"I think no matter whose back yard they're in, they just aren't effective, " says Moore, arguing that wind farms are only tax-fueled boondoggles.

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Rather than focus its energies single-mindedly on developing devices that can compete with iPhone, Android devices and the iPad, RIM indulges product design boondoggles.

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His proposed climate-change bill, whose chances of becoming law before the mid-terms look slim, would be much improved if boondoggles were removed from it.

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As it turns out, preventing the tax increase has done more for job creation than all of the increased federal spending, tax credits, cash for clunkers and other government boondoggles and handouts.

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Keynesian boondoggles are acceptable in principle, they say, but they cite Japan in the 1990s as proof that such spending does not always stimulate the economy: better to boost businesses' cashflow by easing their tax burden.

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Given the likely direction of the new GOP-dominated House of Representatives in Washington, massive federal subsidies for the solar and wind industries, as well as such boondoggles as high-speed rail, are likely to be scaled back significantly.

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Other boondoggles have taken their places.

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Those in the business of selling windmills are very happy with this arrangement ( see story by Naazneen Karmali), but in no time our fears of global warming have caused our economy to become littered with subsidies, credits, deductions, tax surcharges, earmarks and research boondoggles.

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Obama pours borrowed or seized funds into boondoggles like subsidies for toy electric cars that blow up like Spinal Tap drummers and high-speed rail for the 12 people who want to take trains in California, and allows the federal workforce to grow by over 100, 000 bodies.

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