Republican efforts to destroy science continue apace..

[The Mad Monk]

A tiny, tiny, tiny amount and, like just about everything they do, it is motivated by self interest and a desire to influence programming. They tried real hard to push NPR and PBS away from objective journalism, even getting Congressmen to write legislation trying to force them to broadcast fact free political propaganda (which luckily failed), but their personal self interests trump just about everything else. Their "charitable giving" is just a way for them to push their agenda which is "I got mine, **** everyone else".

...right.

[Dauphin]

The point I was making is that the US can hardly be said to have been out of the war given that it was providing millions of dollars in weapons, armament as well as money itself to the Allied forces prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

I don't disagree, but it is wholly tangential from pointing out the stupidity of HC's arbitrary timeframe and ignorance of world events at that time.

[Ben Kenobi]

This is yet another reason why thinking markets are the answer to everything makes people stupid.

This comment is Trotsky Approved.

[giblets]

Maybe he believes that the UK can take credit for Australia's contributions? Honestly, it was mostly the Kuomintang in China who fought the Japanese prior to December 1941.

Right, the UK didn't fight the Japanese at all up until the December 1941 when they did a fantastic job defending Hong Kong, Singapore and Burma.

[-Jrabbit]

1. This is a Republican arguing for more government oversight.
2. That's all you need to know.

[Hauldren Collider]

EDIT: nvm, thought gribby was being sarcastic and that I had my dates wrong.

[giblets]

I was only being sarcastic when I wrote "fantastic".

[Hauldren Collider]

I was only being sarcastic when I wrote "fantastic".

Right, I got that part

[DaShi]

I could deal with not funding research into duck penises.

GOTCHA!

[DaShi]

Why do the Koch Brothers support PBS?

GOTCHA!

[Patroklos]

Let's use a different example, the military have their own internal politics and presumable favoured pet projects and so on. They recently said they didn't need any more Abrams tanks, yet congress decided those tanks should be built anyway. Would you say congress knows better than the military where specifically funding should be allocated?

You do understand that pretty much every dollar of military funding is constantly reviewed in the dozens of committees that have oversight of some aspect of the military, right.

Congress controls the purse strings, there is no reason their priorities ( and by exteension ours) should not drive where that money goes. Scientists are not special in this regard in any way shape or form over say military officers or health care officials or civil engineers in this regard. All of those professionals who are spending government money do so at the direction of the government that provides it, unless you think we should write blank checks to the Pentagon and let them do what the will?

[regexcellent]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...p_ref=politics

Brilliant, why not let some radical old guys who believe that jesus rode into Bethlehem on a velociraptor be the ones who determine which scientific research gets funded. No way this could possibly go wrong.

I have an idea, why not just NOT fund science and let private industry fund stuff it thinks it'll be useful.

Letting the executive branch decides what gets funded is way worse than Congress deciding because the federal bureaucracy is a horrible cesspit. There are entire bureaus, such as the department of labor, that should just be fired en masse and rebuilt from the ground up.

[Sava]

let private industry fund stuff

haha market twits are hilarious

[kentonio]

You do understand that pretty much every dollar of military funding is constantly reviewed in the dozens of committees that have oversight of some aspect of the military, right.

Congress controls the purse strings, there is no reason their priorities ( and by exteension ours) should not drive where that money goes. Scientists are not special in this regard in any way shape or form over say military officers or health care officials or civil engineers in this regard. All of those professionals who are spending government money do so at the direction of the government that provides it, unless you think we should write blank checks to the Pentagon and let them do what the will?

Which leads to idiotic crap like congress ordering a ton of extra tanks built that nobody needs because they care more about jobs and therefore votes in their districts than they do about spending priorities.

When the military says 'We don't need any more tanks, let's spend that money on developing the next generation of tank instead!', there's a fairly high likelihood that they actually know what they are talking about. Similarly if a board of scientists say 'Let's use part of our limited funding on x project' there's a pretty decent chance that it will be something they believe is worthwhile.

[kentonio]

I have an idea, why not just NOT fund science and let private industry fund stuff it thinks it'll be useful.

Well done for not being the first person in the thread to say that, and for not bothering to read/respond to the posts that already talked about why this is a bad idea.

Letting the executive branch decides what gets funded is way worse than Congress deciding because the federal bureaucracy is a horrible cesspit.

Congress now isn't part of the federal bureaucracy?

There are entire bureaus, such as the department of labor, that should just be fired en masse and rebuilt from the ground up.

This would be based on your many decades of experience inside the department of labor and various other federal departments I take it?