News You Can't Use: Obese to Wear Waist Sensors for Federal Study

Despite the seemingly endless run of that fat camp television show we've still got a big (haw haw) problem with obesity in America. Somehow watching food victims waddle up stairs to a giant scale for forty-five advertisement riddled minutes has done little to change the gorging and lazing habits that represent the closest thing we have to a shared national vision. Fortunately, our government is on the case and we've all seen their track record of success. We're going to attach sophisticated sensors to people with real bodies not like those Hollywood sticks and will, presumably, get real-time "Are you allowed to have a jelly doughnut?" updates or something.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is spending $1.7 million to monitor how and what obese families eat, tracking their eating via sensors they wear on their waists.

I guess we could just ask them, but you know how physical and moral failure walk arm-in-arm, so sensors must be deployed. Who is agreeing to this? "Hey fat boy, how would you like to wear an electronic device on your bloat that will document your pathetic lack of self-control?" Who could say no to that?

The research, conducted by the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of Virginia, began this month. Families will be monitored for months at a time.

I...want...my...fancy...degree. Man, that ain't working, you do the research at the Uni-verse-it-tee. That's the way to do it, grants for nothing and unearned respect for free. Let me tell, them guys ain't dumb. Maybe get a blister on your sensor finger, maybe get some chocolate stains on your thumb. What's that? Obesity studies? He's banging on a table like a chim-pan-zee.

A leading researcher on the project said the study is a “novel” approach to fighting childhood obesity.

Yeah, I suppose that's one way to describe this massive waste of time and money that might, if we get lucky, reveal that obese individuals take in more calories than they expend.

“Recent advances in remote sensing have provided a new paradigm for tracking human behavior, but obesity-related efforts focused directly on diet and activity have been hampered by not only the accuracy of behavior tracking (especially dietary intake) but also the lack of behavioral theories and dynamic models for personalized just-in-time, adaptive interventions (JITAIs),” according to a grant for the project. 

Let's try to parse this word swamp into vernacular English. "The rise of big brother and 'we are the dead' technology is giving us new ways to treat people like lab rats but when it comes to fatties [impenetrable and meaningless academic babble] so please give us money." Sorry, that was the best I could do.

“Current behavioral science suggests that family eating dynamics (FED) have high potential to impact child and parent dietary intake and obesity rates.”

LOL., FED amirite? USC and Virgina, master trolls messing with old Uncle Sucker.

The project will use wearable wireless sensors to track the family’s eating habits, in the hopes of bring about “behavior modification.”

We'll play some Beethoven, show you a video of someone eating a cake and inject drugs that make you physically ill.

Maybe sensors could help explain it.

The project, dubbed M2FED, is using a system of “in-home beacons, wireless and wearable sensors, and smartphones” to collect real time data of what the research subjects are eating. 

Everyone staring into tiny electronic devices is fixing every other aspect of our society so it makes sense to deploy it here.

USC has received $1,047,961 so far for the project. The University of Virginia received $689,315.

Thanks taxpayers!

“It is a pretty ambitious project, but the data that we accrue will be absolutely novel and informative,” she said. “We are going to learn many new things with this proposal about how family systems function dynamically around food and eating, and how this impacts eating behavior.”

Think of the "most of it actually gets into the mouth instead of flying off as crumbs" breakthroughs we'll be making!

Spruijt-Metz’s Obesity Research and Mobile Health Lab at USC uses technology to develop “culturally sensitive, evidence based approaches to promote health behavior change.”

It's like solving the world's hardest mystery, while walking on eggshells to avoid offending anyone.

Spruijt-Metz is also leading a $1,131,922 study for the National Institutes of Health that turned First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House garden into a video game.

Escape the Witch's Garden of Evil before she can seize our beloved grease food! Dodge foul-tasting "nutritious" government meals and earn big points for grabbing those yummy cheeseburgers!

Don't visit the ad-intensive source: http://freebeacon.com/issues/obese-to-wear-waist-sensors-for-federal-study/

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Government Waste Includes Swedish Massages for Rabbits, Monkey Gambling Lessons

How would you like to hear about massive government waste involving your tax dollars? I know, the Big Game is on soon and thinking causes physical pain and sexual side-effects, but in this case I promise it will be worth it. We're talking gambling monkeys, rabbits that live in the lap of decadent luxury and some Republican trapped on the wrong side of history trying to get someone, anyone, to actually care about this appalling misappropriation. Yes, this should be the new youth fad. "Hey dawg, let's rap about the appropriation of federal funds. Totally rad! Twenty-three skiddoo!"

More than a dozen lucky rabbits were given Swedish massages four times a day, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, as part of a study to figure out whether massage can help recovery times after strenuous exercise — a practice Sen. Tom Coburn says makes a mockery of federal spending.

I can see giving tax dollars to "moderate" terrorists or blimp attack defense domes, but I didn't get all those automatic pay check deductions so Bugs Bunny can get endless deep tissue stimulation! Basic research, the oldest con game in the book.

The rabbit massages are one of the hundred wasteful products Mr. Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, identified in his latest edition of the Wastebook, an annual compendium of the ridiculous and outrageous items in government spending, which he is releasing on Wednesday.

