Guest “DOGE, baby, DOGE!” by David Middleton,
I receive daily emails from the American Association of Science of America (News From Science), listing some of their latest headlines. I subject myself to this torture because it’s a great source of material for me to mock and ridicule in WUWT posts. This morning’s News From Science was a treasure trove of ridicule-worthy material.
- Male chimps ask for sex in different ‘dialects’
- Earth’s inner core might harbor volcanoes and landslides
- Spacecraft probing cosmic evolution spies an ‘Einstein ring’
- Alzheimer’s scientist resigns after university finds ‘data integrity concerns’ in papers
- How a cancer researcher lost a gender-related grant to Trump’s executive orders
- ‘My boss was crying.’ NSF confronts potentially massive layoffs and budget cuts
- NIH slashes overhead payments for research, sparking outrage and lawsuit
- Congress could soon erase Biden rules on archaeology, climate, and the environment
- ‘Madness’: Trump freeze on global HIV prevention efforts sparks disbelief, anger
- New journal co-founded by NIH nominee raises eyebrows, misinformation fears
Since I am too cheap to actually subscribe, I can only get access to a few articles per month. So I zeroed in on headlines 5 and 6, because 5 seemed to really justify 6.
Science Insider: Science and Policy
‘My boss was crying.’ NSF confronts potentially massive layoffs and budget cuts
Trump could propose slashing agency’s budget by two-thirds
7 Feb 2025Two major political bombshells hit the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) this week. The first was an official communication from the White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM): Prepare for the possible layoff of half of your 1600-member staff as soon as this spring. The second, still a rumor, is equally shocking: President Donald Trump may ask Congress to cut your $9 billion budget by two-thirds.
The potential double whammy came as NSF has suspended business as usual to find out whether any research it is already funding clashes with a series of executive orders issued by Trump, including one to stop efforts to increase workforce diversity. And it has sparked anxious discussion of what such massive cuts would mean for the second-leading government funder of U.S. academic research behind the National Institutes of Health.
[…]
“My boss was crying when she told us,” says one NSF employee who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. “This is not something NSF wants to be doing,” the employee says. “But they weren’t given a choice.”
[…]
The White House is floating a $3 billion number for NSF, sources tell Science. By comparison, the agency’s current budget is $9.1 billion, and former President Joe Biden’s 2025 request, submitted in March 2024, was for $10.2 billion.
[…]
Such cuts would likely force NSF to eliminate large portions of its broad portfolio, which ranges from operating one-of-a-kind telescopes at the South Pole to supporting elementary school science and math education. And it would almost certainly reduce a researcher’s chance of winning an NSF grant—currently one in four—to the point that researchers might look elsewhere for support.
“I mean, if the success rate drops to 10%, why bother even applying?” says one higher education lobbyist. “Researchers may decide to leave the United States if they can’t get funding here.”
[…]
Having worked in the private sector since 1981 and having paid a buttload of income tax over the past 44 years, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for these people because…
That said, this quote probably irked me the most:
“I mean, if the success rate drops to 10%, why bother even applying?” says one higher education lobbyist.
WTF is a “higher education lobbyist?” And who pays his or her salary? Taxpayers? If it’s already so easy to win a National Science Foundation grant, that 25% of applicants win awards, it’s way too easy for these people to win a taxpayer-funded lottery. Dropping the success rate to 10% seems like a good start. It would force more competition for funding. It might actually lead to research projects that deliver tangible results, like we have to deliver in the private sector. And, hopefully, it would weed out useless crap like this:
Science Insider: Science and Policy
How a cancer researcher lost a gender-related grant to Trump’s executive orders
“Unethical, unlawful, inhumane”: NIH-backed scientist decries termination of study collecting data on sexual orientation and gender identity of cancer patients
7 Feb 2025Late last week, George Washington University (GWU) cancer researcher Mandi Pratt-Chapman received a shocking phone call. Because of an executive order by President Donald Trump that has widely disrupted research related to gender or diversity being done by federal workers or U.S.-funded scientists, she and her colleagues had been ordered to immediately stop work on a large-scale cancer study funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). The project, which explores the best ways to collect information on sexual orientation and gender identity of cancer patients, was already one-third of the way through data collection.
[…]
Yes, I know that the NIH is not the NSF. However, they are both funded by taxpayers and they both spend our money on frivolous projects.
I have lost family members to cancer. My wife survived a brain tumor 20 years ago and is currently battling lymphoma. I am a huge supporter of cancer research… Provided the research is targeted at treating, if not curing cancer. According to her LinkedIn profile Mandi Pratt-Chapman has a BA, MA and PhD in English and a PhD in… wait for it… “Translational Health Sciences”… WTF?
