sucked out most of my WTL (Will To Live) and kind of filled me with an HFOH (Heart Full Of Hate). Let's see if it makes you angry as well!

The purpose of the site (which is run by the Federal government) is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of all Federal programs and then rate whether the program is Effective, Moderately Effective, Adequate, Ineffective or Results Not Demonstrated. According to the page which explains what each rating actually means, Results Not Demonstrated means "...that a program has not been able to develop acceptable performance goals or collect data to determine whether it is performing." In other words, they're just screwing around. An Ineffective rating means that "Programs receiving this rating are not using your tax dollars effectively. Ineffective programs have been unable to achieve results due to a lack of clarity regarding the program's purpose or goals, poor management, or some other significant weakness." Well, that doesn't sound good. I guess the rating "Piece of S**t" didn't sound very official and that's why they went with Ineffective.

They have so far evaluated about 98% of the Federal programs and that amounts to 1,015 of them. Do you want to know how many are below Adequate? (And let me just tell you that the definition of Adequate isn't anything to throw a party over. It is indicative of a "...program that needs to set more ambitious goals, achieve better results, improve accountability or strengthen its management practices." Seriously, do you feel good about that? I don't.) Ready? 199 out of 1,015 are a complete waste of money. 19.6%. And that's not even ALL of the programs yet! More to come! Stay stuned!

Twenty percent of the governments programs have been deemed by the government to be doing nothing other than pissing away your money! That's astounding. Take a look at your next pay stub. Look at what you paid in Federal taxes. Take twenty percent of that and realize that, not only did you work to earn it and you can't have it, it isn't doing a damn thing and is being wasted. And when you hear what some of these programs are, you're going to be wondering why they were ever given money in the first place.

There's the Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program. It's goal is "To improve the likelihood that persons eligible for the Food Stamp Program (FSP) will make healthy food choices within a limited budget and choose physically active lifestyles consistent with the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) and My Pyramid". Uh-huh. Like that's going to happen. Of course, they really have no way that they're doing this. And that's why their budget has gone from $600,000 in 1992 to (brace yourself) $147 million in 1992 and THAT was eight years ago! So in ten years, their budget grew to 245 times what it started out at! And if I'm reading the chart correctly (it's a little hard to follow and I know that's completely shocking to you) their funding for 2008 was $312 million. That means that it's doubled and then some in two years. And it's not doing anything! I wish I could have a budget for some worthless piece of crap double in the span of only two years. Good Lord. Got your axe handles at the ready? Torches? Pitchforks? I'm just getting started.

There's the National Writing Project which is "...to promote K-16 teacher training and professional development in the area of writing. The Project consists of one national office and a network of local sites through which teachers have access to training, professional development, and current research about the teaching of writing." HOW MANY teachers does that scope actually make up? Is it enough to make it worthy of $22 million in funding in 2008? Since when do our grades go from kindergarten to Grade Sixteen?! Isn't that a senior in college? Shouldn't they know how to write by then? Why do they still need to be taught how to write?

There is the Black Lung Clinics Program (BLCP) which received $6 million in 2008 and is "...to establish and operate clinics that identify, diagnose, treat, and rehabilitate active and retired coal miners with occupational exposure to airborne particles resulting in respiratory and pulmonary ailments." I'm sure that you'll be comforted and satisfied to learn that "Since implementation of the Black Lung Clinics Program in 1979, only one independent assessment of the program has been conducted. This assessment did not provide an evaluation of the program's effectiveness and was limited in the range of issues addressed." Oh, good. So, in thirty-one years there has been ONE assessment. Sure. That seems easily explainable. Not by me, of course.

Let's not forget the Workforce Investment Act - Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers which got $83 million in 2008 for the purpose of providing "...competitive grants to fund training, employment, and other services to help economically disadvantaged farmworkers and their families. Through these services, the program seeks to help them achieve economic self-sufficiency by strengthening their ability to gain stable employment." What the what?! You'll also want to know that "Each year, more than 60 percent of the program's approximately 30,000 participants receive only supportive services, like emergency cash assistance." Wait a minute.

