Your tax dollars at work...

Half-a-mill for shrimp on a treadmill?

...I'd settle for paying a few bucks for a shrimp on the barbie.

How do you feel about taxpayer-supported research?

Sounds good until you hear about $500,000 to study shrimp "working out" on a treadmill. Or $1.5 million to create a robot that folds laundry. Or $300,000 to study how the Facebook-based game, Farmville, builds personal relationships.? (Or for the National Science Foundation, which is carrying out all this "work," moving into a new building that rents for $26 million a year -- compared to its current rent of $19 million per year?)

The list, which includes a study on gelatin wrestling, was disclosed as part of the video clip below from ABC News.

So how do you feel about the spending, now?

Bits & Pieces

I've been sifting through my inbox...here are a few things worth checking out:

• From Philly's own Fatima Ali: "We don't have to wait until after the election for a race war. We're in one now." You've got to read the whole thing to believe it.

• Remember that carbon offset effort the Democrats undertook in tandem with their convention in Denver? "The program, set up by the DNC Host Committee through the Denver Convention and Visitors Bureau and rolled out about a week before the convention started, raised a total of $18.34 worth of Canary Tags, offsetting 0.9 tons of carbon emissions." (According to AspenDailyNewsOnline.) I suppose almost nothing is better than nothing at all.

From Roosh Five.

• If you're going to threaten to blow up "The San Francisco Tribune," you might want to make sure it actually exists -- first.

• Is this what they mean by "putting a shrimp on the bah-bee?"

That's one way to cook 'em.

• Only in Berkeley?

• The Fed might bail out AIG. So, does this mean we'll all get a cut of their profits when things get better?

• Who is Chevy Chase?

The recognizable Chevy Chase (Maryland).

• Who needs experience, anyway?

• Sammy always has a great 'tude.

Sammy Hagar.

Extra: I grabbed this photo from TheJay.com...a terrific blog I discovered today. Makes you wonder if Eddie Murphy might need a new PR person.

Eddie Murphy got a big head: Photographed
along the 405 Freeway, Southern California.