Every dollar spent on crap like this, is a dollar not spent on trying to cure or even treat cancer…
More than ever before, today’s health care leaders are faced with complex challenges to translating evidence to practice that require navigating geographical, organizational, economic, cultural, and professional barriers. These challenges are formidable and multifaceted, so the solutions must be robust, comprehensive, and draw on cross-disciplinary knowledge representative of multiple and novel perspectives. Effective leaders who can close the gap between evidence generation and implementation are needed in every aspect of the healthcare arena, including research laboratories, clinics, community settings, classrooms, boardrooms, and both government and non-government organizations.
Conducting research in our challenging health care environment requires a basis in translational research, a cross cutting approach that connects basic biomedical discovery to global population health impact.
The PhD in Translational Health Sciences program draws on Implementation Science, which investigates the processes and strategies influencing the distribution of evidence-based health care from the clinical research stage into effective treatment options.
Are you a mentor seeking to educate the next generation of health care professionals? Are you a change agent seeking to make meaningful contributions to widespread implementation of evidence-based care for complex health issues?
Mrs. Middleton gets irate every time a medical form asks about her “sexual orientation” and she goes postal when they ask about her gender, particularly if there are more than two choices. The fact that the money I earned and the government confiscated is being spent on a project “which explores the best ways to collect information on sexual orientation and gender identity of cancer patients” makes me want to go dump a cargo of tea into the harbor!
It is high time to DOGE the NSF!
27% Of National Science Foundation Grants Went To DEI Projects, Study Finds
‘Congress must end the politicization of NSF funding and restore integrity to scientific research,’ Sen. Ted Cruz says
By Luke Rosiak
Feb 10, 2025
The National Science Foundation spent more than $2 billion funding “science” projects that were often more about activism and critical race theory than science, the Senate Commerce Committee found.
The committee found that one in 10 grants awarded between January 2021 and April 2024 had to do with oppression, social or environmental justice, gender, or race. The figure was dramatically higher in grants issued more recently, as what counted as “science” transformed dramatically under the Biden administration.
“While only 0.29% of all grants with start-dates in 2021 centered on DEI initiatives, by 2024, more than a quarter (27%) of new grants pushed far-left perspectives,” the Commerce Committee said in a report released Monday.
[…]
Cruz said that wasn’t the only way DEI activism masquerading as research was harming real scientists, saying it also reduced the public’s confidence in the field as a whole.
[…]
Some papers from left-wing academics have said that the scientific method, the written word, and hard work are all racist, making it all the more surprising that mainstream scientists have failed to condemn it.
[…]
In 2022, NSF gave a $4.4 million grant to Columbia University to “decolonize geoscience.” Another million dollars went to a project that says that physics is racist.
[…]
As a geologist I just had to explore the project to “decolonize geoscience.”
THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
08/30/2022 – 10/31/2027 $4,421,998
Implementation grant: implementing novel solutions for promoting cultural change in geoscience research and education (inspire) -implementing novel solutions for promoting cultural change in geoscience research & education (inspire) program delivers a multi-faceted solution for transforming culture, shifting power, and authentically engaging underserved communities within the transdisciplinary earth and environmental sciences. Inspire will mentor, train, and develop early-career researchers and professionals historically underrepresented in the geosciences. By strengthening relationships between research institutions and minority serving institutions (msis), inspire will decolonize geoscience, prioritize engagement of communities through co-design of research programs, and promote the equitable sharing of geoscientific knowledge broadly across our nation. Inspire will foster a just, equitable , and inclusive geoscience research community that reflects the diversity of the nation and is rooted in multi-directional listening and knowledge transfer. Inspire will focus on two cohort populations of future geoscience leaders at the transition points where they are often lost: 1) prior to graduate school; and, 2) prior to tenure. Bridge scholars (post-baccalaureates) will be supported and trained through a climate-focused bridge-to-phd program that will include enrolling in graduate-level classes, participating in research, and launching an evidence-based self-affirmation component, the armor project. Visiting fellows (early career faculty/researchers at msis) will gain skills and experience for developing community-focused geoscience research through their home institutions with collaborative support from – and partnerships with – columbia university scientists. Reciprocal visits from columbia hosts/mentors to the visiting fellow home institutions will be an integral part of their collaboration and will strengthen institutional partnerships. Participants from both cohorts will engage with communities in new york city to gain experience with community-focused co-design of geoscience research. The columbia geoscience community, including its alumni, will participate in coordinated action of mentoring and support, and will offer networking opportunities to members of both cohorts. A council of cultural advisors of scientists and scholars from msis and bipoc leaders in stem will provide guidance and feedback on program directions through communications and biannual meetings. Together with their mentors, host and collaborators, inspire?s 14 visiting fellows and 16 bridge scholars will become agents of change who will propagate aspects of this novel research and education ecosystem into multiple institutions. Inspire will deliver novel solutions for systemic change and cultural transformation long overdue in the geosciences. It will support and sustain diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (deia)-centered programs, and will create resources and opportunities for new programs to flourish. The envisioned cultural transformation will increase the creativity, equity, relevance, and impact of geoscience. This award reflects nsf’s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation’s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
I now need a shot of vodka and a BC Powder. While, there’s room to debate how much taxpayer money should be spent on complying with meaningful regulations, protecting the environment and tangibly useful scientific research, we shouldn’t be spending a penny on DEI and other social engineering efforts!
