Tom Coburn is a Republican senator from Oklahoma.  His office just put out a report about some of the ways our tax money is being wasted.  And it's BRUTAL.Coburn focused on the National Science Foundation, which gives out research grants.  And while some of the grants are for fantastic purposes . . . some of them are tragically ridiculous.  Here are some of the ones he spotlighted . . .

--$315,000 to Michigan State University to research if playing FarmVille on Facebook helps people develop and maintain friendships.

 --$1 MILLION to Indiana University to analyze whether parents respond to trendy baby names.  The finding:  They do.  Which is probably why they're trendy.

 --$50,000 went to the University of California-Davis to develop educational rap and music videos with titles like "Money 4 Drugz".

--$80,000 so Duke University could figure out why the same schools always seem to win March Madness.

 --$2 MILLION to Cornell University to figure out if people who post photos from the same place at the same time are probably friends or somehow connected.  Their finding was . . . yes, generally, those people ARE friends or connected.

 --$1.5 MILLION to the University of California-Berkeley to create a robot that folds laundry.  The only problem is that it takes 25 minutes for it to fold just one towel.

 --And $559,681 to the College of Charleston to figure out how long a shrimp can run on a treadmill.