ABC News, the official press agency of the White House, has a story that the government is spending $18 Million of the “stimulus” money towards revamping the White House’s stimulus money tracking website. The very same one that Joe Biden couldn’t remember the “number” for.

The new one has been termed, “Recovery.gov 2.0”. So the first question that all taxpayers should have is what was so wrong with the first incarnation that we need a major revision to the tune of $18 Million? That kind of money goes a very long way in website development and hosting, even for the federal government. Trust me, I’ve been around that kind of business. For this kind of coin, this website better tell me down to the penny where the money went, how it was decided to go there (i.e. an open competition or directed action because the contractor is pals with someone), and what’s the progress against the schedule for the project awarded funding. Plus, I need it to pick my fantasy football team, determine the best route to work during rush hour and pick up my dry cleaning. Do we need more proof that the “stimulus package” is a farce? If the website is built with any intelligence, it’s a build and deliver and done, so there are very few, if any, lasting jobs created by this $18 Million.

I’ll reserve final judgment on the website until October 10th when it must be live. You can be sure that I’ll be checking it out and reporting on it. The government has already committed to exposing the raw data to the public so you can be sure that the Gormogon Supercomputer processing center located in a fortified bunker at an undisclosed location (yes, Joe Biden doesn’t know that “number” either) will be churning on the numbers.

Just to leave you with a thought: the contract is for $9.5M through January 2010. Let’s assume that’s a 6 month period of performance with a nominal 160 hours per month (four 40-hour work weeks). That equates to almost $10,000 per HOUR for this website. I fear that we’ll end up getting some piece of crap like “Lawnmower Man“.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.