More fun with wastebook

Here, for your reading pleasure, are four more stories (paraphrased by yours truly) cribbed from Senator Tom Coburn's Wastebook report.  Afterwards, a Lokomotiv update.

#96 on the list:  Montana State University received a $742,907 grant to study how "targeted sheep grazing" could help organic farmers to get rid of their weeds without herbicide or tilling.  Once they do this detailed study on watching sheep eat, they plan to offer 2 new courses on their findings.  Get that?  $742, 907 to figure out that sheep eat weeds and to offer two entire courses to explain that sheep will eat weeds to students.  Martin savings:  The American Sheep Industry Ass'n. has a booklet on this very subject, on sale for $25.  Might seem a bit stiff of a price to read that sheep eat weeds, but, hey, you could buy one for every student in the university for $353,825- a savings of $ 389,082.

#94- The National Science Foundation was granted $338, 998 to study " the impact of women on Icelandic textile industry from Viking times to the 19th century."  Talk about a total waste!!! Give that money back so we can buy targeted sheep grazing booklets for the poor dumb kids at MSU!

#91- a group of researchers lead by Yerkes National Primate Research Center are using part of a $600,000 grant to figure out why captive chimps through poop at visitors.  One of the allied researchers is William Hopkins of Agnes Scott College ( an all-girls school who doesn't even have a football team!), who has also spent your tax dollars on determining whether a chimp is right or left handed and what effect that has on "reproductive success".  Now, as I recall, the tour at Black Pine animal sanctuary in Albion told us they through poop when the observer does something to disturb them or piss them off.  Regular tours go for $7.00 in the summer.  Martin savings- $599,993- less if you buy a pop or some food for the goats and camels.

#90- Once again, our friends at USAID.  $15 million/yr for last three years to "aid the families of civilians killed in the war in Afghanistan".  When the OIG audited their base last year, among the unconscionable things they found:
- absolutely no record keeping;
- piles of rat infested "food";
- "large quantities" of food that expired in 2004 (the program began in 2007);
- "program employees failed to verify delivery on at least THREE QUARTERS of all alleged assistance sent out."
-Wastebook had a picture of an ENTIRE WAREHOUSE full of rusted, twisted, wheelbarrows piled on top of each other.  In trying to copy this pic (which I failed to figure out for about a half-hour), I stumbled onto the actual OIG's report, which has even more disturbing pictures and data- if you dare.

USAID is quite obviously such a slipshod outfit, We could save a LOT of money just by dismantling them altogether.  How much I could not accurately determine, but it has to be somewhere between 3.1 and 39.5 BILLION DOLLARS.
Now, USAID will say in it's defense, and somewhat rightly so, that with the good that USAID does do, simply eliminating them is like tossing the baby out with the bathwater.  But, just like with Second Mile, if you know there's a sexual predator in the henhouse and you do nothing about it, sorry for your luck.  Burn it all down and replace it with someone who can deliver more than 25% of the time.

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Yesterday morning (our time), New Lokomotiv lost their first game in a valiant effort.  Trailing after one period, Raphael Akhhmetov tallied his first at 5:49 of the second to tie it at 1-1.  Four minutes later, Molot Prikamye Perm re-took the lead, but Oleg Yashin got his second as a Loko at 2:06 of the third to tie it at 2-2.  They went to OT, but we let the puck loose infront of our own net right off the bat, and Maxim Verevkin scored just 28 seconds in to win the game for Perm 3-2.  Nikolai Lozhkin had another great game, handling 23 of 26 shots.