60 Completely Outrageous Ways The U.S. Government Is Wasting Money - 


Is there anyone better at wasting money then the U.S. government?  Despite the sequester and all of the talk about “deep cutbacks”, the federal government continues to waste money in some of the most outrageous ways imaginable.  For example, does the U.S. government really have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to study the size and shape of the reproductive organs of ducks?  Does the U.S. government really have to spend 1.5 million dollars to study why so many lesbians are overweight?  There is so much waste that could still be cut out of the federal budget, and yet the very small sequester cuts that just happened are being described as “catastrophic” by many of our politicians.  But you know what?  The federal government will still spend more money in fiscal year 2013 than it did in fiscal year 2012 even after the sequester cuts are factored in.  So if this is how much whining our politicians will do even though government spending is still going up, what would they do if we were actually forced to start living within our means at some point?  That is something to think about.  In any event, please show this article to anyone that believes that the U.S. government is actually “tightening the belt”.  Sadly, the truth is that the federal government is still wasting our money in some of the most frivolous ways that you could possibly imagine.

The following are some of the completely outrageous ways that the U.S. government is wasting money…

#1 The National Science Foundation has given $384,949 to Yale University to do a study on “Sexual Conflict, Social Behavior and the Evolution of Waterfowl Genitalia”.  Try not to laugh, but much of this research involves examining and measuring the reproductive organs of male ducks.

#2 The IRS spent $60,000 on a film parody of “Star Trek” and a film parody of “Gilligan’s Island”.  Internal Revenue Service employees were the actors in the two parodies, so as you can imagine the acting was really bad.

#3 The National Institutes of Health has given $1.5 million to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts to study why “three-quarters” of lesbians in the United States are overweight and why most gay males are not.

#4 The National Institutes of Health has also spent $2.7 million to study why lesbians have more “vulnerability to hazardous drinking”.

#5 The U.S. government is giving sixteen F-16s and 200 Abrams tanks to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt even though the new president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi (a member of the Muslim Brotherhood), constantly makes statements such as the following…

“Dear brothers, we must not forget to nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred towards those Zionists and Jews, and all those who support them”

#6 During 2012, the salaries of Barack Obama’s three climate change advisers combined came to a grand total of more than $370,000.

#7 Overall, 139 different White House staffers were making at least $100,000during 2012, and there were 20 staffers that made the maximum of $172,200.

#8 Amazingly, U.S. taxpayers spend more than 1.4 billion dollars a year on the Obamas.  Meanwhile, British taxpayers only spend about  58 million dollars on the entire royal family.

#9 During 2012, $25,000 of federal money was spent on a promotional tour for the Alabama Watermelon Queen.

#10 The U.S. government spent $505,000 “to promote specialty hair and beauty products for cats and dogs” in 2012.

#11 NASA spends close to a million dollars a year developing a menu of food for a manned mission to Mars even though it is being projected that a manned mission to Mars is still decades away.

#12 During 2012, the federal government spent 15 million dollars to help Russian weapons institutes recruit nuclear scientists.

#13 Over the past 15 years, a total of approximately $5.25 million has been spent on hair care services for the U.S. Senate.

#14 The U.S. government spent 27 million dollars to teach Moroccans how to design and make pottery in 2012.

#15 At a time when we have an epidemic of unemployment in the United States, the U.S. Department of Education is spending $1.3 million to “reduce linguistic, academic, and employment barriers for skilled and low-skilled immigrants and refugees, and to integrate them into the U.S. workforce and professions.”

#16 The federal government still sends about 20 million dollars a year to the surviving family members of veterans of World War I, even though World War I ended 94 years ago.

#17 The U.S. government is spending approximately 3.6 million dollars a year to support the lavish lifestyles of former presidents such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

#18 During fiscal 2012, the National Science Foundation gave researchers at Purdue University $350,000.  They used part of that money to help fund a study that discovered that if golfers imagine that a hole is bigger it will help them with their putting.

#19 The U.S. government is giving hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority every year.

#20 Federal agencies have purchased a total of approximately 2 billion rounds of ammunition over the past 10 months.  It is claimed that all of this ammunition is needed for “training purposes”.

