Shrimps on treadmills, and Jell-O wrestling at the South Pole

The Feds must have an agency whose sole purpose is to find outlandish ways to waste taxpayer money. They seem to excel at it.




From the Washington Times:


The Senate’s top watchdog on government waste, in a new report Thursday, said taxpayer money has gone to fund such programs as Jell-O wrestling at the South Pole, testing shrimp’s exercise ability on a treadmill and a laundry-folding robot, all funded by the National Science Foundation.

Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, said he identified more than $3 billion in mismanagement at NSF, ranging from questionable studies to exorbitant operating costs, and in some cases duplication by the science agency of operations performed by other agencies.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/26/tax-dollars-shrimp-treadmills-jell-o-wrestling/

2011 first quarter GDP: 1.8%

Pathetic--even liberals have got to be bummed. How can they redistribute wealth if there is none?

From Reuters:

Corporate profits in the U.S. unexpectedly contracted in the first quarter to record their first decline in more than two years and the economy grew at the same pedestrian pace as previously estimated, a government report showed on Thursday.

After-tax corporate profits fell at a rate of 0.9 percent, the Commerce Department said, after rising at a 3.3 percent rate in the fourth quarter. The drop in profits, the first since the fourth quarter of 2008, likely reflected a slowdown in productivity growth as businesses stepped up hiring. Economists had expected corporate profits to grow at a 2.3 percent pace.

Gross domestic product growth was unrevised at annual rate of 1.8 percent, the department said in its second estimate, below economists' expectations for a 2.1 percent pace.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Corporate-profits-drop-in-Q1-rb-1412999475.html?x=0&.v=1