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McCain Answers Science Policy Questionnaire
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Sep 15, 2008 10:47 AM
from the he's-a-hero-ya-know dept.
from the he's-a-hero-ya-know dept.
thebestsophist writes "A couple weeks ago, I reported that Barack Obama had answered a questionnaire by Scientists and Engineers for America. McCain has now answered that questionnaire as well. You can also compare their answers. Perhaps with help from the Slashdot community, we can get all the Congressional candidates as well?"
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Science: Obama Answers Science Policy Questionnaire 550 comments
thebestsophist writes "A couple months ago, Scientists and Engineers for America, Science Debate 2008, and a bunch of other science organizations sent McCain, Obama, and all the Congressional candidates a bunch of questions on science and technology. Topics included biosecurity, genetics research, and national security, as well as the more common questions on research and education. Well, Senator Obama just answered."
Senator McCain has not responded to the questionnaire at this point in time, but the site has a profile of his views and actions relating to science policy, which provides a good basis for comparing the candidates' stances. We've previously discussed the differences between the two candidates' technology platforms. According to a recent NPR story, both candidates intend to keep politics out of science.
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Innovation (Score:5, Informative)
"I am committed to streamlining burdensome regulations and effectively protecting American intellectual property in the United States and around the globe."
I'll leave it up to the rest of you to flame McCain for that! I believe that it is also worth mentioning that Obama didn't bring up "regulation" or "protecting intellectual property" at all, especially not in the first paragraph as McCain did.
Re:Innovation (Score:5, Informative)
Not surprised. McCain's made no secret of his desire to have Steve Ballmer in his cabinet [theinquirer.net]. Ballmer himself probably put those words right in McCain's mouth
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
So, in mccain's view, Comcast has "control" of the pipe, and can do as they see fit. Don't forget that.
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
This quote is probably the most important
Never listen to a candidate speak. All politicans are liars. Like the politician in the movie The Hunt for Red October (which ironically had one of the Republican Presidential candidates before McCain sewed it up, former actor Senator Fred Thompson), "Son, I'm a politician. When I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their candy". (Thompson played a boat captain, not the politician, the line I quote was a different actor)
Rather, look at how they've voted. unfortunately, Obama's a first term Senator and hasn't cast enough votes to get a good picture of where he really stands.
It looks to me like McCain will be the next President. If so, since he's a Republican following a two term President who completely ruined the economy (like I said in great detail in a slashdot journal, Hoover for President! [slashdot.org],
the next Herbert Hoover will also be a Republican.
The similarities I pointed out in that linked journal get scarier every day [yahoo.com].
The losers in this Presidential race (we have five viable candidates, I'm voting for Barr) will be the real winners.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong. I fear I'm right.
Yesterday in a bar, a black man called me a racist because I'm voting for the Libertarian candidate instead of Obama. To a black racist, any white person who votes against Obama is, ironically, a racist. I wonder what he'd have said if I'd said "McKinney" rather than "Barr"? Since neither McKinney nor Barr will win, maybe I should vote for that nutjob McKinney so I can say I voted for "the black woman".
As I pointed out to the racially-obsessed gentleman, Illinois' electors will be voting for Obama no matter who I vote for. And considering that I believe the next President will be the 21st century Hoover, if Obama wins it will set black people back a generation.
Neither Republicrat candidate, in my opinion, will be good for us nerds. We're fuX0red, unfortunately.
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for putting this near the top
It flagged up that I should be wary about the level of sophistication of the rest of your argument. All politicians are liars is a great sound-bite, and it might be a fashionable sentiment, but there's no evidence that the statement is true. I'm not a politician, and I belong to know political party, but many of the local politicians I've dealt with spend a lot of time dealing with hard, tedious local matters and are in the business of helping the local community. They are not *liars* except to the extent that we all are.
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Informative)
As a bit of explanation, he probably called you a racist because Barr is a notorious bigot. Likewise, many Libertarian Party members are white supremacists using their party line as an excuse for their politics (note how many of them are in favor of repealing the Civil Rights acts, as well as Ron Paul's opposition to the 14th Amendment). Maybe the problem isn't that you weren't voting for Obama, but that you're voting against that guy's human rights?
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Interesting)
Rather, look at how they've voted. unfortunately, Obama's a first term Senator and hasn't cast enough votes to get a good picture of where he really stands.
