Rising Hegemon
Titled the “Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology (FIRST) Act of 2014," the bill would put a variety of new restrictions on how funds are doled out by the National Science Foundation. The goal, per its Republican supporters on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, would be to weed out projects whose cost can't be justified or whose sociological purpose is not apparent. For Democrats and advocates, however, the FIRST Act represents a dangerous injection of politics into science and a direct assault on the much-cherished peer-review process by which grants are awarded. "We have a system of peer-review science that has served as a model for not only research in this country but in others," said Bill Andresen, the associate vice president of Federal Affairs at the University of Pennsylvania. "The question is, does Congress really think it has the better ability to determine the scientific merit of grant applications or should it be left up to the scientists and their peers?"Yeah, who needs Peer Review...let's leave science funding up to the typical FoxNews viewer. It will be all billions for boner pills and finding Noah's Ark.
Tuesday, May 06, 2014
"The National Our Heads in Our Ass Act"
Yes America, by all means put these assholes in power.
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Hmm. They've already got boner pills, so they don't need those. I suspect that this is one more way of funneling money to giant corps. There's been a recent move to identify big corporations that have, for instance, violated SBA rules for low-cost loans, and the various research arms of the government have been notoriously lax in enforcing the rules on SBIR grants. So, my guess is that this is a way of keeping Treasury cash moving to those who pay the election bills.
Why, if ExxonMobil thinks environmentalism is bad for its business, why shouldn't the government pay it for the research that refutes the EPA's research? If Monsanto wants to sell more glyphosate (or Dow wants to sell Agent Orange to American farmers), why shouldn't the government pay for the research to enable that? If the Xtian right thinks that all they have to do to prove Genesis is to find a few dinosaur saddles, why shouldn't the Treasury hand over a few million to find them (and none of that icky carbon-dating stuff to interfere with the results)?
It's bad enough that 65% of all research today goes to the military in one way or another. This will ensure that the rest won't go to anything that threatens the profits of the fatcats.
Lysenkoism is alive and well in the Repuke party.
All Science Must Exalt the Free Market!
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