Main Menu
Tagcloud
Top Posts
I support
free debate

PLoS One

JoVE

Frontiers in Neuroscience

Car articles:
Random items:
Random pics




click to open in new window
RSS Feeds
Our news can be syndicated by using these rss feeds.
rss1.0
rss2.0
rdf
aggregators
Facebook Blog Network
linking back to brembs.net




Welcome Guest
Username:

Password:


Remember me

[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
 Currently Online (30)
 Extra Information
MicroBlog
NeuroTwitter

[26 Jan 10: 12:28]
New Theme! What do you think? http://bjoern.brembs.net

[04 Dec 09: 08:25]
Rolled over 400 citations today... http://bjoern.brembs.net/citations.php

[17 Nov 09: 08:45]
Students! You tell them for 45 minutes why their papers have to be in IMRaD format and some still hand in garbled, structureless papers!

[28 Oct 09: 04:17]
The m.o. of university administrations: divide competence until you can never be mad at anyone, because there are always so many others who can be blamed.

[18 Oct 09: 13:36]
Apparently Twitter is not reachable from #SfN http://status.twitter.com

[15 Oct 09: 17:24]
My flight to SfN leaves in six hours.

[21 Sep 09: 13:43]
No WiFi in the meeting room at Magdalen College (Oxford University): again no blogging from the trip

[17 Sep 09: 16:26]
No WiFi in the Meeting rooms and not enough time online to blog. Need to catch up with everything later.

[15 Sep 09: 21:02]
Arrived in Nagoya for the 32nd annual conference of the Japan Neuroscience Society.

[12 Sep 09: 23:26]
Just arrived in Tokyo - amazing city!

[11 Sep 09: 19:11]
Getting ready to fly to Japan tomorrow!

[12 Aug 09: 11:36]
Whoohoo: brembs©wavesandbox.com !!!

[12 Aug 09: 06:58]
Got the invite for the Google Wave account. Now only 'a few days' until I can play with it!

[05 Aug 09: 02:34]
W00t! h-index: 11 http://bjoern.brembs.net/citations.php

[03 Aug 09: 10:37]
Radio interview on bibliometrics tomorrow.

[21 Jul 09: 10:43]
Whoohoo, got 25,000€ in research money from my university for my Heisenberg fellowship!

[20 Jul 09: 12:46]
Job ads for my two positions are getting out. Let's see who will apply: http://bjoern.brembs.net/comment-n523.html

[11 Jun 09: 07:16]
I have two articles in the new Laborjournal http://laborjournal.de whohoo!

[04 Jun 09: 07:24]
Accepted in Current Biology: "mushroom-bodies regulate habit-formation in Drosophila"!

[27 May 09: 02:55]
Many chimneys here in Fribourg have tiny little houses on them. What gives?

[24 May 09: 16:29]
Interspersing FriendFeed commenting makes grading students' papers bearable...

[12 May 09: 11:52]
Just got back from my lecture on scientific publishing: the incredulity of the students when they learn about our system is hilarious!

[08 May 09: 10:18]
First version of my Habilitation talk is ready: Microbe wars: ecology and toxicology of bacterial toxins

[30 Apr 09: 17:39]
Getting ready to leave Hawaii - after my presentation this afternoon.

[25 Apr 09: 16:57]
Now handled 20 papers for PLoS One: http://is.gd/uyyU


Networking
Random Video
SciSites
GeoCounter
outils webmaster
In the beginning, there was bear DNA. Then the projector for the quintessential planetarium experience. Last Friday it was research on fruit flies. Which research project a semi-educated Republican politician doesn't understand will be next? Most people who read this obscure blog will either be US researchers or those with friends and colleagues over there. Your project could be next! Why, I wouldn't put it past these ignoramuses to propose cutting all science spending, since the few million dollars saved by the projects they outline doesn't really change much in the face of roughly a 10 trillion dollar debt. After all, "you have to be a purblind slavering zombie of the Rethuglican party" to think of McCain/Palin as actually pro-science and only anti-earmark.
Now let's see how the US federal research budget compares to the annual budget deficit. For fiscal year 2008, the US budget deficit was US$438 billion. The research budget for FY 2008 was $143.0 billion, of which only $55.4 billion would go to research. All non-defense R&D are roughly $60 billion. In contrast, the FY 2008 defense budget amounts to $481.4 billion. Now let's put that into visual perspective:

usbudget_small.png

This graph was computed assuming $3 million for each of the three earmarked science projects and an approximate $400 billion in yearly intrest payments for the $10 trillion in debt. It shows how utterly ridiculous it is to try to start saving money by cutting down science. Even if you were to cut all non-military R&D spending, it wouldn't really make all that much of a difference for the budget. But it makes a difference in the lives of millions of people in temrs of longevity, health, education, standard of living, etc. So basically, science is an endeavor with comparatively minor costs but a huge benefit for the public. What is the cost benefit ratio for defense spending, I wonder?

Given these considerations, I think it's plainly obvious that the McCain/Palin ticket is clearly anti-science. It's not the earmarks, it's not the specific projects - the only reason the campaign is attacking these projects is because they are scientific projects, which are inherently unintelligible for the feeble minded.


Posted on Monday 27 October 2008 - 10:06:24 comment: 1
research budget   science   earmark   politics   money   Palin   

Render time: 1.2312 sec, 0.4018 of that for queries.