#21 During 2012, the National Science Foundation spent $516,000 on the creation of a video game called “Prom Week” which apparently simulates “all the social interactions of the event.”

#22 If you can believe it, $10,000 of U.S. taxpayer money was actually used to purchase talking urinal cakes up in Michigan.

#23 When Joe Biden and his staff took a trip to London back in February, the hotel bill cost U.S. taxpayers $459,388.65.

#24 Joe Biden and his staff also stopped in Paris for one night back in February.  The hotel bill for that one night came to $585,000.50.

#25 If you can believe it, close to 15,000 retired federal employees are currently collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually.  That list includes such names as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.

#26 The U.S. Department of Agriculture has spent $300,000 to encourage Americans to eat caviar.

#27 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $666,905 to a group of researchers that is conducting a study on the benefits of watching reruns on television.

#28 The National Science Foundation has given 1.2 million dollars to a team of “scientists” that is spending part of that money on a study that is seeking to determine whether elderly Americans would benefit from playing World of Warcraft or not.

#29 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $548,731 to a team of researchers that concluded that those that drink heavily in their thirties also tend to feel more immature.

#30 The National Science Foundation recently spent $30,000 on a study to determine if “gaydar” actually exists.  This is the conclusion that the researchers reached at the end of the study….

“Gaydar is indeed real and… its accuracy is driven by sensitivity to individual facial features”

Here are 30 more examples of outrageous government waste from one of my previous articles entitled “Chimps Throwing Poop And 29 Other Mind Blowing Ways That The Government Is Wasting Your Money“…

#1 In 2011, the National Institutes of Health spent $592,527 on a study that sought to figure out once and for all why chimpanzees throw poop.

#2 The National Institutes of Health has spent more than 5 million dollars on a website called Sexpulse that is targeted at “men who use the Internet to seek sex with men”.  According to Fox News, the website “includes pornographic images of homosexual sex as well as naked and scantily clad men” and features “a Space Invaders-style interactive game that uses a penis-shaped blaster to shoot down gay epithets.”

#3 The General Services Administration spent $822,751 on a “training conference” for 300 west coast employees at the M Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

The following is how the Washington Post described some of the wasteful expenses that happened during this “conference”…

Among the “excessive, wasteful and in some cases impermissable” spending the inspector general documented: $5,600 for three semi-private catered in-room parties and $44 per person daily breakfasts; $75,000 for a “team-building” exercise — the goal was to build a bicycle; $146,000 on catered food and drinks; and $6,325 on commemorative coins in velvet boxes to reward all participants for their work on stimulus projects. The $31,208 “networking” reception featured a $19-per-person artisanal cheese display and $7,000 of sushi. At the conference’s closing-night dinner, employees received “yearbooks” with their pictures, at a cost of $8,130.

You can see some stunning pictures of GSA employees living the high life in Las Vegas right here.

#4 Do you remember when credit rating agency Egan Jones downgraded U.S. government debt from AA+ to AA?  Well, someone in the federal government apparently did not like that at all.  According to Zero Hedge, the SEC plans to file charges against Egan Jones for “misstatements” on a regulatory application with the SEC.

Normally, the SEC does not go after anyone.  After all, when is the last time a major banker went to prison?

No, the truth is that the SEC is usually just a huge waste of taxpayer money.  According to ABC News, one investigation found that 17 senior SEC officials had been regularly viewing pornography while at work.  While the American people were paying their salaries, this is what senior SEC officials were busy doing…

One senior attorney at SEC headquarters in Washington spent up to eight hours a day accessing Internet porn, according to the report, which has yet to be released. When he filled all the space on his government computer with pornographic images, he downloaded more to CDs and DVDs that accumulated in boxes in his offices.

An SEC accountant attempted to access porn websites 1,800 times in a two-week period and had 600 pornographic images on her computer hard drive.

Another SEC accountant used his SEC-issued computer to upload his own sexually explicit videos onto porn websites he joined.

And another SEC accountant attempted to access porn sites 16,000 times in a single month.

#5 According to InformationWeek, the federal government is spending “millions of dollars” to train Asian call center workers.

#6 If you can believe it, the federal government has actually spent $750,000 on a new soccer field for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

#7 The U.S. Agency for International Development spent 10 million dollars to create a version of “Sesame Street” for Pakistani television.

