Wikipedia assesses
boondoggle as: "Protracted government or corporate projects involving large numbers of people and usually heavy expenditure, where at some point, the key operators, having realized that the project will never work, are still reluctant to bring this to the attention of their superiors.
In terms of waste and human suffering, the gun registry and the sponsorship scandals pale by comparison to this
boondoggle," Phil Fontaine told the standing committee on Aboriginal Affairs.
The report describes several of the projects it reviewed as "
boondoggles." They include the huge National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a high-energy fusion laser that in 1997 the DOE said would be ready in 2005 at a cost of $1.2 billion, but now, after factoring in additional expenses and recalculating construction management costs, will cost as much as $5-8 billion.
Opponents see the plan as another heroic-scale
boondoggle, a prescription for ecological disaster, a means for Russia to reassert its power in the region, and a bribe for the governments there, which have allowed existing irrigation canals to degrade so badly that up to 60 percent of the water they carry leaks away.
We pressed for that
boondoggle to be traded in for what the city really needed: money to fix our crumbling transit system.
The CAPCO program is a
boondoggle (Robert Schwab, "State money for startups--boon or
boondoggle?" August) due to the lack of accountability required of the companies receiving the funding and the lack of competence of the state to manage the program.
The truth was that in the eyes of pundits and the public alike, human space travel had become a luxury, a stunt, a
boondoggle rather than a legitimate field of endeavor, let alone the door to the future.
In last month's issue of J@pan Inc, we took a look at the matrix of ecological catastrophes developing as the climax to a half-century polk-baizel
boondoggle in Nagasaki Prefecture's Isahaya Bay.
More than 40 different ales from around the UK will be on offer during the event including the interestingly named
Boondoggle and Wobbly Bob.
I'd like to see Americans United and its members insist on calling this
boondoggle what it is -- "religious" -- and insist on using that word in all articles and, more importantly, letters to editors of local newspapers.
Critics have called this a "
boondoggle" or, more kindly, a backdoor approach to government-financed long-term care.
Gifts site
Boondoggle were forced to call in the receivers after failing to find new finance.