Today’s Time Waste: the Recovery Act Website

I was just reading a newsletter out of Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson’s camp bragging about how the 30th District has so far received more than $360 million in federal funds from the Recovery Act. That seemed like a lot of cash to me, so I navigated my computer’s browser to the part of the Internet that houses the government’s website that tracks all that money. If you’re busy today, whatever you do, don’t go to www.recovery.gov. Because that’s one badass website. If you dig maps — and who doesn’t? — that thing will have you clicking around for most of the morning. For instance, if you go here, you can zoom in on North Texas and click around to see where the federal dollars are going. Did you know SMU has gotten nearly $1.4 million, which it says created or saved 20.35 jobs? Meanwhile, the University of Dallas has gotten only $48,000, which it says created or saved no fewer than 28 jobs. What the hell is going on here? I’m not sure, but it sounds like I’d rather work at SMU (and make about $68,000 a year) than the University of Dallas ($1,700).