The Pentagon’s brownie recipe is 26 pages long. Among the ingredients: water that conforms to the “National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (Copies are available from the Office of Drinking Water, Environmental Protection Agency, WH550D, 401 M Street, S.W., Washington, DC 20460),” eggs in compliance with “Regulations Governing the Inspection of Eggs and Egg Products (7 CFR Part 59),” and baking soda “which meets the requirements of the Food Chemicals Codex.”

There’s more from Katherine Mangu-Ward.

Remember when the stimulus bill was all about “infrastructure” and “green energy?”  Way back in January of 2009 (sorry I am in I-told-you-so mode) I observed how less than 6% of the first two years spending appeared to be related to infrastructure.  It turns out that this is exactly how it played out

According to Recovery.gov, the government has now paid out $415 billion of the stimulus funds. Tax rebates account for $163 billion. Of the $252 of direct spending, the Department of Transportation has paid out $14 billion. That’s 5.5%.

…  No mention by Obama in selling it where the other 94.5% was going.  It would have been interesting to see public reaction at the time if Obama had said “we want to spend $230 billion making sure government employees continue to get 8% pay raises, even through the recession.  We are going to stimulate the economy by giving your money to a bunch of assistant principals who do little work but call themselves ‘educators’ so that they can pretend to be teachers when government budget cuts come along.

For more on the two economies in the US, see this WSJ story. My favorite part of that one:

Given our 2.7 million-strong federal work force, the government effectively overbills Americans by almost $40 billion every year just on labor costs.”

What’s $40 billion when we now speak in trillions?

1. Between 2001 and 2009, public school enrollment declined 4.6%, according State Education Department data. Yet more staff were hired, and the fastest growing category was non-teachers, up a staggering 26%. There’s room to trim without hurting children.
2. According to the Reason Foundation’s annual report on state highway systems, New York ranks in the bottom five of all 50 states in the condition of its roads and bridges—despite spending $407,122 per mile on repair and maintenance, compared with the national average of $134,535. Reason called New York’s highway maintenance “extremely inefficient,” noting that work rules put too many employees at the same work site or on the same shovel. Those rules need to be changed.
3. The average state employee earns a whopping $92,332 total compensation for an average workweek of 37.5 hours, according to the Empire Center for New York State Policy (based on figures from the state comptroller’s office).

Someone remind me again why anyone in the political class deserves to be taken seriously?