“For far too long, the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. “This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies.”
It’s time to DOGE, DOGE with “extreme prejudice”!
For those not keeping up with current events:
What is DOGE? Here’s what to know about Elon Musk’s latest cost-cutting efforts.
By Aimee Picchi
Edited By Alain Sherter
Updated on: February 10, 2025
The White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was created by President Trump on Jan. 20 with a mission to slash federal spending. Since then, the task force led by billionaire Elon Musk says it has saved more than $1 billion by canceling diversity, equity and inclusion contracts, among other expenses, according to DOGE’s social media account.
[…]
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It remains true that society will advance better when the job selection criterion is, as it used to be, the best qualified and experienced person available for the job. Geoff S
Exactly when was that job selection criterion applied? Can you name me a time in Australia when Aboriginals weren’t discriminated against? Or when Blacks weren’t discriminated against in the US?
Can you name me a time in Australia when Aboriginals weren’t discriminated against?
Now. !
The is far more Government money spent per Aboriginal that for any other culture.
They also have many rights that no other Australian have.
Name a single right that Aboriginal’s have that other Australians don’t? And also say exactly where in the constitution those rights can be found.
Currently the life expectancy for Aboriginal’s is 8 years less than for white Australians. While the median weekly income for a first nations household was
$830 compared to $1080 for the rest of the population.
So if not being discriminated against means being 20% poorer and dying 8 years earlier I would love to see what you think would result if they were discriminated against?
There’s this thing called “self esteem” Izaak.
Nobody else can bestow it on us.
It has to come initially by personally rejecting the convenient mantle of “victim of society”.
Dr Jordan Peterson has written and spoken about the individual choices we all make in life despite the circumstances of our births.
I recommend Dr, Peterson’s observations & insights to you for consideration.
So a lack of self esteem is the only thing causing Aboriginals to die 8 years on average than other Australians? There is not racism at all in Australia?
You can have all the self-esteem in the world but that still won’t help if someone won’t even interview you because of your perceived race.
No. It’s a cultural and genetic problem.
As for racism, it does exist in Australia, yes, but no more than you appear to be exhibiting.
So what exactly do you think are the effects of racism in Australia ? Since we both agree that it exists then do you agree it has a detrimental impact on the life experiences of Aboriginal people in Australia?
Oof. At least you’re being honest about your bigotry?
Well Izaak, in my early work life and conscription army years I worked alongside many Aboriginal blokes.
I found them generally to have just the same ‘diversity’ of intellect, ambitions, work ethic, sense of responsibility, sense of humour, courage and self esteem as all the other skin color and ethnic backgrounds blokes I got thrown in with.
One Aboriginal bloke I served with went on to be a multi-volumes published historian. Didn’t finish grade 8 at school.
In my experience, the black blokes, brown blokes. yellow blokes, white blokes all accomplished whatever they had the ambition and commitment to apply themselves to.
We all had obstacles to our ambitions to confront and master.
The ‘quitters’ were just as prevalent in the caucasian cohorts as they were in the others of various skin colours and ethnicities.
‘Ticker’ is what makes the difference, and making a personal decision to eschew societal ‘victimhood’.
Well stated, Mr. Geoff S
Yep. There are excellent people and ratbags and everything in between in any race, creed, colour, sex, sexual orientation and education level.
Grants (such as special Indigenous housing loans, research and study grants)Free University courses with specific positions for Indigenous studentsCentrelink and housing assistance (Indigenous-specific)Employment in Indigenous identified positionsSpecial School programs for Indigenous studentsLand Rights, allowing them to apply for native title and have legal rights to their ancestral landsAccess to free healthcare services under Medicare.(everyone else has Medicare payments taken from there wages.
And that is just the tip..
Grants and funding | NSW Government and that’s just NSW.
Or you could look here Indigenous Grants — The Grants Hub
Income is nothing to do with discrimination. Trying to make it so is very racist of you.
Life expectancy is also nothing to do with discrimination.