Au contraire. I think we've been able to see exactly where he stands: in the same place as every other main party politician, when he went back on a very strong promise NOT to vote for any bill that included telco immunity.
And where is that? A little place I like to call "whateverwheneverwhereverwillgetmeelected."
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Funny)
I dunno. When I play pocket pool, It's a zero sum game between inflation and deflation.
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
It'll make a lot more sense when you realize that we only have one party, and both wings of the Commercial party are pretty much the same when it comes to issues like NAFTA and DMCA and copyright.
I don't believe Obama is "in", so I'm fairly sure he'll be neutralized. It will either be strange voting machine results or something worse...
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm. The DMCA came to being under a Republican Senate and Republican House, and introduced by Republican Rep. Howard Coble. The only major part the Dems played was Clinton signing it into law, and his State Dep't helping to negotiate the treaties it's related to.
Which is what the OP said: "It was also democrats who proposed and extended copyright terms and signed the DMCA into law. There's no party that is inculpable here."
Copyright was EXTENDED in 1978(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_copyright_law#Duration_of_copyright) when Jimmy Carter was President and Congress was controlled by Democrats. The DMCA was SIGNED into law by Bill Clinton.
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically true, but disingenuous.
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Funny)
Now, now, two wrongs don't make a right.
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah.. and so is Rupert Murdoch!!
It's all a vast left-wing conspiracy!!
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Funny)
John McCain is a puppet of the Jew.
Sure, but which Jew? I bet it's Woody Allen, since they have so much in common: They both used to be entertaining and relevant, but now they're just churning out derivative crap.
On the other hand, it could be Joe Lieberman. Lieberman's clearly got his head up McCain's ass, he might have his hand up there too.
Come on man, you can't leave us hanging like this: which Jew is controlling McCain?
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Funny)
Come on man, you can't leave us hanging like this: which Jew is controlling McCain?
Jesus. Oh wait, that's Palin.
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Funny)
...who lived with Mom until he was thirty.
Hmm... You'd think that Jesus would get more respect here on slashdot just for that very reason. Changing water into wine, making scads of fish and loaves of bread, getting up after he was dead?!? Fuck - Jesus was a hacker.
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
This is Slashdot where almost everyone wants one of those nice R&D jobs. But yet they are against the ways of funding them. If you are going to spend 10 years of R&D and millions of dollars, more to fund the R&D that doesn't work, or product a commercial use. Then have competition use that Idea and make a competing product the next month, and able to product it cheaper because they didn't spend the millions for R&D themselves.
So what will the smart business man do. There isn't any money in R&D and more in blatant copying. So those nice R&D Jobs get reduced or killed. Leaving you to either take a boring job, or going back to the Education Sector and have 3/4 of your job begging for money, and 1/4 actually do real R&D.
When analyzing these laws you need to remember rule #1, IT IS AN IMPERFECT WORLD AND THERE WILL NEVER BE A PERFECT WORLD. IP Law yes protects those big heartless corporations, but without them you may not have a job. A heartless companies are not in it for the good of man kind, but to make money, if you can do both great if they conflict then the good of man kind will get shafted. IP Protection helps isolate the risks of R&D costs, and makes it possible for Greed and Humanity to work together for a common output.
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
It always feels like the issue here is that everyone wants to take sides and polarize the issue to the point that arguing about it is absurd.
How about looking at some of the gray levels here, because there are plenty of them.
IP was originally useful when data transferral was significantly slower, when the industries involved did not evolve beyond recognition in 5 years, and when the people granting patents and the like were somewhat knowledgeable of their field.
The usual statement is that IP law is to protect the people who paid for the research to allow them to recover what went into it. This is STILL APPLICABLE. I completely agree with the parent in this regard. The problem people have with patent law is that it no longer seems applicable. A patent lasts for too long for the amount of innovation involved in the tech industry.
Three words:
One Click Patent
Because the balance is off in the tech sector, the benefits are being trumped. Patent law should exist. It needs to adapt to changing times. It isn't, so people who don't reap the benefits of it want to see it go away.
Thoughts?
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Informative)
Oil drilling and extraction and production. Pharma research (take out profit motive for THAT and watch more garbage happen). Defense R&D (to a point). Growing food. Making stuff.
Oil drilling, extraction, and production, growng food, and making stuff aren't R&D.
Pharma research takes anything promising from publicly funded basic research and runs the last mile to a commericial product. (I'm not saying that last mile is 'cheap', but its not more expensive than the basic research they are building on.)
And defense R&D by corporations is almost directly funded by the public.
My point was that the public is on top. The public "can afford" research that even corporations can't. Its true that corporations can afford research that small businesses and individual can't.
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Informative)
This rationale was proposed, and discredited, over 150 years ago. Trade secrets are notoriously hard to keep, as the poster JesseMcDonald points out.
More ironically: any secret that could be kept, would never be patented in the first place. There would be no point. So patents do not promote disclosure of trade secret. They reward the documentation of ideas that could never be kept secret at all.
There are many rationales for patents, and they are without exception bogus, except the rationale of an incentive to deliver nicely written patent documents which promote the collection of knowledge. Given that Wikipedia does this today, and that the granting of monopoly over the recorded ideas is insane in any high technology sector... high tech patents have lose their only plausible economic basis, and now exist purely on the basis of belief, inertia, and the power of special interests exercised via slave courts.
Yay! McCain's position on patents basically shows him as a protectionist 1800-era politician who won't bat an eyelid while raising barriers to trade, tariffs, and taxes.
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Re:Innovation (Score:5, Informative)
That should tell you right away how much commitment there is to protecting intellectual property.
Yes, it should -- 100% complete commitment.
In all three of the cases you mention, an appropriate ASCAP performance license was obtained by the campaign.
There is no other legal requirement to perform a song, and there is no form of veto by the recording artist. The bluster in your links is just blowhard preening, there is no legal foundation for it whatsoever.
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Who really wrote the answers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, are we to believe that the candidates actually wrote their own replies to these questions? I wonder how many people came up with the answers.
Old Skool Science Mavericks (Score:5, Insightful)
Palin is a Creationist [google.com]. McCain is a fossil.
Of course they'll talk a good science game (after farming that questionnaire out to one of the lobbyist lawfirms that make up their campaign) when the geeks ask during a campaign. Then these "Compassionate Conservatives" will just show they were lying once they're past the Election Day "accountability moment", and get the power to drag us all back to the Stone Age.
Re:Old Skool Science Mavericks (Score:5, Funny)
But Palin is a hot Creationist. It's like an equation. After hot, you can drop everything else.
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Re:Old Skool Science Mavericks (Score:5, Insightful)
She's not that hot, except compared to McCain and the rest of the politicians we usually see. She's no hotter than my next door neighbor (who's not that hot). Neither of them are qualified to be VP (or president, which is the only mandatory qualification for a VP).
And Palin's voice actually grates my nerves like the "blackboard fingernails" that everyone says Hillary Clinton has (Clinton's not hot, either).
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Re:Old Skool Science Mavericks (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're saying that Palin has more experience than McCain to be president. Why not reverse the ticket (other than basic sanity, because she is indeed even worse than McCain).
Palin's "executive experience", like McCain's non-executive experience, is bad experience. George Bush has loads more executive experience - and I expect that you, Anonymous Republican Coward, would prefer more Bush.
Oh, as for the rest of your zombie Republican talking points: When Obama said that deciding the moment when a collection of 46 chromosomes becomes legally a "human life" is "above his pay grade", he was referring to god. I thought you faithy Republicans went nuts for that kind of thing, not against it. And you've got a lot of nerve to whine about "voting present" when #1: Bush hasn't even been present for most of his catastrophic reign (though Cheney has no plans to leave the Cheney Bunker from which he's run the country the past 8 years). And #2: McCain has not even been present in the Senate for most of the past two years, even though Obama, Clinton, Biden, Dodd and the rest managed to do their jobs while campaigning.
And finally, thanks for admitting that you think that Barack Obama is a "secret Muslim". Though of course his Christian pastor hates America, too.
Being a Republican means never having to make any sense at all. Just stay scared and cowering at anything Karl Rove cooks up, and everyone will be OK. Except that after 8 years of Bush, ruling at the end of 12 years of the Republican Congress, every national institution is in a shambles. You personally are worse off than you were 4 years ago. Unless that is really you, Karl Rove, fat from your reign of terror, and sucking up yet more paychecks for yet another Republican campaign "gone wild".
You sick bastard.
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Palin's Experience (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Old Skool Science Mavericks (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kind of like Palin's daughter's situation. If it had been Obama or Biden had a teenage daughter who had gotten knocked up and chose to keep the baby, the religious right would have lambasted them for letting their daughter have sex, blasted her for being a slut, and then railed on all of them for referring to keeping the baby as a "choice."
With Palin's daughter, they praised Palin for being so principled and praised her daughter for doing the right thing, all the while tripping over themselves in an attempt to ignore the "sex outside of marriage" issue. It's actually quite entertaining in a way.
Of course, no matter whose daughter should be pregnant by whom, I don't think that it deserves to be an issue to decide the Presidential race on unless one of the candidates is the father.
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HOT? I think NOT. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously the standard of "hotness" is phenomenally low in US politics. We are talking here about someone who came 2nd in Miss Alaska (population 600,000) in a state where less than 50% of the people are female and isn't exactly known as the place where attractive people flock to. Hell this makes her less attractive than the 2nd most attractive person in DETROIT (population over 800k).
Never before has a media image of what you should think been so quickly accepted by people. Palin isn't hot, she isn't an ugly bird but she isn't a stunner. Lets concentrate on her madly insane political views (abstinence teaching working for you kids Mrs Palin?) and not listen to the media's view of attractive. Put it this way, do you think that Fox News would have her as an anchor? Of course not, a we know that hot is their only real criteria.
Hot in Alaska? Let put politics first.
On the other hand look at FRENCH politics if you want seriously hot politicians with incredibly well educated views.
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Re:HOT? I think NOT. (Score:5, Insightful)
And OUR standards are distorted?
I consider about 1 woman in 3 to be hot... and I wouldn't want to adopt your standards. I would hate to go months between seeing hot women.
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Re:Old Skool Science Mavericks (Score:5, Insightful)
Please vote sensibly. Hint: Obama [bbc.co.uk] (In a world poll, "Democrat Mr Obama was favoured by a four-to-one margin across the 22,500 people polled in 22 countries."). Obama, at least, whatever his other faults/shortcomings doesn't seem like such a warmongering, oil-crazed, stuff-the-rest-of-the-world-we're-alright-Jack sort.
Yeah, yeah, mod me down - the truth no-doubt hurts.
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Re:Old Skool Science Mavericks (Score:5, Funny)
Does that mean that Palin believes that McCain was carefully buried by God to confuse the evil Darwinists?
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Re:Old Skool Science Mavericks (Score:5, Insightful)
Palin is a Creationist [google.com]. McCain is a fossil.
Of course they'll talk a good science game (after farming that questionnaire out to one of the lobbyist lawfirms that make up their campaign)...
I think you're painting with too broad of a brush. There are a lot of different forms of Creationism, and they're not all as anti-scientific as you're probably thinking. You're probably against strict creationism, which flat-out rejects evolution. But I think many other Creationists also think strict-creationism is nuts, given the evidence in favor of evolution.
I think a lot of Creationists are old earth creationists [wikipedia.org]. They basically hold a world view that seeks to make sense of both the fossil record and other beliefs they carry.
Also, is it possible that some of your anger is a carry-over from Bush's administration's anti-scientific policies? I haven't met a thinking Christian who's down with what Bush has done to science policy in the U.S. But I suspect Bush's policies have nothing to do with Creationist views, and a lot more to do with his utter failure of leadership, morals, ethics, intelligence, and integrity. But that's just my 2 cents as an agnostic.
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Google cache link (Score:5, Informative)
Since site appears to be slashdotted, here's a Google Cache link:
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:MqO2cs2K3EUJ:sharp.sefora.org/people/presidential-candidates/john-mccain-presidential-candidate/+http://sharp.sefora.org/people/presidential-candidates/john-mccain-presidential-candidate/&hl=ru&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ua&client=firefox-a [64.233.183.104]
I hate these; they are SOOO rigged (Score:5, Insightful)
What it comes down to, is these ppl already have their behavior in place. Just look at how they acted over the last 5 years and it will give you a better idea of what to expect.
Re:I hate these; they are SOOO rigged (Score:5, Informative)
All of these kind of things are answered to encourage whatever somebody wants to believe. (BIG SNIP) (reagan ran up monster deficit in CA, and then got out of trouble because JFK started NASA).
JFK started NASA? Really? I find that somewhat surprising given the dates involved. [wikipedia.org]
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Who did you say was answering the questionnaire? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way something like this makes sense is if a candidate has to respond on the record in real time. Otherwise, they just farm it out to an underling, who will provide a nice, safe, reasonably accurate series of answers.
I want to know if the candidate himself could pass a grade school science exam before he gets to make calls on science policy. Even somebody who gets spoon-fed their information has to have enough basic awareness of the subject to know when he's hearing a line of crap from his advisers.
First question (Score:5, Funny)
The site (Score:5, Insightful)
How the heck??? (Score:5, Funny)
McCain must have had some help with this, we all know he doesn't use computers, doesn't know how to use e-mail and admittedly depends upon his wife for that. Talk about out of touch with the 21st Century. How is he ever supposed to become a Cybernetic Overlord? I mean really!
Vote Cthulhu 08
Why vote for a lesser evil when you can vote for a greater one!
The null hypothesis of politics (Score:5, Insightful)
No one believes politicians. Why should anyone believe them? From the city councillor to the President of the Benighted States, there is no punishment for incompetence or lying. If you bribe the right people, there's no punishment for crime, either. A pretty good game to play if you have cash and connections. Make billions for your circle, even if you kill millions of people in a far-away land where they don't even play baseball.
Political parties are organisms that thrive on cajolery and deception. They pick "leaders" but these leaders are really just pushed to the fore to take the spotlight away from the cunning monkeys behind the curtains writing the speeches and glad-handing the lobbyists. These leaders aren't really meant to change anything profound.
Civil servants also do their best to survive. Sometimes politicians and civil servants cooperate. Most of the time, it's a null hypothesis. Sometimes, you get a highly-motivated evil cretin in power and other evil cretins join in the convulsions. Then you have efficiency at the expense of freedom, justice, and maybe even life itself.
Listen to people everywhere speaking today. This is the age of Peter Pan. Everyone's a child, wanting other people to do the work and make the sacrifices and unwilling to grow up. Give me my ear-pod and home theatre with a screen full of high-definition retardation and don't ask me to learn about the world. Then I can spend all my time talking with my idiotic friends about about which plastic Hollywood dolls we would fuck if we had the opportunity... when we win the lottery.
And when we tire of that desperate chain of infantile hope and outright stupidity, we post on Slashdot. (o:
Pointed Hypocrasy (Score:5, Insightful)
Sex Education In a 2007 interview, Senator McCain said that sex education in the United States should follow President Bush's policy of abstinence-only education. HIV/AIDS McCain participated in ONE campaign's On The Record project. See Youtube (below). In a statement released by his campaign on Global Aids Day (December 1, 2007), McCain supported maintaining the United States commitment to fighting AIDS, writing: "It's critical that we face this crisis head-on, which is why I have consistently supported the most aggressive global AIDS program in the history of this pandemic, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Afflicted nations with whom we partner to fight this disease must also know that we expect a level of governance, transparency and effectiveness from them in order to make the fullest use of AIDS assistance so we can make the greatest impact on people's lives. Our commitment must be sustained, and our nation must always be faithful to those at home and abroad as they cope with the ravages of HIV/AIDS."[3]
Wouldn't fighting AIDS be easier if people where at least aware that Condoms can be used to prevent the spread of STDs like AIDS? Isn't prevention much less expensive than treatment? Wouldn't any real effort to fight AIDS include more than "abstinence only" education? This is absurd. How could anyone take such a candidate seriously?
Stem Cell Research (Score:5, Interesting)
In the interests of giving McCain props where I think he should get them (even though I don't agree with him on most subjects):
Kudos to McCain for correctly identifying the glaring hole in the pro-life argument against embryonic stem cell research. The pro-life crowd will often argue that the embryos that stem cells are harvested from are humans and thus deserve a better fate than being used for research. They ignore the reality of the situation, however. Those frozen embryos are most likely going to be discarded/incinerated if they aren't used for stem cell research.
Which is a more dignified fate for the embryo? To be incinerated/tossed out like trashed? Or to be used in an attempt to save lives?
