Sunday
In love with a boy named Luca
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"Stupid Things Your Tax Dollars Pay For"
Not to make light of the other thread, but I posted a link to this article and I thought I'd cut and paste the body. Some of them are soooo crazy I've gotta  but in all honesty it is VERY sad when you think of what OTHER things lose out to "the budget" while these things get the bucks.
My personal favorite is, "Remounting the World’s Largest Mounted Fish"
Also, props to my neighborhood (Howard Beach) for making the list. 
1) Voicemail For the Homeless.
While the homeless in Summit County struggle to find food, shelter and clothing, this Ohio community made sure they were not lacking in one essential service: voice mail. A $1 million Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) will carve out $15,000 for the free voice mail service. Interestingly, the community spent only $10,000 of the same CDBG grant on transitional housing for "homeless single parents."
2) Training Classes for Casino Workers
Good casino workers are hard to find in the Kansas City area, according to the Departments of Labor and Education. Both federal departments teamed up this year and gave $784,000 in grants to the Kansas City Kansas Community College for a new training program geared to assist workers that may seek employment in a nearby planned casino.
3) Inflatable Alligator and Under Sea Waterslide
A preliminary report by the Texas Education Agency, released this past April, found that $367,000 in federal funds were misspent by the Cleburne school district. Audit officials became suspicious when, "The district did not provide lesson plans or other documentation to show how rental of an inflatable alligator and an under‐the‐ sea water slide supported reading instruction.
4) Tennis Courts and Artificial Baseball Field Turf
In 2000, the Frank M. Charles Memorial Park received a federal grant of $1 million to upgrade its deteriorating facilities, but according to Dorothy McCloskey, president of the park’s oversight committee, "the money was wasted." The problem, she insisted, was the park management’s "notorious inability" to perform routine maintenance, leaving the tennis courts and baseball fields in a state of disrepair. Taxpayers chipped in an additional $1 million grant this year to repair the tennis courts and to provide artificial turf for a baseball field.There is hope that this time will be different, "I’m not willing to see another million dollars wasted," McCloskey said.
5) The Heart of Rock and Roll gets $9,400/Student to teach Salsa Making
Fifty‐five teenagers are learning to plant vegetables and do landscaping through the Cleveland Botanical Garden’s "Green Corps," a work‐study program that teaches teens to make salsa. A grant of $517,000 – or more than $9,400 per student – was directed to the Green Corps out of juvenile justice programs at the Department of Justice.
6) Bridging the Generational Gap with Nintendo Wii
Indiana ($3,905) The Institute of Museums and Library Sciences, an arm of the federal government dedicated to "strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas," awarded a grant to Westfield Washington Public Library for the purchase of "a Nintendo Wii console, tv, camcorder and games."
7) Portraits of Pres Bush Cabinet Officers
Even in the age of high‐resolution digital photography, numerous government officials prefer to have their likeness captured for posterity on the painter’s canvas. Nearly $170,000 was spent on just six portraits for the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Commerce, the NASA Administrator, the Commandant of the Coast Guard and even the director of the National Cancer Institute. You Could have purchased each one of them a top of the line digital camera,and saved $160,000.
8) "George Washington Slept Here" Traveling Museum
Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, carries the proud distinction of being one of the places George Washington slept during one of the more than 24,000 nights in his life and they want everyone to know. To commemorate the occasion – and others like it through its history – the federal government has given the township $49,000 for a traveling museum to be displayed in schools, libraries and just about anywhere else people might be interested.
9) Senate Restaurants Post Huge Loss
According to Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the committee that oversees cafeterias, Senate restaurants will post losses as large as $2 million in 2008, following a loss of $1.34 million in 2007.40 Data from the Chief Clerk of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee shows that, "Since 1993, losses have averaged over $900,000 annually and taxpayers have been required to provide $18.1 million in operational subsidies.
10) For a Preview of the Democratic Infastructure progects Scottsville Streetscaping Project
Minor’s Diner and the James River Store are just the latest victims of Department of Transportation "assistance" that has proved less than helpful. The businesses were forced to close after $392,000 was given to Scottsville for a streetscaping project that shut down main roads, blocked sidewalks, and "left roads unpaved and uninviting."
11) Driving Tours and Exhibits for the America West Heritage Center
The Institute of Museum and Library Sciences will provide $200,000 to the America West Heritage Center in Utah – open only during the Summer – to develop a driving tour to help visitors understand what life was like in the Cache Valley from the 1820s to the 1920s. I can tell them what life was like, THEY DIDN'T HAVE CARS. Come ON! Let them make a map---and SELL IT! Or Just tell them if you hit the Great Salt Lake you've gone too far !
12) Restoring Robert Frost Farm--Sort of
New Hampshire ($205,800) The funds from the Economic Development Initiative grant program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development will be used for "major improvements to bring Crowds gather on Riverwalk for Flugtag, sponsored by Red Bull, in which aircraft are launched into the Hillsborough River. Frost's former home to good condition," according to the Frost farm trustees.
13) "The check’s in the mail"
IRS Mailings for Rebate Checks ($42 million) When Congress passed legislation this year giving every taxpayer a stimulus check, the Department of the Treasury felt recipients needed a little advanced warning. It spent nearly $42 million on a mailing to inform taxpayers not that their checks had arrived, but merely that they would be there soon. Anybody that did not know about the rebate probably lived in a different galaxy and couldn't spend the money on earth anyway. Wouldn't the money have been better spent on helmets for the idiots who thought of the mailing?
14) Remounting "World’s Largest Mounted Fish"
Following an absence of nearly a decade, a 32‐foot whale shark made a long‐awaited comeback at the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum ‐ mounted on a wall, that is. Leaky plumbing damaged the stuffed shark – thought to be the largest stuffed mounted fish in the world – while on display more than ten years ago, leading many to believe that it would never again appear in public. David B. Schwendeman, taxidermist, thought otherwise and rescued the shark with the help of a $135,000 federal grant from the Save America’sTreasures program
15) Search for Alaskan Ice Worms
The National Science Foundation awarded a grant of more than $325,000 to Daniel Shain, professor at Rutgers University, to trek to Alaska in search of the elusive ice worm. Unfortunately, he and several students spent two weeks this August hunting through snow and ice for ice worms, only to come back empty‐handed. According to the Cherry Hill Courier Post, "Shain said his SIXTH Alaskan voyage was a continuous adventure that had everything he'd hoped for but new populations of worms." SIX times taxes have paid for this!
16) Bike Path Along Baton Rouge Levees – Louisiana
A $1 million grant was awarded by the Federal Highway Administration – out of a fund set aside for road and bridge projects – to lengthen a bike path from downtown Baton Rouge to the campus of Louisiana State University. There are still people in Louisiana that need help from the Katrina tragedy over three years ago !
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