If there's one rule in election-year politics, it's this: Don't mess with the science crowd. OK, labor unions and the NRA matter too, but John McCain may want to brush up on his stars and planets after Tuesday night's debate. In the debate, McCain portrayed Barack Obama as an excessive spender, and he punctuated his attack (twice) with this example: Turns out, a lot of people think we do. This is no ordinary overhead projector from your 5th grade classroom. The blog Cosmic Variance sums it up: The science community is notoriously tight-knit, especially when rallying to a cause, and boy are they are rallying to this one. Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log has a great summary of the uproar: -"For McCain to use this as a political zinger is insulting..." (Bad Astronomy) -"Planetariums are Bridges to the Future, and America would be a much better place if all the congressional earmarks went to projects like them." (The Perfect Silence) -"The logo for Senator John McCain's campaign has a star in the middle. I wonder what his guide star is? It can't be the same one that ten million children have seen at the Adler Planetarium. Why should anyone want their star to dim?" (Discovery Space) The Adler Planetarium even issued a statement, noting that the request, ironically, was not even funded: Linking a planetarium to national security may be a bit of a stretch, but the point is clear: McCain probably shouldn't count on the "science vote" this year.
I'd agree federal money shouldn't pay for capital projects at Adler, however cool it might be. But, I know scientists do like their federal money.
People who care about science weren't going to vote for a ticket with an avowed creationist, anyways.
LOL You had stars??? You got to go outside??? We had foil we put on the walls in the room . . .and we liked it!! Rocket River *d*ngit* we LOVE IT!
Not trying to be a jerk but What project deserve Fed Money? I mean science projects IMO - the benefit of every project is not going to show up on a balance sheet i.e. this brought in xxx amount of dollars Question: I know it is unfair . . but which would you prefer . .Fed Money on Planetarium or Chicago Symphony or Chicago Art Gallery Rocket River
I totally agree, I am disgusted that the bailout package ended up with tons of pork in it. Just fricken pass a bill without tossing in riders for crying out loud. DD
I know things like education and academic research aren't going to show enough of an immediate return to warrant public funding according to all you supercapitalists out there, but take a look at the other developed countries in the world. You'll find our research funding and educational performance during the Bush presidency extremely lacking in comparison, and these things usually correlate to avg. salaries in the work force. The developed countries create new job markets through R&D, and funding of research is vital towards persuading our best minds into applying themselves for the good of society rather than just their own monetary gain. I guess I'm now part of the "science" vote (medicine), so you can take my opinion with a grain of salt.
If they are going to spend money on making progress, I would rather have them make direct investments in R&D projects for energy than a space projector.
He's cited two earmarks that he considers ridiculous: * this planetarium project, a true maverick of science education for the public and * the Montana project collecting DNA samples from bears. This project quickly led to the discovery that grizzlies are much more plentiful than we expected, opening the door to loosening some otherwise very tight environmental regulations in the area. I'm not saying either is worth pork money, if anything is worth pork money at all, but McCain has shown an anti-science stance that I had not seen before. I can only imagine Palin's stance. (Literally, I can only imagine it.)
(ahem). In case that's in any way related to my post, my point was not that some pork is more worthy than other pork. No, my point is, out of millions of federal earmark projects, he went after two that were strongly related to science or science education.
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Hey, B-Bob, McCain also was against, and stopped, bad military deals... Perhaps by your logic this means he's strongly against the military?
While I think there are areas, especially with science, where there should be federal funding, I think all of the areas you listed should be funded by donors, the City of Chicago, and possible the State of Illinois.
