Why snail research is important

On a Bill Maher show, "Stephen Moore, libertarian economist and Wall Street Journal columnist" kept pounding away that we must reduce the debt and one way to do that is to cut funding for science grants, like $2 million for snail mating research.  "19-year-old Zack Kopplin, science advocate and history student" retorted that government-sponsored science often gives far better returns than many investments.  He gave as an example that the government investment in genome research paid back 140 times the investment.  See "College Kid Forced To Remind Know-It-All Economist That He's Actually Not A Scientist".

Warning: this segment deteriorates into a shouting match!

I might add, would we be reading these stories if the government hadn't invested in the Internet decades ago?  Would we have had Google if the government hadn't given a California university a grant to study search algorithms?

About the snail mating research, "it's to prevent children in developing countries from getting parasitic worms…"  Why should we protect these children from parasitic worms?  Parasites increase poverty.  Poverty leads to corruption.  Corruption leads to terrorism.  Two million dollars is a much better investment to prevent terrorism than two hundred million dollars and rising per F-35, a plane that still has many problems.

Bill Maher makes a deal with "birthers"

Bill Maher took on those who insist President Obama is not an American on his HBO show.

At the end he offered to show the birthers President Obama's birth certificate when they show him Sarah Palin's high school diploma.

I wonder if the rush is on to get Sarah Palin's high school diploma. Gosh, can I even produce mine? I do know I have my B.A. and M.S. in a bookcase. But if I can't find my copy of Boccacio without turning the house upside down, could I find two little framed (I think framed) documents?

A different take on political parties in the U.S.

I've been hoping for a new political party in the middle. Bill Maher says that we have one; it's called the Democratic Party. He's calling for a true leftist party. See "Democrats Have Moved to the Right and the Right Has Moved into a Mental Hospital".

Capitalism is a good thing except when it's a bad thing

Bill Maher wrote an interesting article about how capitalism has run amok in this country.

"New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit"