Subject:
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Re: Lego in a government fraud article
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Fri, 30 Apr 2004 08:24:25 GMT
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Viewed:
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721 times
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"Geoff Gray" <geoffgr@comporium.net> writes:
>
> ["Government Credit Card Abuses Detailed"]
>
> So I took a read. Lo and behold, in the bottom, look what I found:
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> In another instance $200 of LEGO toy robots were bought to «teach Navy
> engineers about robotics»
>
> I think that is too funny.
> Military people busted for trying to get some play toys for free.
And only because they didn't do anything work-related with them.
If they would really have used them in teaching their engineers
that would have been perfectly ok.
The full report is at http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-02-506T :
"We identified four Lego Mindstorm computer robot kits that were
purchased at Toys R Us at a total cost of $800. The SPAWAR
Systems Center employee who requested that these robots be
purchased initially told us that they were purchased as a
learning tool for new professionals and junior engineers to learn
cooperative behavior between robots and to conduct robotic
research. However, during our interview, this SPAWAR Systems
Center employee stated that at the time of these purchases his
division did not have any new professionals scheduled to rotate
through his assignment. Within 6 weeks of purchasing the kits,
the employee removed all four from SPAWAR Systems Center, brought
two of them to a local elementary school where he mentors an
after school science club, and brought two to his home. We
believe this purchase is abusive because there does not appear to
be a valid government need for the purchase, and because the
cardholder effectively gave away government property that could
easily be converted to personal use. As part of the NAVSUP
mandated standdown transaction review, SPAWAR Systems Center also
reviewed the transactions for the Lego robot kits and initially
questioned their propriety. However, contrary to our conclusion
that these purchases were abusive, SPAWAR Systems Center
ultimately considered the Lego kits to be a valid government
purchase."
So at least half of it was for the benefit of very junior engineers :-)
Jürgen
--
Jürgen Stuber <stuber@loria.fr>
http://www.loria.fr/~stuber/
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Lego in a government fraud article
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| I was doing my daily scan of news stories when I came across the following article: "Government Credit Card Abuses Detailed" So I took a read. Lo and behold, in the bottom, look what I found: In another instance $200 of LEGO toy robots were bought (...) (20 years ago, 30-Apr-04, to lugnet.announce, FTX)
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