10 Cool Things The U.S. Government Spent Money On In 2011

1. Taxpayer-Funded Snow Cones for Emergencies (and Promotions) – $6,279

They were purchased to treat heat exhaustion in Michigan. Have you ever been to Michigan? It is depressing. Those poor people could use a rainbow snowcone.

Source: xobobox.com

2. Federal Dollars Goes Toward Cowboy Poetry – $50,000

There is an annual Cowboy Poetry Party where cowboys and cowgirls, poets and
musicians, artisans and scholars, rural people and city folks get together to recite prose for a week in January.

Source: badatsports.com

3. Taxpayer Dollars Go to Promoting Christmas Trees – $75,00

Normally liberals hate Christmas, but not this year!

Source: examiner.com

4. Video Game Preservation – $113,270

The International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG) received over $100,000 in federal funds for video game preservation. According to the organization‘s website, it collects, studies, and interprets video games, other electronic games, and related materials and the ways in which electronic games are changing how people play, learn, and connect with each other, including cross boundaries of culture and geography.

Source: news.cnet.com

5. Drug-Themed “Mellow Mushroom” Pizza Restaurant – $484,000

I ordered from a Mellow Mushroom franchise in Tallahassee once and it was awesome. I was shocked that vegetable vegan pizza was actually available at 1am in Florida.

Source: realhousewivesclipcoupons.com

6. Study Looks for Connections Between Cocaine and Risky Sex Habits of Quail – $175,580

Source: farmanimalspictures.com

7. Study on Jordanian Student Hookah Smoking – $55,380

Over the past three years, the National Institute of Health‘s Fogarty International Center has awarded a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher nearly $170,000 to study changes in hookah smoking habits and beliefs of university students in Jordan including over $50,000 in 2011.

Source: freakingnews.com

8. Study of Online Dating – $606,000

Researchers at Columbia University received over $600,000 to study how heterosexuals use the internet to meet one another, and how that activity influences their sexual behavior.

Source: cdn.verysmartbrothas.com

9. The Treehouse Museum Spends Taxpayer Dollars to Teach the Art of Puppetry – $74,470

There's a treehouse museum in Utah??!

Source: trekaroo.com

10. Feces -Throwing Reveals Communication Skills in Chimps – $592,527

Read this! It's actually really interesting.

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