They have been helped massively by Government help, and receive far more benefits per person than any other culture in Australia.
I have several friend who are Aboriginal, they do not feel discriminated against.. and in fact say that people who says so, are belittling them. !
“Income is nothing to do with discrimination.”
That is a complete load of nonsense. Just ask why women get paid less than men for doing the same work? People who are discriminated against earn less because they get promoted less, get few job offers etc.
See for example what happened in Birmingham in the UK. After decades of discrimination again female cleaners who get paid less than their male counterparts the council got left with a bill of 760 million pounds to settle equal pay claims. So clearly income and discrimination go hand in hand.
You are talking rubbish again IW.
The topic is Aboriginals.. Stay on topic, and stop the attempted side-tracking.
“income and discrimination go hand in hand”
Every job I have every worked in, the females got paid at exactly the same rate for the same job, they also had extra benefits us males didn’t get.
oh and, thanks for your little example of Birmingham.
It clearly shows that it is illegal to discriminate on pay for women.
And that if you do it and get caught, you have to pay up.
In my experience, aboriginal people have a right to benefit payments, typically without any need to justify them, and often to free housing. They get priority with public healthcare and many public services, including education.
I know you might believe I’m racist, but the fact is that a greater proportion of aboriginal people don’t work than non-aboriginals. That’s why their average income is lower. As for their life expectation, it’s mostly genetic and cultural, not from any neglect by society.
And they generally get a free pass when it comes to illegal drugs. It’s too common in many aboriginal communities to actually do anything about it. Alcohol is more of a problem, however.
You need to get more involved with aboriginal people before spouting biased misinformation about them. It’s not as simple ss you seem to imagine.
I think claiming that the reason why aboriginals die soon is “mostly genetic” would count as racism. All of the evidence from genetic studies shows that is no such thing as race and everyone basically has the same genes. See for example:
https://humgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40246-020-00284-2
Which states clearly in the abstract:
“There is no scientific evidence that the groups we traditionally call “races/ethnicities” have distinct, unifying biological or genetic basis.”
You obviously don’t understand the difference between observation and racism. How come certain races, take Chinese for example, are extremely affected by alcohol? It appears that Australian aboriginals are too.
And you wilfully ignored the cultural aspect.
I guess that’s racism by your standards.
Your link clearly states that it is an opinion, not a data-driven study.
If you look at this link below from “Creative Spirits”, you will see the major reason for the difference in death rates is:
Source: Aboriginal life expectancy – Creative Spirits
Infant mortality is a factor as well, especially in remote communities.
Health services outside the major population centres are a concern for people of any background.
Whether we like it or not, life expectance is governed by child mortality.
In the past people still lived to be 70, 80, and 90 years old but more kids died as babies
“I think claiming that the reason why aboriginals die soon is “mostly genetic” would count as racism.”
You are totally full of it. There *is* a genetic reason why blacks are more susceptible to sickle cell disease than whites. It *does* impact the overall life spans of each race. It has *NOTHING* to do with racism.
“All of the evidence from genetic studies shows that is no such thing as race and everyone basically has the same genes.”
That’s like saying a Corvette and a Mini-Cooper have the same basic genes. They both have a drive train, wheels, and a steering wheel. They are *not* the same, however.
Australian Aborigines and Native Americans both migrated from Asia, at different times. Sickle cell anaemia is an African adaptation. Lack of alcohol tolerance is an Asian trait. Australian Aborigines also have a propensity towards diabetes.
So if I observe that people of African descent in America tend to grow taller, run faster, and be more muscular than others in the same environment, would you consider that racist? Observing genetic differences between groups of people is not inherently racist. Jewish people tend to have higher rates of genetic defects simply because they lived in isolated communities for centuries and only married each other, causing genetic bottlenecks where recessive traits were more likely to emerge
I can think of a few extra rights, please note I am not saying anything about whether they should or shouldn’t have them just the question was posed by Izaak.
1.) They can not be deported from Australia even if they are born overseas and are not legally an Australian citizen. (See High Court Ruling)
2.) They have a legal advice agency normal Australians can’t use
3.) They have health care agency normal Australians can’t use
4.) They have training and employment agency availability available to them and people on NDIS.
5.) On traditional lands which the government still own they have numerous hunting and gathering rights normal Australians do not have.
Of that list one the first could be considered a right. Items 2,3 and 4 are the current state of affairs that can be changed by government policy and so clearly are not rights. Number 5 is a simple statement that says that native title exists and that if you own a piece of land then you have rights on it compared to everyone else that doesn’t own that land. Not surprisingly if you and you family have continuously lived in an area for in excess of 20000 years then you have a very good legal title to that land.
Nick, is that you?
