You could cut your household expense by unscrewing one of those light bulbs

DOGE Claims It Has Saved Billions. See Where.

More than a quarter of the contracts listed by DOGE were actually already paid, the Journal found, saving no money. For instance, DOGE listed $168,000 in savings for terminating a contract with HHS for an Anthony Fauci museum exhibit. It had already been fully paid.

Or where not.

Some of these saving are difficult to evaluate. One hundred thousand dollars for subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal, for instance — the newspaper cited above — is an almost invisibly small share of the federal budget but probably enough for the paper to sit up and take notice of. Similar amounts have been going to subscribe to other newspapers. [See details of this and a lot of other stuff here.]

But most of it doesn't seem to be about saving money at all. It seems to be about cutting things that somebody — not naming names here — just doesn't like.

I have never been a fan of roller coasters

Delta offers $30,000 to each passenger on jet that flipped in Toronto

Remarkably, all 80 people on board survived. As of Wednesday morning, one passenger remained in the hospital, the airline said. Delta said 21 passengers were brought to hospitals with injuries after the crash.

Or horror movies. I don't crave being scared and I don't see any point in paying for it. There are plenty of scary things that can happen in one's life for free.

Rarely, however, does a scary thing pay you.

[From the Washington Post via Apple News.]

The last voyage

Luxury liner SS United States departs South Philadelphia Wednesday afternoon

Among its esteemed passengers were comedian Bob Hope, actor John Wayne, Princess Grace of Monaco, artist Salvadore Dali, actress Rita Hayworth, former President Harry Truman, jazz composer and pianist Duke Ellington and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

And me. I sailed to Europe on this ship in 1958. Didn't meet any of those guys and never got near the luxury deck but it was still quite an adventure for the teenager I was then.

The SS United States then held — and still holds — the record for fastest passenger ship crossing of the Atlantic ocean, in both directions. Now it'll become the largest artificial reef in the world. So, at the end, still something special.

There's a web site about the ship — with lots of pictures — here.

No shoes are above the law

Can sandals be art? Birkenstock says yes, but a German court says no

The appeals court said it was unable to establish any artistic achievement in the wide-strapped sandals with the big buckle.

That buckle is no big deal. Just pointing out. 

The bounty hunters

Philippine village battles dengue by offering bounties for mosquitos — dead or alive

As the campaign began, about a dozen mosquito hunters showed up at the village office. Miguel Labag, a 64-year-old scavenger, handed a jug with 45 dark mosquito larvas squirming in some water and received a reward of nine pesos (15 U.S. cents).

In Florida, a python brings a bounty of $50 and a feral hog in Texas goes for $5 plus 40 cents per pound. Other bounties in the U.S. include racoons, wolves, coyotes, bears, skunks, and, in the Pacific Northwest, a fish called the Northern Pikeminnow.

 

From the No-Conflicts-of-Interest department

Exclusive: FDA staff reviewing Musk’s Neuralink were included in DOGE employee firings, sources say

The cuts included about 20 people in the FDA’s office of neurological and physical medicine devices, several of whom worked on Neuralink, according to the two sources, who asked not to be identified because of fear of professional repercussions. That division includes reviewers overseeing clinical-trial applications by Neuralink and other companies making so-called brain-computer interface devices, the sources said.

Maybe if you're not planning to get your brain implanted it's no big deal.

 

You can almost see this coming, can't you?

FEMA's flood insurance program to borrow billions to pay 2024 post-Hurricane claims

FEMA's flood program has been reauthorized 32 times; its current reauthorization expires March 14.

 Pi Day, I mean. March 14 is Pi Day.

Ooops

Trump Administration Struggling to Find Fired Nuclear Safety Staff: Report

These layoffs were part of broader reductions at the Department of Energy, but officials allegedly did not seem to realize that this agency oversees the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons, CNN reported.

Energy department mouthpiece Ben Dietderich objects, says it's only a handful (50) and they were newbies anyway. But still. Nuclear stockpile?

Problem is, nobody seems to know how to get in touch with them, now that they've been axed. Maybe they fired the personnel records department too.

If you know where any of these guys are, please contact the National Nuclear Security Administration. 

[You'd think the name of the agency might have been a clue.]

The Brits give it a go

How to stop the government splurging our cash

Inspired by [Elon Musk's] example, we at The Spectator are launching our own war on wasteful spending. We’ve established a search engine to help Spectator readers join us in hunting down areas that are in need of the axe. Where the US has Doge, we can have the Spectator Project Against Frivolous Funding (Spaff).

Americans and British are one people separated by a common language, Churchill famously observed. And united, it appears, by certain wasteful ways.

[H/T Shawn]

In search of the two-minute clean

The Quest to Make the Perfect Toothbrush

Blue is the most popular toothbrush color. Some people don’t brush on weekends. Even though dental hygienists recommend smaller brush heads, Americans usually choose the biggest one. And they’re always after something new.

 Everybody has a dream.

An exploding market

The Hottest Job in a World at War: Gun-for-Hire

Soldiers of fortune were common across Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire to the rise of the modern nation-state around the 1600s.

Itinerant fighters’ ranks shrank in the modern era and were largely replaced by conscripts and career soldiers. But they never disappeared. Some fought for ideology in the Spanish Civil War. Most were ex-soldiers seeking a paycheck during the Cold War. WatchGuard International, among the first private military companies, was formed by British special forces veterans in 1965. Now, proliferating conflicts have stoked demand for hired guns.

 Old ways compound new dangers.

Promises, promises

Discovered on X (what they call Twitter now):

TRUMP: "We won't let Elon Musk do anything where there is a conflict of interest. I am personally checking to make sure there is no conflict."

Feel better now?