NY learns telling welfare recipients to stop using EBT cards at strip clubs doesn't work...

If they would cancel these abusers EBT cards, they could have an impact.

Via The NY Post:

Welfare recipients swiped their electronic benefits cards to get cash at strip clubs, peep shows, porn shops and liquor stores for months after a state law was enacted to stop the practice.
A Post review of state Electronic Benefit Transfer records showed dozens of transactions at ATMs at the off-limits locales, including ABC Liquor Store in Brooklyn, Sin City Entertainment in The Bronx and Sugardaddy’s strip club in Long Island City.
The records were obtained under the Freedom of Information Law by The Post, which in 2013 uncovered numerous instances in which welfare recipients used EBT cards to get cash from ATMs at bars, porn shops and liquor stores.
In 2014, the state spent $2.2 billion in tax money on its Temporary Assistance program, which is intended to pay for housing, utilities and household necessities.

HHS officials living large on taxpayer's dime...

They should all be fired.

Via The Washington Examiner:

Helping America's poor, aged and sick is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' reason for being, but hundreds of its top officials are traveling in style and luxury at taxpayer expense.
Records obtained by the Washington Examiner under the Freedom of Information Act show that HHS executives spent $31 million taking 7,000 first class and business class flights between 2009 and 2013, including 253 trips for which a one-way ticket cost more than $15,000.
Half the records listed the price of a coach ticket for comparison. For that portion alone, the upgrade boosted the cost by almost $14 million, from $4.9 million to $18.5 million.
Federal employees are allowed to fly business or first class if the flight is longer than 14 hours, but only 1,400 of the 7,000 flights met that description.
For the vast majority of the flights — 5,100 — the government executives upgraded because they claimed they had a medical disability that necessitated it.

You funded a study to teach mountain lions to walk on treadmills...

You also funded a study to see if hungry people were more likely to stick pins in a voodoo doll. They are. 

Via CNS News:

Every year, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn and his staff compile an exhaustive volume of wasteful government spending from that year. The 2014 tome is chock full of government waste ranging from the redundant to the downright absurd.
Here is a list of my personal worst of the worst in federal waste:
Teaching Mountain Lions to Ride a Treadmill: $856,000
The National Science Foundation shelled out nearly a million taxpayer dollars to determine if captive mountain lions could be trained to ride a treadmill. The University of California-Santa Cruz researcher even boasted about receiving the grant saying, “People just didn’t believe you could get a mountain lion on a treadmill, and it took me three years to find a facility that was willing to try.” If anyone was wondering, it took the lions all of eight months to learn.
Studying how many times “hangry” people stab a voodoo doll: $331,000
After teaching mountain lions about treadmills, the National Science Foundation also funded a study to come up with the self evident conclusion that hungry people tend to be more angry and aggressive. They tested this theory by allowing spouses to poke pins into voodoo dolls as their “hanger” grew.
“Over the course of twenty-one consecutive evenings, 107 couples were given a chance to stick up to 51 pins into a voodoo doll representing their spouse. The pin-pushing happened in secret, away from the other partner. Participants then recorded the number of pins they poked into the dolls. Those tests revealed what may already be obvious to many couples: a spouse with low blood sugar was an angrier one, and stuck more pins in the doll.”
Keep on reading…

Tax dollars at work: 300,000 studying how “humans interact with bicycles”

Apparently, our government thinks riding a bike is poorly understood. My 6 year old granddaughter disagrees.

Via The Washington Free beacon:

The National Science Foundation (NSF) spent $300,000 studying how “humans interact with bicycles,” the latest example of what a House committee chairman calls waste in the agency.
The premise for the project, which was conducted between October 2009 and June 2013, was that bicycle dynamics are “poorly understood,” and researchers set out to come up with new designs to encourage more Americans to bike to lower their carbon footprint.
“Although human operator control models exist for numerous aircraft and other vehicles, the bicycle with a rider is a human-vehicle system whose dynamic behavior is poorly understood,” researchers at the University of California, Davis said in a paper publishing their interim results.
The paper said the authors had “deeper questions” about how people control bikes,

Tax dollars at work: $193,989 to study skill-building among gay men in Peru...

I don't even want to know what skill-building means....

Via CNS News

The federal government has awarded the University of California Los Angeles $193,989 in taxpayer funds to study skill-building as HIV prevention for male sex workers in Peru.

The grant was issued by the National Institute of Mental Health, a part of the National Institutes of Health, and proposes “a pilot study for a group that has been neglected in the Peruvian HIV epidemic, namely male sex workers (fletes).”

Men having sex with men in Peru have a “high burden of HIV” at 10 to 15 percent, compared to male sex workers, who have a 23 percent prevalence, researchers found.

According to the grant, recent HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) research in Peru has focused on “possible bridge populations” that include: heterosexually identified men, male sex partners of pregnant women, male clients of female sex workers, and men who have sex with men and women.

“However, there has been limited epidemiologic research and no prevention research focusing on fletes,” the grant said. “Our research has demonstrated that fletes are an important component of the Peruvian HIV epidemic with specific social, cultural, and behavioral characteristics that place them at high risk for acquisition and transmission of HIV and STIs.”

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