#8 The Obama administration has plans to spend between 16 and 20 million dollars to help students from Indonesia get master’s degrees.

#9 The National Science Foundation spent $198,000 on a University of California-Riverside study that explored “motivations, expectations and goal pursuit in social media.” One of the questions the study sought an answer to was the following: “Do unhappy people spend more time on Twitter or Facebook?”

#10 The federal government actually has spent $175,587 “to determine if cocaine makes Japanese quail engage in sexually risky behavior”.

#11 In 2011, $147,138 was given to the American Museum of Magic in Marshall, Michigan.  Their best magic trick is making U.S. taxpayer dollars disappear.

#12 The federal government recently spent $74,000 to help Michigan “increase awareness about the role Michigan plays in the production of trees and poinsettias.”

#13 In 2011, the federal government gave $550,000 toward the making of a documentary about how rock and roll contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union.

#14 The National Institutes of Health has contributed $55,382 toward a study of “hookah smoking habits” in the country of Jordan.

#15 The federal government gave $606,000 to researchers at Columbia University to study how heterosexuals use the Internet to find love.

#16 A total of $133,277 was recently given to the International Center for the History of Electronic Games for video game preservation.  The International Center for the History of Electronic Games says that 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 across boundaries of culture and geography.”

#17 The federal government has given approximately $3 million to researchers at the University of California at Irvine to fund their research into video games such as World of Warcraft.

#18 In 2011, the National Science Foundation gave one team of researchers$149,990 to create a video game called “RapidGuppy” for cell phones and other mobile devices.

#19 The U.S. Department of Agriculture once handed researchers at the University of New Hampshire $700,000 to study methane gas emissions from dairy cows.

#20 In 2011, $936,818 was spent developing an online soap opera entitled “Diary of a Single Mom”.  The show “chronicles the lives and challenges of three single mothers and their families trying to get ahead despite obstacles that all single mothers face, such as childcare, healthcare, education, and finances.”

#21 The federal government once shelled out $2.6 million to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly.

#22 Last year, the federal government spent $96,000 to buy iPads for kindergarten students in Maine.

#23 The U.S. Postal Service once spent $13,500 for a single dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.

#24 In 2011, the Air Force Academy completed work on an outdoor worship area for pagans and Wiccans.  The worship area consists of “a small Stonehenge-like circle of boulders with [a] propane fire pit” and it cost $51,474to build.  The worship area is “for the handful of current or future cadets whose religions fall under the broad category of ‘Earth-based’, which includes Wiccans, druids and pagans.”  At this point, that only includes 3 current students at the Air Force Academy.

#25 The National Institutes of Health once gave researchers $400,000 to study why gay men in Argentina engage in risky sexual behavior when they are drunk.

#26 The National Institutes of Health once gave researchers $442,340 to study the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam.

#27 The National Institutes of Health once spent $800,000 in “stimulus funds” to study the impact of a “genital-washing program” on men in South Africa.

#28 The National Science Foundation recently spent $200,000 on a study that examined how voters react when politicians change their stances on climate change.

#29 The federal government recently spent $484,000 to help build a Mellow Mushroom pizzeria in Arlington, Texas.

#30 At this point, China is holding over a trillion dollars of U.S. government debt.  But that didn’t stop the United States from sending 17.8 million dollars in foreign aid to China in 2011.

So what do you think about all of this government waste?

Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…

Read more -

http://www.blacklistednews.com/60_Completely_Outrageous_Ways_The_U.S._Government_Is_Wasting_Money/24941/0/38/38/Y/M.html

A vial containing a virus that can cause hemorrhagic fever has gone missing from a research facility in Galveston -

A vial containing a virus that can cause hemorrhagic fever has gone missing from a research facility in Galveston - 


Officials say a vial containing a virus that can cause hemorrhagic fever has gone missing from a research facility in Galveston, but say there's no reason to believe there's a threat to the public.

The University of Texas Medical Branch said Saturday that there was no breach in the security its Galveston National Laboratory and no indication of wrongdoing. Officials suspect the missing vial containing the Guanarito virus was destroyed during the lab's cleaning process but the investigation continues.

