Your tax dollars at work.

[F4lconF16]

29. Some of this is fine.

I don't know how much you actually looked into these, but some seem fine to me.

Studying the gambling habits of monkeys: $171,000

Another NSF grant funded the study of gambling monkeys. Under the guise of studying the “hot-hand bias” in human gamblers, the University of Rochester devised a computer game, taught monkeys to play it, and studied how they responded to winning and losing. A doctoral candidate who worked on the study seemed pleased to learn, “Luckily, monkeys love to gamble.” Taxpayers, on the other hand, will not be pleased to find out this study is set to continue through May of 2018.

I could see this having applications elsewhere, or results that could tell us other things.

Synchronized Swimming for Sea Monkeys: $307,524

This project garnered the support of three government agencies (National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, and U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation). In an effort to study the swirl created when sea monkeys move throughout the water, researchers developed a “laser guided,” “choreographed” team of synchronized swimming sea monkeys.

As someone who was going into aerospace, this makes sense. If you want to study fluid dynamics of groups, you need a way to coordinate them. It could have important results for understanding group behavior and movement and possibly other things.

Funding a “Stoner Symphony”: $15,000

The location of this performance shouldn’t shock anyone. What is sure to shock taxpayers is the amount of their money that was provided to the Colorado Symphony Orchestra to host “Classically Cannabis: The High Note Series.” Not only was the program pot-related, the people were encouraged to inhale (and chow down) while watching.

“One of the three concerts, called Summer Monsoon, advertised on its website this way, ‘Smoke up and fill your belly with Manna’s spiced pork, Sesame Seed Teriyaki Chicken, & Filipino Empanadas.’”

$15,000 to get people interested in the arts while promoting a newly legalized product that provides millions in tax revenue? Yeah, I think so. This is exactly what arts funding is for.

Producing the children’s musical: Zombie in Love: $10,000


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The National Endowment for the Arts funded the production of a musical to die for. Aimed at children four and up, the musical tells the story of Mortimer the teenage zombie and his quest to find love and happiness. The NEA officials justified this use of tax money by saying that Mortimer “exemplifies anyone who has felt like an outsider.”

Sooo what, do you just oppose all arts funding? What about a commissioned city statue featuring zombies? A book? What about a reading/arts program in the summer for teens that focuses on zombies? Seems cool to me.

Unfortunately, you didn't link to anything. So we'll probably never know. Meanwhile, our military has wasted over a million and a half with their wars (just wars, not even defence) in the time it took me to write this. Anti-government BS I would expect to see on a conservative site. I fully support the science and arts foundations.