Five things Uncle Sam paid for last week

02.03.2014

By Jamie Dupree

It's hard to write something that can upstage the Super Bowl and all of the TV ads that ran during the big game, so let's delve into the world of federal budget details and find a few things that Uncle Sam is spending money on in 2014.

As always, no judgment is being made about any of the items listed; you, the voter, can determine whether the spending noted is worthwhile or not.  All of these items were found on www.fbo.gov.

1. This contract will self-destruct in five seconds

Maybe you remember that line from the Mission Impossible TV series of over 40 years ago. Now the Pentagon really wants that to happen to electronics equipment. Last Friday, a California company was awarded a $2.1 million contract to "create a transcience technology called Disintegration Upon Stree-release Trigger" - or DUST. This uses a short electrical trigger which results in the innards of electronic device immediately crumbling into "small, sand-like particles in a fraction of a second." The program from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is known as "Vanishing Programmable Resources." IBM also received a $3.4 million award last week to reduce computer chips into powder - triggered by an external radio signal. Sounds like James Bond was ahead of his time.

2. Yes, honey, those are flying horses and burros

The Interior Department on Friday awarded two $6 million contracts to flight services companies, one in Elko, Nevada, one in Deer Lodge, Montana - for "Wild Horse and Burro helicopter flight services." The capture of wild horses and burros is done on a regular basis by the Bureau of Land Management - "helicopter assisted gather operations have proven to be more humane, effective and efficient when larger numbers of animals require removal over large acreages or rugged terrain," reads a BLM rundown of such operations in Nevada. You can find out more about the National Wild Horse and Burro Program on their website. So, if you see any flying horses and burros, it's probably just the BLM.

3. Evidently the FBI is still using pagers

Remember what a Pager was? Back before smartphones and blackberries, you carried a pager, which would buzz and show you a phone number that you needed to call. At the time, it was great. There was no such thing as texting or email, and cell phones were the size of a five gallon gas can. I remember how it was considered a big deal that my company had given me a national coverage pager - not just local, but national - so I could be tracked down anywhere in the country. But that was the early 1990's. Still, in 2014, the FBI just signed a $3,114 pager contract with USA Mobility Wireless for one "Master Pager," one "Nation-Wide Pager," 15 "Pagers on Local Plan," and 10 "Spare Pagers."

4. The Air Force gets its Aerobics Instructor, with instructions

Evidently, Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma needed an Aerobics Instructor, and last week, the Pentagon awarded a $19,110 contract for that to Millenium Health & Fitness. "Contractor shall be courteous, use constructive criticism, and never insult class participants," the notice states, along with some other interesting background.

"In a state of an emergency, if the government deems it necessary the contractor will provide all services necessary to ensure mission accomplishment," it states further. You can read more about what the Air Force Sustainment Center wants in its aerobic instructors here. To see why a 48 page document is needed to authorize the search for an aerobics instructor at a military facility, then check out this document.

5. Take out the cattle fence, but watch out for bombs

The Air Force last week awarded a $28,138 contract to a company to take out several sections of cattle fence on a Florida bombing range - 118,507 feet in all. The contract specifies that in one area - if the fence posts aren't removed, then they have to be cut flush to the ground - because the Air Force wants to use these areas for parachute training (and landing on a fence post might not exactly be the way to end your jump.) One other note for the contractor that will be taking out this fence - "Unexploded ordnance (UXO) and unburned flares may exist within the contract areas."

"The Government assumes no liability for damages to the property of the contractor, or for personal injuries to the contractor or contractor personnel or to any other persons arising from an incident to willfully disturb, possess, and/or collect unexploded ordnance," the feds say.

Your tax dollars at work.

source