The medical branch says the virus, native to Venezuela, is transmitted only through contact with Venezuelan rats. It is not believed to be able to survive in U.S. rodents or to be transmitted person-to-person.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was immediately notified after the vial was discovered missing Wednesday.

Read more -

http://www.kltv.com/story/21779393/virus-vial-missing-from-galveston-lab

Science Fiction Comes Alive as Researchers Grow Organs in Lab -

Science Fiction Comes Alive as Researchers Grow Organs in Lab - 




In additional to the artificial nose, Dr. Seifalian is making cardiovascular body parts. He sees a time when scientists would grow the structures needed for artery bypass procedures instead of taking a vein from another part the body. As part of a clinical trial, Dr. Seifalian plans to transplant a bioengineered coronary artery into a person later this year. His employer, University College London, has designated a person to oversee any future commercialization of it and other man-made organs.

The development of lab-built body parts is being spurred by a shortage of organ donors amid rising demand for transplants. Also, unlike patients getting transplants, recipients of lab-built organs won't have to take powerful anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives. That's because the bioengineered organs are built with the patients' own cells.

Until the late 1980s, few scientists believed it would be possible to make human organs because it was a struggle to grow human cells in the laboratory. The task became easier once scientists figured out the chemicals—known as growth factors—that the body itself uses to promote cellular growth.

Scientists started out growing simple organs. In 1999, Anthony Atala, director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., implanted lab-grown bladders into the first of several children with severely dysfunctional bladders. The organs have continued to function well for several years. Dr. Atala's team now is trying to grow a whole range of bioengineered parts, from simple blood vessels to human livers.

Read more - 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323699704578328251335196648.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLE_Video_Top

Cypriot president ‘warned his friends to move money abroad’ before financial crisis hit -

Cypriot president ‘warned his friends  to move money abroad’ before financial crisis hit - 


Cypriot president Nikos Anastasiades ‘warned’ close friends of the financial crisis about to engulf his country so they could move their money abroad, it was claimed on Friday.
The respected Cypriot newspaper Filelftheros made the allegation which was picked up eagerly by German media.
Germans are angry at the way their country has been linked to the Nazis and Hitler by Cypriots angry at the defunct rescue deal which called for a levy on all savings.
The Cyprus newspaper did not say how much money was moved abroad but quoted sources saying the president ‘knew about the possible closure of the banks’ and tipped off close friends who were able to move vast sums abroad.
Italian media said the 4.5 billion euros left the island in the week before the crisis.

Read more - 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297383/Cyprus-bailout-President-Nikos-Anastasiades-warned-friends-money-abroad.html

Texas Wants Its Gold Back From The Fed -

Texas Wants Its Gold Back From The Fed - 


Texas Moves to Repatriate its Gold from the Federal Reserve

This is one of the most interesting stories I have read regarding the precious metals market in quite some time.  It appears that Texas Rep. Giovanni Capriglione has a bill in play that would move the state’s gold from New York (where its under the “safekeeping” of the ultra shady Federal Reserve) to a depository within the state of Texas itself.  The reason this would be such a big deal if it happens, is because a lot of the gold bought and sold globally is not very likely not actually owned by those that “buy” it.  From my perspective, pretty much the only countries that actually buy gold and bring it within their borders are China, Russia and Iran.  Most other nations that claim they “bought” gold, most likely hold a certificate that states they have gold in London or New York.  So in other words, they have no gold.  It looks like Texas is wising up.

From the Star-Telegram:

Freshman Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, is carrying a bill that would establish the Texas Bullion Depository, a secure state-based bank to house $1 billion worth of gold bars owned by the University of Texas Investment Management Co., or UTIMCO, and stored by the Federal Reserve.

“If you think gold is a hedge, or a protection, you always want it as close to the individual and the entity as possible,” Paul told The Texas Tribune on Thursday.” Texas is better served if it knows exactly where the gold is rather than depending on the security of the Federal Reserve.”
You’ve gotta love Ron Paul.  The guy is still raising hell even after he left Congress.

The highly political Governor also appears to be on board…

“If we own it,” Perry said, “I will suggest to you that that’s not someone else’s determination whether we can take possession of it back or not.”

“We don’t want just the certificates. We want our gold. And if you’re the state of Texas, you should be able to get your gold.”