Try explaining that to the Vikings. Or the Romans. Or the French in 1066. The English people should demand their rights!
Your strange exclusion of ‘rights’ that have been granted by government by setting them into law, is indeed, strange.
Mr. Wanderer: Good spot! Mr. Walton simply changed the definition of “rights” mid-comment, very Stokesian method.
Add Ukrainians to the list.
Add Israel to the list.
You are playing stupid semantics and I don’t do stupid arguments over definitions that one side is changing … take your argument and stick it.
Mr. de Boer: Also a very good spot, I call this one a humpty dumpty troll, words mean what he says, no more no less. Can’t talk to such eggs.
Izaac,
Just one right.
White Australians cannot climb to the top of Mount Warning without permission. Aborigines can, they issue permits to whiteys. Geoff S
At least for the US, I can speak to that as a former senior (and recruiting) partner of one of the world’s most exclusive consulting firms (BCG). We went to the ends of the earth (personally been there) to find the best and brightest. Race, color, sex, nationality played NO role. (And despite that enormous effort, 2/3 of new hires washed out within 2 years. Boy, do I have personal favorite ‘recommended recruit’ failure stories.)
We used a number of ‘trick’ common sense reasoning questions for all the supposedly ‘superior’ MBA and PhD candidate interviews. My absolute fav was, Why are manhole covers round? (If you could not figure it out quickly, you were probably not hired.)
Hint. You really do NOT want manhole covers falling into manholes. Round is the ONLY shape guaranteeing no matter what the cover orientation, the overlapping lip cannot fall thru while also minimizing manhole cover overlapping lip cost. Simples—the rest turned out in hindsight good for about 1/3 of the best and brightest after 2 years.
Rud,
the issue is that almost nobody admits to being racist or sexist and most of us think that we aren’t. However every time people send out identical CVs but with different names the ones with the white male names always get more responses. See for example:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4490163
where they find that
“participants are 30 percentage points (pp) more likely to hire workers perceived to be white compared to Black”
Pretending that society isn’t biased when all of the evidence shows that it is in not going to help matters improve.
This loser mindset is why you people will be relegated to the dustbin of history. And good riddance, racist.
you wan ‘racist’? Walk through a Black neighborhood, and try to get a conversation started.
That study cracks me up we all need to be Kevin or Michael that is a good neutral name neither white, black, asian or hispanic.
Only in social sciences does that rubbish get published.
Wonder where Izaak fits in the name colour spectrum?
Talk about a lack of common sense. We *all* tend to choose what we are familiar with. Do you *really* think that in Kenya, hiring principals are not biased toward picking names they are familiar with? That’s not racism.
After some experimentation, we concluded that triangular covers also work. They’re not as ‘sensible’, however, but I have seen a few.
Misses the orientation aspect.
Mr. Walton: No, the issue is that you try to match wits with others when you are evidently unarmed. “Most of us think that we aren’t [racist].” That “us” include you?
Fun Fact
Here in the United States we elected Joseph Rainey, a former slave, to congress in 1870.
Between 1870 and 1935 twenty black congressmen took office, they all were Republicans.
Speaking for Australia, since my first meeting with miscellaneous others at age 4, I have never seen discrimination against our aboriginal people. In my work among aboriginal bush communities in the Top End of the Territory, we consulted, we agreed, we signed agreements and complied. We employed several in real (not token) jobs in the spirit of no colour discrimination (Hi Lyle, hi Rita, hi Sambo if you are still alive in old age). We built schools, airstrips, a town, swimming pools etc. There was never any sense of discrimination against. We complied with increasing discrimination for, as activism captured some lawmakers. But we complied.
What on Earth made you think there is harmful anti-aboriginal activity in Australia? How about a serious, clear example of national importance from you? Geoff S
Discrimination based on colour, gender, sexual orientation, religion etc is wrong. Plain and simple.
However, preferential selection of people based on their colour etc rather than their ability is discrimination against people with ability and is a downward spiral for society.
Hiring based on race is illegal, in the US at least.
Dave, surely you don’t mean to DOGE prostate cancer research in trans women like new Rep.Sarah McBride of Delaware!
On a more serious lawfare note, something like 19 AG’s sued in Rhode Island (forum shopping, much?) to reverse the NIH new rule on no more than 15% Indirect overhead in medical research grants. For perspective, Harvard was charging 67%, and the NIH average was 29%. By comparison, the max from private grants was 15%. For example, Gates Foundation allows 10%. So, three issues.
NSF and NIH are losing their minds over what people will judge as imminently reasonable. Not a good look.
