Jell-O Wrestling And Porn Surfing For Science
Glad to see that millions of dollars in taxpayer money isn’t being wasted by the National Science Foundation, where they’re handing out grants by the fistful to study critical and pressing issues like how to ride a bike, how much housework a husband creates for a wife, and when dogs became man’s best friend.
Oh, and they’re also wasting billions of dollars in mismanagement and fraud, while spending copious amounts of time and effort surfing for porn on the Internet and Jell-O wrestling in Antarctica. This from a scathing report issued by Sen. John Coburn (R-Okla.), on the exploits of the National Science Foundation:
A dollar lost to mismanagement, fraud, inefficiency, or a dumb project is a dollar that could have advanced scientific discovery. This report alone documents at least $65 million in wasteful spending on low-priority projects, $19 million lost to fraud, $1.2 billion in duplication, and $1.9 billion in other forms of mismanagement. Altogether this report identifies over $3 billion lost to waste, fraud, duplication and mismanagement.
Some of the highlights covered in the report: a $315,000 study on how playing FarmVille on Facebook helps adults develop relationships; $180,000 doled out to the good folks at Dook to study why certain teams seem to dominate March Madness; $1 million to analyze Twitter slang; $600,000 to study group dynamics in the online video game EverQuest 2; a $480,000 study to determine if boys are more likely to play with trucks and girls with dolls; a $200,000 study on whether Turkish women wear veils because they are fashionable; and a $500,000 study of shrimp on a treadmill.
When they’re not hustling to produce “scientific” rap videos for YouTube, the NSF apparently finds time for other, um, diversions:
In their spare time NSF employees have been jello-wrestling in Antarctica at the NSF research station McMurdo station.
NSF spends $451 million annually through its Office of Polar Programs to support research efforts in Antarctica and the Arctic.
The organizer of the jello-wrestling event was fired for the offense. In an email he sent to the entire staff after his dismissal, he is reported to have referred to NSF as “fun nazis,” and claimed that he was “terminated for having harmless jello wrestling.”
In the email, he also mentioned that many participated in a “Polar Plunge,” a skinny- dipping excursion, just hours before the jello event. He mentioned the plunge “had plenty of nudity but no one got fired or reprimanded for doing that!”
I guess you have to draw the line some where. And about that porn surfing:
Investigative news reports found that some employees at NSF were spending more time viewing pornography than doing their jobs. The porn viewing was so pervasive that the cases overwhelmed the agency’s IG and undermined the watchdog’s ability to investigate other misspent funds or fraudulent activities.
One senior executive spent at least 331 days looking at pornography on his government computer and chatting online with nude or partially clad women— costing the taxpayers between $13,800 and $58,000. When caught, the NSF official retired but defended himself by suggesting he visited the porn sites to provide a living to poor overseas women. The senior executive explained “that these young women are from poor countries and need to make money to help their parents and this site helps them do that.”
It’s for the children, you see.
Coburn’s whole report is worth a read; just make sure you have a bottle of aspirin, or something, within easy reach.
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