Happy Birthday to Sabrina Le Beauf, 55. Didn't realize she was in a Star Trek.
The good stuff:
1. The Senate, on a voice vote, has cut off (some) funding for political science research. Awful.
2. The Arkansas Medicaid plan. Will it fly? Sarah Kliff examines it.
3. I didn't know about this, and now I do and I'm happy: the British budget box. From Matt Phillips.
4. And Jay Ulfelder wants social scientists to have some fun.
I agree that the Senate decision to largely defund Political Science research was unwise, but I think that the APSA comment on the decision went too far. What it calls the "independence and integrity" of the NSF is incompatible with democracy. Our elected legislators in Congress have the responsibility to make decisions about federal support of scientific research. Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution states quite clearly: "No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law." Congress clearly has the constitutional authority to limit expenditures on scientific research, or even the authority to defund NSF completely, unwise as such a course would be. So APSA attacking the legitimacy of this Senate decision is inappropriate. Attacking the wisdom of the decision is certainly appropriate.
ReplyDeleteThe Red British Box has a big role in the original version of The House of Cards. Maybe they'll sneak one into the new version on a cameo.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought that the new version had Spacey as a Democrat because his character is smart and Republicans are sold by libs as the party of moron. Now my guess is that they want to use Tea Party terrorists in place of the IRA, so the natural enemy is a Dem.
But maybe not. The new HoC is pretty realistic (i. e. negative) about government. No West wing style goo-goo fantasizing on that set.