Justice Thomas made it pretty clear 6 or 7 years ago that he would relish the opportunity to rule on a circuit court judge issuing nation-wide injunctions. I don’t think the left has really thought this through. They push this lawfare strategy hard and they may get a ruling they will wish never happened. I think he can convince 4 or 5 other justices to concur with his opinion on it.
Personal note. My most cherished gold cufflinks are those of SCOTUS given me in an ABA thanks celebratory dinner in the Great Hall of SCOTUS by Justice Thomas himself. And all I did was serve for two years as a ‘fact’ person on the annual State SCOTUS/ Federal Appeals annual ABA conference raising and illustrating unresolved constitutional questions raised by me as then CSO of Motorola. Even had a then White House staffer respond to one with, ‘Well then, we will just shoot you down!” Sounds familiar today.
I’m old enough to remember the emergence of NASA the early satellites, moon missions and Mars exploration. It seems to me NASA is doing a repeat of moon and mars missions. This is a waste of tax payer money
And NASA has never sent a mission to Mars to repeat the questionable signs of life it supposedly found back in the 1970s. They are afraid that if there are actually no signs of life, past or present, there’s no more money.
No bucks, no Buck Rogers…
Same guys designing the same stuff for the same missions until retirement – not a bad job if you can get it.
It is rarely a waste to re-examine something with new technology. You have to understand that the last manned moon mission was in 1972 and the first IBM PC was nearly a decade later; personal computers and other technologies have improved significantly since then.
Until (or if) the problems of long-term exposure to space radiation and radiation levels on the surface of Mars are solved, any mission to Mars is likely to be a one-way trip. The problem of whether life was detected on Mars in the ’70s could be solved by sending a more sophisticated rover with the ability to positively identify perchlorates in the Martian regolith.
You would not have a computer or smart phone to post with were it not for the early NASA programs.
Is exploration and scientific discovery ever a waste of money?
Much of our modern technology is also a flow down from DoD research and development, as well.
Correct and I was and still am involved in that.
“Bridge scholars (post-baccalaureates) will be supported and trained through a climate-focused bridge-to-phd program that will include enrolling in graduate-level classes, participating in research, and launching an evidence-based self-affirmation component, the armor project.”
Why does the taxpayer have to pay to have Columbia do what they should be doing out of their own budgets? Affirmative action involves recruiting outside the typical demographic. Why should you get taxpayer money for doing that?
We used to have all kinds of business funded basic science research labs: Bell Labs, Palo Alto, IBM labs, etc. These all died when the government decided to get into the funding of basic research in a big way. That was bound to die sooner or later because government is a piss-poor arbiter of what should be funded and what shouldn’t. As the government expanded the funding into cultural and social engineering, the rent seekers expanded also – and have wound up killing the entire kit and kaboddle.
Tim, you are historically factually correct but I think probably wrong about basic causes. Government research took over by default when corporate labs ‘failed’. The famous labs (Bell, Zerox Palo Alto, IBM) did great for decades in meeting the original needs of their corporate sponsors.
But those needs changed and the labs didn’t. Same observation said backwards, the labs made advances that the corporations failed to cash in on because too ‘stuck’ in original business.
Two rather famous examples.
And the counter example is pharma, where the private research and the corporate sponsoring mission remain aligned. Of course, this also needs a qualification. Lots of pharma ‘research’ is VC funded startups. Pharma has learned that it is cheaper to let that happen, then buy the few winners, than play themselves. Using other people’s money to pay for the many failures, only use yours to buy the few winners.
Bell Labs (now Lucent Tech) failed with the anti-monopoly (unjustified IMHO) breakup of Bell.
The title of our former Director of DEI was changed to Director of Access and Cultural Innovation. I think that Big Balls would have a problem with this.
Anyway, I heard that there are over 1 million NGOs in the U.S. Really?!
Here in New Zealand we have two kinds of science…’colonial science’ and Maori ‘science’. Guess which one our left wing media thinks is best and needs more funding…
Maybe NZ, not Canada, should become the 51st state so Musk’s rules can be enforced here.
No thanks. While I’m sure there are wonderful people in both places, the last thing we need to do is add the electoral equivalent of two Californias to the US.
There is a lot to dislike about academia, that’s not good. Don’t even get me started on government.
Wow! did these people learn this DEI word salad nonsense from Kamala?
Reading more of this is a sure way to lose IQ points.
This…
Plus this…
…will help… or at least won’t hurt.
I was at UCLA in the 70’s teaching pathology. This was the beginning of the affirmative action era. There were students in both medicine and dentistry that I felt shouldn’t have been admitted. Scary! Women were also considered for AA at that time.
On another note I was a third author on a paper submitted to the Lancet which was published. We were particularly proud of that paper (on bone grafts, I did the histopath). Lancet is of course very woke today and part of the global warming cult.