30,000 participants and they get $83 million dollars?! For the guys that pick the strawberries that are frequently permanently visiting here from foreign lands?! Emergency cash assistance?! I know some folks who could use some emergency cash assistance. Oh, but they're citizens and they don't pick strawberries. Why is this sounding more and more backwards the more I go on. (And by the way, do you want to or should I tell the Federal government that it's not "farmworkers", it's "farm workers"? Two words. We're doomed.)

And these few that I have listed were merely some of the Ineffective programs. There are plenty of programs with ridiculous sounding names that were rated Results Not Demonstrated. Programs like the $49 million Mentoring Program (I swear to you that's what it's called), the $120 million Teaching American History program, the $20 million Packers and Stockyards program and the $4.783 billion Universal Service Fund E-Rate program which is supposed to "...help ensure that the educational benefits of telecommunications services are provided to schools and libraries. The program provides discounts on these services in varying amounts based on demonstrated economic need." (What, exactly, do they mean by "telecommunications"? A PHONE?!)

Now, maybe some of those or the other 169 programs whose results cannot be demonstrated are actually doing some good. Since they results can't be demonstrated, I'm sure that some jackass congressperson will make that argument. Hard to imagine that if they were actually doing some good that they wouldn't be able to prove it, though. Hard to imagine. It's also hard to imagine that 20% of these Federal programs don't do squat. And they wonder why we're having budgetary issues. They wonder why the consumer isn't spending more. It's because the country is being run by a bunch of folks who keep spending our money on crap like this. That's why.

Sphere: Related Content

The Most Obvious Information You'll Read All Day

News is good. We like news. We don't like news that is not news. Is Lindsay Lohan always news? Always? No. Is Lindsay Lohan without a shirt on making out with a chick who is much hotter than Samantha Ronson always news? Yeah, pretty much. (Hey! In order to make this particular analogy work, I needed someone hotter than Sam! What's wrong with that? It's two chicks hypothetically making out! I don't think it's time for complaining!) But where I get stuck is when the obvious (aka the 'not news') makes its way into the news stream or is presented as news.

Case in point (also known as 'that which irritated me today') would be an article in the New York Times bearing the title "In Some Swimming Pools, a Nasty Intestinal Parasite". And they're not referring to that one neighbor kid down the street, either. It goes on to talk about how "Reports of gastrointestinal illness from use of public pools and water parks have risen sharply in recent years" because of a"...microscopic organism that lives in human feces" which spread illnesses "...when people ingest contaminated water." Ewww.

It's something called cryptosporidium. (Things that live in places like the human rectum usually have names like that. There's always an -ium or an -ius at the end.) The reason it can live in chlorinated water is because it's a smart little thing that has a little egglike shell on the outside of it which allows it to hang out for as long as 10 days in the water. It's as if Superman were not vulnerable to kryptonite (and if he lived in poo). In 2007 there were 31 recreational water outbreaks (ie, public swimming pools) which involved 3,726 unfortunate individuals. In 2004 there were 7 outbreaks with 567 people involved. They don't know if there's more of the poo-bug in the pools or if the increase is just because we've turned into a panic ridden society and there is more reporting of the incidents. (Oh, I'm paraphrasing there just a little bit.)

So let's just use our collective noggins to noodle through this here. The crypto butt bug lives in feces. Illnesses are spread when people ingest water the the crypto butt bug has been swimming in. Thus, the crypto butt bug has to find its way into the water. (We are assuming that the water is intended to be free of any and all forms of feces. You know. Because people are swimming in it!) This can be avoided by not having poo in the pool. Solved! Our work is done here! Who's up for a drink!