Come on Rick, that sounds like terrorist talk.

The United States and many other countries stopped pegging their currencies to the gold standard decades ago. Capriglione said the bill is not about putting Texas on its own gold standard. Rather, a depository would give the state a reputation as being more financially secure in the event of a financial crisis.

Transporting gold from New York City or other banks to Texas would be impractical from a security and logistics standpoint, Capriglione said.

Ok, that’s just weird.  Gold is shipped all over the world every single day.  This isn’t even an international shipment.  My guess is that the Fed has already made it clear they will not be sending any gold to Texas.

He believes that it makes more sense to sell the gold that Texas has elsewhere and repurchase it within state lines.

He said the measure wouldn’t pose a significant expense, because the gold bars could be safeguarded in a small area, no bigger than 20 square feet.

Again, if that’s all it is what’s so hard about shipping it?

Such a bill might not divide lawmakers strictly along party lines. Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, called it “an interesting concept” but said he wants to learn more about it and talk to “colleagues in the financial industry” before weighing in on its merits.

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-23/texas-wants-its-gold-back-fed

Salad is more dangerous than beefburgers, leading food expert warns -

Salad is more dangerous than beefburgers, leading food expert warns - 


Salad labelled as "ready-to-eat" is more dangerous than beefburgers, one of Britain`s top food experts has said, following a spate of Cryptosporidium infections linked to the product.

Certain types of bacteria found in the pre-cut salad bags can be almost impossible to kill, Professor Hugh Pennington said, unless the leaves are irradiated – a process the public would oppose.
His claim follows a Health Protection Agency investigation into an outbreak of salad-linked Cryptosporidium infections that affected around 300 people in England and Scotland in May.
In the analysis of the exposure to different salad vegetables a significant statistical association was found between infection and the consumption of pre-cut spinach.
When specific retailers were included in the analysis, the strongest association with infection was found to be with consumption of ready to eat pre-cut mixed salad leaves from a major supermarket chain.
"Together these findings suggest that one or more types of salad vegetables could have been contaminated," said the HPA.

Professor Pennington said the case also followed on from several in the USA where they are "very worried" about "washed and ready-to-eat" bagged salad.
Last year produce giant Dole issued a recall on its American Blend bagged salad in 10 states in those two regions, after the Tennessee Department of Health found listeria bacteria in one sample.
Demand for salad has boomed because of healthily eating campaigns. But salad is considered one of the products most likely to cause food-related illness – largely because greens are grown directly in the soil, and some pathogens can only be killed by heat or strong detergents, not just water.
Professor Pennington said: "It is generally safer to eat a burger than the salad that goes with it.

Read more - 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/9948987/Salad-is-more-dangerous-than-beefburgers-leading-food-expert-warns.html

Delta employee had pizza delivered to stranded plane -

Delta employee had pizza delivered to stranded plane - 


A Delta employee ordered 60 pizzas for delayed passengers on an Atlanta-bound flight from Tennessee after the plane was stranded on the tarmac for three hours on Monday.
Michele Carson-Vaughn, Delta Director of Field Services for the Southeast, says the airline's Knoxville station manager who has not been named was behind the idea, reports the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
Department of Transportation rules require airlines to let passengers leave a plane after a three-hour tarmac delay and to provide food and water after two hours.  Pizza, on the other hand, is not required --and neither is a police escort for the food.
Delta reportedly worked with TSA to clear the delivery through security and the pizzas were delivered to the plane by a police car that had its lights flashing, reports the Chronicle.
One passenger told NBC she and her fellow passengers were pretty excited to see the Pizza Hut pizza. 
"Everyone appeared happy after the pizza feed -- "but they just wouldn't serve us beer," said Vazmina."And yes we asked a bunch of times."


Read more:  -

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2013/03/21/delta-employee-had-pizza-delivered-to-stranded-plane/?intcmp=obnetwork

Pope calls Argentine kiosk owner to cancel newspaper delivery -

Pope calls Argentine kiosk owner to cancel newspaper delivery - 


Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mar 21, 2013 / 12:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis surprised the owner of a kiosk in Buenos Aires with a telephone call to send his greetings and explain that he will no longer need a morning paper delivered each day.