One of the authors was a plastic surgery resident at Harbor hospital. Great sense of humor.
On one very difficult female patients chart he wrote orders one of which read HMI.
A nurse asked what is HMI. Hot meat injection replied. He would be scolded endlessly by feminists in todays world.
This is clearly a precursor to DEI. I was also there then where we taught pre-meds and such in a well integrated university which had at the bottom of the stationery the oxymoron— AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER
Also I have been in recent discussions about how could one trace its effects of which it must have had. Affirmative Action Attribute?
Great article David😁🎉. The article shows how wide and deep the Washington swamp has become clearly justifying a Musk sledge hammer being applied to the arrogant and irrelevant buffoons that have come to leech off the public’s hard earned taxes.
The amount of blatant waste, ideology funding and outright fraud that Musk is uncovering…
.. is almost unbelievable…
But that’s leftists for you. !
Loomer Report
High Salaries Exceeding $1.2 MILLION PER YEAR at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) Amidst Federal Funding Waste Scandals. Through my investigation into the financial dealings of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), established by Congress in 1984 as a 501c3 charity, it has been revealed that their CEO, Jeffrey Trandahl, received a salary of $1,211,150 for the fiscal year from October 1, 2022, to September 30, 2023.
https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1889335092864073884
Today it was revealed that USAID has been sending millions to terrorist organizations.
And somehow Samantha Power’s net worth increased from $ millions to tens of $millions in just a few years at the helm of USAID.
(I don’t think it was from modeling on the side.)
Millions spent to fund BBC.
Skip the political rants and get back to climate
“Climate™” is inimically linked to waste and fraud, and to far-leftist policies.
Skip the snark and go set up your own blog
Really who doesn’t like the smell of napalm in the morning on your political enemy?
Nailed it!
“Climate science” IS “politics”.
There is no such thing as climate science. One cannot get a degree in climate science.
Climate research? Ok. Climatology? Ok.
“Climate science” is “politics.” Definiitely.
You could just skip over the ones you don’t like.
“Climate Science” is one of the worst offenders.
Trump will be there
Before the next teardrop falls
“Male chimps ask for sex in different ‘dialects’”
A lot of stand up comics should have fun with this one. If only George Carlin was still with us.
Meanwhile, I can use a good laugh- just had surgery on a groin hernia. First surgery since my tonsillectomy in 1960 which I probably didn’t need. I was terrified, but it went well. Still sore and can’t drive for a week. Humor helps. I can’t think of a few jokes based on that quote, but I’ll refrain. I hope Trump hears that one- I’m sure he’d have fun with it.
“I can use a good laugh- just had surgery on a groin hernia”
Then the very last thing you want to do is laugh ! 🙂
(unless you are a masochist.) 😉
Gay chimp wants to know if your hernia was on the left or right side or if you’re ambidextrous.
Q: Why didn’t anyone listen to the zookeeper’s complaints? A: Because he had a chimp on his shoulder.
Carlin told jokes that were considered left wing in his time. Would they now be right wing?
https://youtu.be/7W33HRc1A6c?si=2Nd8R8v4Y461JtZ1
Enjoyed that. It’s not good to have a lava lamp on the Big Island.
We need assisted living more than the planet.
Strangely, so do humans.
Its about time someone cleaned up the USA, its been an embarrassing shambles politically for years. It must rate as one of the most corrupt in the world as well.
On a firmer note.
Robert Kennedy Jnr asked Anthony Fauci for the documents of the trials of the 72 vaccines that are bundled up and pumped into the bodies of new born to teens since the late 1980’s. It went to the Federal court.
Result, there were no trials of efficacy, or for potential harm. No evidence at all. The same for Fluoride in the water. This vaccine protocol has been exported to many countries, basically institutionalized manslaughter. Make the people sick to sell drugs.
Seems like the Jewish Bankers and the Pharmaceutical companies run your country.
Trump and Elon have hit the ground running, the world is watching and hoping that the country with the biggest guns gets it’s shite together. There was a time when the people were fit enough to protest.
Have a wonderful day
Delete the reference to Jewish Bankers.
There is certainly a long list of legitimate culprits.
Look up Nick Bargatze for some of his stand-up comedy videos.
Nate Bargatze is fracking hilarious… 🤣
“I mean, if the success rate drops to 10%, why bother even applying?” says one higher education lobbyist.“
Better not tell students applying to Princeton this year.
One has to wonder if there is a report/book/whatever on the history of NSF. Now it seems to have devolved into socio-political, psychological, or at least non-historically science activities. I have done a small amount of research with NSF money long ago when it funded real science and would be ashamed to spend money on something like this.
https://news.syr.edu/blog/2025/02/09/ischool-professor-jaime-banks-secures-600000-nsf-grant-to-research-human-experiences-of-ai/
“The grant is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through its Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate and more specifically, the Human-Centered Computing funding arm. It is for research into the project, “Mind Perception in AI Companionship: Testing the Assumptions of Social Theories.”