Not so fast. In the article, a one Michele C. Hlavsa of the CDC tells us "People should not swim or allow their children to swim when they have diarrhea." ::: blink ::: ::: blink ::: And newspapers wonder why their revenue is dropping. I was reading this online, but had I picked up my morning paper from the very end of the driveway (because for some reason, newspaper delivery folks have de-volved to where their arm cannot fling a paper more than a foot and a half from the curb) and read that helpful hint I'd be asking a few questions. Let me get this straight. I am paying for this subscription. Therefore, by including content such as "Don't go in a pool when your bowel control is questionable or non-existent" the publisher of said newspaper is assuming that I WANT that sort of information, that I must have ASKED for that sort of information as implied by my subscription to their lovely periodical. Not only is it assumed that I wanted and asked for that information, it is also implied that I wanted it SO badly that I was willing to PAY FOR IT!! Newsflash: I DON'T! I DIDN'T! AND I'M NOT!

Seriously? That's the best you've got for me? Who is that for? I don't think that information is for folks for read the New York Freaking Times! At least I certainly hope it isn't.

Oh, but as if that isn't bad enough, as I continued reading I realized how much they had hyped up this 'story' to make it appear worse than it is. We read about the increase in outbreaks and in people affected to be a difference of 3,159 more people in 2007 than in 2004. One has to wonder if there is anyone out there who is NOT swimming in poo! But later on they quote a one Utah epidemiologist Robert T. Rolfs who says that "One of the largest recent crypto outbreaks occurred in Utah in 2007. There were 2,000 confirmed cases". Wait. What? ONE of those outbreaks has 2,000 people affected? So, excluding that there were only 1,726 people affected by 30 instances? Well, that averages out to 57 people per incident, while in 2005 the average was 81 people per incident. So really, the average number of people affected by each instance of this has decreased. There are several reasons that could be speculated about as to why this is and some of them might even be relevant. Then again, some may not, as Dr. Rolfs noted that the aforementioned large outbreak was eventually slowed by "...temporarily barring all children 5 and younger from pools" and that the outbreak subsided "...after the swimming season."

Really?! AFTER swimming season, when there were no people in the public swimming pool that was affected, that is when the outbreak subsided? REALLY?! Shocking! Aren't the methods of modern science grand?! Ah, yes, it's a great time to be alive. Please kill me.

Once again my beloved statistics were brutally misused and assaulted by some gung-ho reporter (probably should be dung-ho for this story) who seemed intent on terrorizing the public by insinuating that feces in public swimming pools is on the rise (literally in most instances) and we should all be concerned about it! Oh, pipe down. (Believe me when I say that yes, feces in swimming pools IS a concern and SHOULD be a concern of all. Is it a NEW concern? Good Lord, I hope not.)

Did you notice how I just sort of breezed over the other insultingly obvious point in this non-news story? The part about ingesting water that's contaminated with the crypto butt bug is what makes you sick, so don't do that? Really? So, just so I understand, because it's a difficult concept to grasp, DON'T drink water that has feces in it? Because if I'm really thirsty, I'll just head right on over to the local swimming pool and just dunk my head right in the water and start gulping away. So, don't do that? I better write that down. Where's my pen?

It's like I'm reading an edition of the Helmeted Folks Times or something. Another 'need to know' tidbit they share with us is "never use the pool as a toilet." Again, GOOD TO KNOW! But then, for some reason that is completely unfathomable to me, they tell us "Children in diapers require vigilant attention."

::: blink ::: ::: blink ::: Why, yes. Children in diapers DO require vigilant attention. Yes, they do. ALL THE TIME! Not JUST at the freaking pool! But hey, if your kid is in diapers, should they be in the pool at all? Well, I guess, if you're going by the implication of that sentence and the prior golden advice of "don't swim with diarrhea", that seems to imply that it's FINE! Just be VIGILANT! After all, they might be in diapers, but do they have diarrhea? If not, then just be VIGILANT! It's a wonder there were ONLY 31 instances of this happening in 2007.

Other ways you can "protect yourself"? (Avoid people that write articles such at the one in the NY Times, for starters.) "Water in pools should not be cloudy, tiles should not be slick and filtration machines should hum in the background." Got that? So if you can't see the bottom of the pool and you're slipping on tiles covered in fecal matter, don't swim there. I know! I know! It sounds crazy! But after all, this was in the New York Times. They must know what they're talking about.

And so do I. That's why I'm pretty sure we're doomed. DOOOOOMMMMED! Happy swimming.

Sphere: Related Content