Around 1:30 p.m. local time on March 18, Daniel Del Regno, the kiosk owner’s son, answered the phone and heard a voice say, “Hi Daniel, it’s Cardinal Jorge.”

He thought that maybe a friend who knew that the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires bought the newspaper from them every day was pulling a prank on him.

“Seriously, it’s Jorge Bergoglio, I’m calling you from Rome,” the Pope insisted.

“I was in shock, I broke down in tears and didn’t know what to say,” Del Regno told the Argentinean daily La Nacion. “He thanked me for delivering the paper all this time and sent best wishes to my family.”

Del Regno shared that when Cardinal Bergoglio left for Rome for the conclave, he asked him if he thought he would be elected Pope. 

“He answered me, ‘That is too hot to touch. See you in 20 days, keep delivering the paper.’ And the rest is, well, history,” he said.

“I told him to take care and that I would miss him,” Del Regno continued. “I asked him if there would ever be the chance to see him here again. He said that for the time being that would be very difficult, but that he would always be with us.”

Before hanging up the phone, he added, the Pope asked him for his prayers.

Daniel’s father, Luis Del Regno, said they delivered the paper to the former cardinal’s residence every day.

On Sundays, he said, the cardinal “would come by the kiosk at 5:30 a.m. and buy La Nacion. He would chat with us for a few minutes and then take the bus to Lugano, where he would serve mate (tea) to young people and the sick.”

Among the “thousands of anecdotes” the elder Del Regno remembers is one involving the rubber bands that he put around the newspapers to keep them from being blown away when they were delivered to the cardinal.

“At the end of the month, he always brought them back to me. All 30 of them!” 

He said he gets goose bumps whenever he thinks about Pope Francis’ simplicity.

“In June he baptized my grandson, it was an amazing feeling,” Del Regno said. “I know what he’s like. He’s one of a kind.”

Read more - 

So It Begins: Darpa Sets Out to Make Computers That Can Teach Themselves -

So It Begins: Darpa Sets Out to Make Computers That Can Teach Themselves - 


The Pentagon’s blue-sky research agency is readying a nearly four-year project to boost artificial intelligence systems by building machines that can teach themselves — while making it easier for ordinary schlubs like us to build them, too.

When Darpa talks about artificial intelligence, it’s not talking about modeling computers after the human brain. That path fell out of favor among computer scientists years ago as a means of creating artificial intelligence; we’d have to understand our own brains first before building a working artificial version of one. But the agency thinks we can build machines that learn and evolve, using algorithms — “probabilistic programming” — to parse through vast amounts of data and select the best of it. After that, the machine learns to repeat the process and do it better.

But building such machines remains really, really hard: The agency calls it “Herculean.” There are scarce development tools, which means “even a team of specially-trained machine learning experts makes only painfully slow progress.” So on April 10, Darpa is inviting scientists to a Virginia conference to brainstorm. What will follow are 46 months of development, along with annual “Summer Schools,” bringing in the scientists together with “potential customers” from the private sector and the government.

Called “Probabilistic Programming for Advanced Machine Learning,” or PPAML, scientists will be asked to figure out how to “enable new applications that are impossible to conceive of using today’s technology,” while making experts in the field “radically more effective,” according to a recent agency announcement. At the same time, Darpa wants to make the machines simpler and easier for non-experts to build machine-learning applications too.

Read more - 

Snake Blamed for burning down home -

Snake Blamed for burning down home - 


Authorities believe a homeowner's response to finding a 
snake in her yard may have led to the fire that destroyed her house 
Wednesday.
The fire sparked at a home on Will Smith Road in the Liberty Eylau area of Bowie County, TX just before 7 p.m.

"While cleaning up, she saw snake, threw gasoline on the snake, lit 
the snake on fire," said Deputy Randall Baggett with the Bowie County 
Sheriff's Office. "The snake went into the brush pile and the brush pile
caught the home on fire."
Despite the efforts of several fire departments that responded to the
scene, the flames completely engulfed the home. It is a complete loss. A
neighboring home was also damaged on one side.
The fire remains under investigation. 

There has been no word from officials on whether charges will be filed.

Read more -

http://www.wdam.com/story/21757245/snake-blamed-for-burning-down-home