Serious differences in world view (Score:5, Insightful)
Two examples:
(1) Obama wants to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education by broadening its scope beyond just science and engineering majors:
All American citizens need high quality STEM education that inspires them to know more about the world around them, engages them in exploring challenging questions, and involves them in high quality intellectual work. STEM education is no longer only for those pursuing STEM careers; it should enable all citizens to solve problems, collaborate, weigh evidence, and communicate ideas.
whereas McCain sees science as being for geeks only. He wants more geeks, so the rest of the country don't have to bother their pretty heads while getting law and business degrees:
The diminishing number of science, technology, engineering and math graduates at the college level poses a fundamental and immediate threat to American competitiveness. We must fill the pipeline to our colleges and universities with students prepared for the rigors of advanced engineering, math, science and technology degrees.
(2) Obama sees technology leadership as being essential to national security:
It's essential to create a coherent new defense technology strategy to meet the kinds of threats we may faceâ"asymmetric conflicts, urban operations, peacekeeping missions, and cyber, bio, and proliferation threats, as well as new kinds of symmetric threats.
whereas McCain sees national security as essentially just military superiority:
As President, I will strengthen the military, shore up our alliances, and ensure that the nation is capable of protecting the homeland, deterring potential military challenges, responding to any crisis that endangers American security, and prevailing in any conflict we are forced to fight.
For more contrasts, see my blog post [blogspot.com]
Re:The best answer to the science questionnaire (Score:5, Insightful)
That would NOT be a good idea. The reason is simple, businesses almost NEVER do pure research. Its hard to turn the results directly into money, and (rightfully) that is all a business is there for. Taxpayer funded programs do the pure research, then businesses take the result and do the research needed to turn that into a product. Take the Fed out of research and a lot of innovation will come to a grinding halt.
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Re:The best answer to the science questionnaire (Score:5, Insightful)
We The People need to take responsibility for getting things done, instead of deferring every concern to government.
"Private sector" does not necessarily have to be a synonym for "profit-oriented business." Imagine if the same portion of your paycheck's federal withholding that is being spent by the feds on science, were instead voluntarily contributed, by you, to a foundation of your choosing. Imagine choosing foundations based on the directors' expertise in science and grant proposal selection, instead of choosing senators and reps and presidents based on a such huge array of factors.
There is no reason we should have to use the same small group to make every decision. When you put politicians in charge of this stuff, you get situations where, say, a certain party's position on global warming, embryonic stems cells, etc. matters. Their opinions on these things shouldn't matter. We send them to Washington to set policies based on the topics mentioned in Article 1 Section 8 of the constitution, not to vote on whether or not to believe scientists. Think about how absurd it is for them to voting on science.
We could be voting with our wallets instead. We don't need a republic for this. The possible tyrannies of democracy aren't a threat here; one person's decision to fund research doesn't take anything away from you, in the way that passing laws or pointing guns can.
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Re:The best answer to the science questionnaire (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey. Just a little heads up. I know you've probably been slurping down the palin talking points when she says things like "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac" just cost the people too much to remain viable. Unfortunately both of you are completely wrong. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are Government Sponsorded Enterprises (GSE). This means that they were incorporated by an act of congress, but are PRIVATELY OWNED. That's right privately owned. THEY WERE NOT RUN BY THE GOVERNMENT. The deregulation (by republicans) of these two organizations allowed them to be run into the ground. Now the taxpayers are HAVING to pay for a bailout to slow the plummeting republican shitstorm that is our current economy.
I don't know where you get this whole federal money competes with and beats out private funding idea. Do you really think that federally funded research somehow precludes private research investment at universities? You obviously don't work in an academic setting. Both federal and private projects coincide together with no problem.
Great 25 charities fund $1.2 billion in private research. I think science (and subsequently business who can make money off freely published results) would appreciate and benefit from an additional $1.2 billion or so from the government. That $1.2bil can come from a slice of the money we are wasting in the optional war in Iraq that's distracting us from the real front on terror (Afghanistan) and real domestic issues.
--David
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Re:The best answer to the science questionnaire (Score:5, Informative)
They didn't use pencil because broken leads would be a big problem in zero G.
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Re:Database Connection Error (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, don't be silly. We all know McCain's/Palin's "science policy" is a huge load.
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Re:Choices, choices (Score:5, Interesting)
While it is a common belief that voting third party is "throwing your vote away", it really isn't in the long term. The two big parties look closely at the candidates who received votes in every major election and then try to determine how to convince voters to vote for their candidates next time around, typically by modifying their platforms and including items that appear to be gathering steam with the populance. You can help steer the process a bit by voting for exactly for who you want to fill the position your voting on. Just because your guy didn't win doesn't mean your votes didn't matter.
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