On Wastebook you post pictures of yourself achieving nothing of any value, sometimes paired with self-congratulatory text updates. So it's just like that other one.

Every year this guy lists the outrages and nothing ever changes. We need to start caring about PEOPLE, man. Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna fall off this bar stool, stagger home and beat my family savagely.

Other highlights included the National Science Foundation paying academics to teach monkeys to gamble

"No, Chin Chin! You don't split up two tens!!!

A first-person combat shooting video game the Army developed — but which intelligence officials fear terrorists could use to train their own recruits.

I don't want to alarm you, but the terrorists may have access to video games. Seriously, what is this? I always assumed terrorists trainees (complete with special little name tags) just watch endless episodes of "Jersey Shore," "Teen Mom" and "Real Housewives" until the proper hatred for the American Satan has been instilled.

Indeed, Hezbollah has adapted the game’s design to train suicide martyrs.

"Pretend the dots are innocent people and the ghosts represent enemy soldiers."

Mr. Coburn’s investigators also found scientists putting mountain lions, monkeys, rats and cows on treadmills.

Our national mountain lion obesity problem is deeply troubling. This is the way forward.

In the case of the rabbits, they weren’t put on treadmills but were forced to exercise in order to create stress.

"Get off that treadmill, Thumper! What do you think you are, a cow or something?"

Science!

Taxpayers paid $387,000 for the two-year study, which concluded that other studies were right, and massage seemed to help in recovery — though it wasn’t clear that rabbit physiology could be extrapolated to humans. The rabbits were euthanized at the end of the study, Mr. Coburn’s report says.

It's funny that in the rush to get all scandalized over the sweet life of these jumping vermin we kind of glossed over the whole "euthanized" thing. 

Full Story.

Komment Korner  

The country fell short by roughly 536 impeachment hearings that year.

Who Is John Galt?

Next time Sen. Coburn needs life saving modern medial care, maybe he should decline as it is almost certainly grounded in basic research that, since he has no expertise or ability to put in context, he'd declare was a waste of taxpayers money when it was performed.

You've got to pass what's in the cupboard before you can see what's in the cupboard

Barbara, I think you're falling for a classic Tom Coburn misdirection.

Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read free excerpts here and here.

His first novel "The Foolchild Invention" is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: ‘Blind’ Man Caught in Disability Fraud After Seen Driving a Speed Boat

Ready to pull that big scam on Uncle Sucker and cash in on the federal reserve crumbs? Of course you are. Here's a free tip, though. Don't pick the first disability that pops into your head. Believe it or not, pretending to be blind for an extended period of time might prove difficult, especially if you happen to be into boating. Play it safe and claim something like "Uncontrollable Falling Down Syndrome" or "Late Stage Cancer."

A “blind” Wisconsin man’s $175,000 Social Security disability fraud scheme ended when federal agents caught him driving a speedboat, according to the inspector general.

Well, let's not go jumping to any conclusions. Are they sure it wasn't a seeing eye boat?

Lawrence Popp, 58, was sentenced to one year in prison on Tuesday for defrauding the Social Security Administration after pretending to be blind in order to get disability benefits.

When the rain turns to pain.

Popp said he was unable to drive, read, or “bowl without bumpers” due to his condition.

Only in Wisconsin is bowling ability a benchmark of normal functioning. I'm guessing "I have trouble getting cheese and beer into my mouth" was on there, too.

Popp, a wealthy businessman, continued to work and go on lavish vacations in the Cayman Islands while collecting disability benefits for five years.

Yes, an already filthy rich bastard defrauded tax payers by pretending to be blind so he could take a few extra vacations. Can we change that one year sentence to something more fitting and appropriate, like being torn to pieces by vicious dogs?

Popp was found out after agents from the IRS and the SSA caught him driving a water-ski boat, a snowmobile, and driving a car to and from his benefits office, according to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.

"After seeing the car and the snowmobile we were still unsure if he was really blind, but that boat really put it over the top." Yes, this guy was driving himself to the office where he pretended to be blind and no one noticed or cared for five years. Apparently that bad reputation government workers have is not entirely unearned.

Popp collected $115,000 in unlawful Medicare benefits and evaded $178,000 in taxes between 2004 and 2009 in addition to disability payments.

Looking forward to watching the movie "The Blind Wolf" in a few years, where this total and complete scumbag will be portrayed as a cool and rebellious hero.

During a review at an SSA office in 2008, Popp told his benefits counselor he “could not read small print, couldn’t bowl without bumpers used by children and couldn’t work.”

He then read the entire disclaimer from a sex pill ad, bowled a 300 game and built a deck. No one thought any of that was unusual.

Federal agents then recorded Popp walking back to his car and driving away.

It's debatable who the bigger tax thief is.

Just don't ask him to bowl.

A 2012 report from Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) found that more than 25 percent of benefits are awarded with “insufficient, contradictory, and incomplete evidence.”

There's no komment korner for this article, so I will attempt to produce the sort of comment that we would have gotten if there was one: "Man, that Obummer. More like hope and OUTRAGE."

Shill Section

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.