More on the Money Sent Down the National Science Foundation Rat Hole
As the country careens toward bankruptcy, stratospheric taxes and a $14 trillion debt smother the economy, and hyperinflation threatens to wipe out our savings due to Big Government printing increasingly worthless currency to cover its never-ending spending binge, the National Science Foundation provides examples of what our liberal rulers have been trading our future for:
• $80,000 study on why the same teams always dominate March Madness;
• $315,000 study suggesting playing FarmVille on Facebook helps adults develop and maintain relationships;
• $1 million for an analysis of how quickly parents respond to trendy baby names;
• $50,000 to produce and publicize amateur songs about science, including a rap called “Money 4 Drugz,” and a misleading song titled “Biogas is a Gas, Gas, Gas”;
• $2 million to figure out that people who often post pictures on the internet from the same location at the same time are usually friends; and
• $581,000 on whether online dating site users are racist.
Then there is the mismanagement:
• Hundreds of millions of dollars lost to ineffective contracting;
• $1.7 billion in unspent funds sitting in expired, undisbursed grant accounts;
• At least $3 million in excessive travel funds;
• A lack of accountability or program metrics to evaluate expenditures;
• Inappropriate staff behavior including porn surfing and Jello wrestling and skinny-dipping at NSF-operated facilities in Antarctica.
Much of the lunacy is duplicated by others among the 15 federal departments, 12 independent agencies, and 72 subagencies that perform R&D for Big Government.
Don’t be too sure that a private company would never waste money so irresponsibly. Under Obamanomics, making a profit is no longer necessary or even desirable, so long as you have pull in Washington. The more incompetent the management, the bigger the bailout.
NSF apparatchiks at play in the Jell-O.
On a tip from BURNING HOT. Hat tip: Weasel Zippers. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.