“Such cuts would likely force NSF to eliminate large portions of its broad portfolio, which ranges from operating one-of-a-kind telescopes at the South Pole to supporting elementary school science and math education”
Is NSF funding the correct path to teach elementary school science and math?
Academic grants and grants for business startups are in some respects welfare for STEM practitioners.
I’m conflicted because I’ve taken advantage of these opportunities. Some level of this support is justified but most is perhaps not. Things really went off the rails when DEI became a significant part of applications and indeed funding on its own. We emulate cancer quite well.
We just went through all our NSF applications and scrubbed any of the obligatory DEI language – and it was obligatory over the last 3 or 4 years.
Interesting reportage in “The Guardian”:
US scientists feeling ‘stress and fear’ as sweeping Trump orders hit funding
Sorry for laughing.
The doges of Medieval Venice and Genoa were rich and powerful men elected by a committee of 40 who were chosen by four men selected from the “Great Council of Venice” (Wiki)
Venicians became the maritime powerhouse of their time and thus became the primary transport for Crusaders trying to get to the Levant.
“The Conquest of Constantinople”, Geoffroy Villehardouin, describes an aging doge in Venice who took the ideologically driven (Fourth) Crusaders to the cleaners, forcing them to fight a war for Venice in Zara to help finance their transport to the Holy Land. There’s more than an air of unscrupulousness about the doges.
As cryptic as the “dogecoin” etymology is, I have to think Elon Musk is well aware of its shady Medieval reference as well.
The BS that the woke / climate ideologues have piled up is wide and deep. Watching Trump at play in it is a great joy. Surely he will find a few real ponies in there somewhere (?)
I need a good chuckle this morning I am going to look up 2
“Earth’s inner core might harbor volcanoes and landslides”
Who let Nick loose in core geophysics.
I was thinking this….
Well, it’s millions of degrees, doncha know? Al Gore told me, so it must be true.
Reading your revelations here David, I can only conclude that you Yanks must have too much pocket money to piss away.
(or is it all from Dirty Uncle Ernies in the Democrat Party Congress & Senate handing out “grant candies” to groom the research kiddies?
I admire Trump’s vitality, but this just a new substitute for a RussiaGate. They hope to wear him down soon.
Not gonna happen, says this old retired sometimes lawyer.
Lawfare is all Dems and Libs got left. It will slow him down, but so much is patently absurd that Trump is also (albeit slowly and indirectly) destroying lawfare. And based on today’s Oval Office presser with Musk on DOGE, he isn’t wearing down. He is accelerating the attack.
Heck yeah. I just watched that and it was brilliant. The press and the left are left standing there with their opposables in their nether regions defending FRAUD AND ABUSE.
Yep… And the Dem’s particularly unlawful form of lawfare is what drove Musk, Gabbard, RFK Jr, Joe Rogan and a lot of other classical liberals over to Trump’s side.
“Mrs. Middleton gets irate every time a medical form asks about her “sexual orientation” and she goes postal when they ask about her gender, particularly if there are more than two choices.”
I feel her pain. Especially when a so-called medical establishment asks for my “sex assigned at birth”, or “Legal sex”. WTF is my legal sex??
18 years or older.
16 in most countries in Europe. I’m very glad about that. I couldn’t have imagined having to wait until I was 18!
14 in some.
They use “assigned at birth” to create a perception that it is arbitrary, hence their identity is valid.
Sex is recorded at birth. Sex is created at the moment of conception.
is there any .GOV agency that doesn’t need it DOGE style?
DOGE… 😎
True, but we must be vigilant. While I do not believe it will go astray, we can never expect perfection in anything.
She seems qualified to write grant applications and quarterly-results summaries. However, anything to do with actually curing cancer, or improving the quality of life for terminal cases, not so much. Research unrelated to actually solving the societal problems is where science has gone off the rails. Maybe she can get a job writing grant applications for someone who can actually contribute to curing cancer.
“It would force more competition for funding.”
Bill Gates could fund the whole research enterprise.
There’s be something constructive our resident centibillionaires could do, when they’re not funding viral GOF, deploying self-transmitting self-reproducing mRNA inflammation vehicles, or BLM.
“Woodch(i)pper’s Ball”, Woody Herman, 1939 Swing
For anyone that might feel like dancing.
I rather like the “10 Years After” version. Totally different
https://youtu.be/LesU7SF_qfo
Alvin Lee just needed some Bryllcreem.