Reply #9: Lay blame on two people

[jmowreader]

Senator William Proxmire and Reagan's Budget Director David Stockman.

Proxmire instituted the "Golden Fleece of the Month" award for what he saw as the worst use of public money for a particular month. For quite a few years, the Golden Fleece was regularly awarded to a pure-science project. One famous example is the project to study the sex life of the screw-worm fly. Proxmire figured this was total bullshit, so he slammed it. The screw-worm fly sex project yielded the "insect growth regulator" class of insecticides, which work by destroying the sex lives of the insects they seek to eliminate. They're effective with far less environmental impact. (Proxmire finally apologized for bad-mouthing the fly-sex-life project.)

Apparently, another infamous award had to do with a study of animals' displays of stress in confined spaces, which the Navy and NASA were funding the shit out of because those two agencies rely on confined spaces for much of their work--submarines for the Navy and spacecraft for NASA. Proxmire's people declared it "a study of how monkeys clench their jaws."

As a result of Proxmire, pure science became somewhat of a second-class citizen to applied science. But I don't think Proxmire was purely evil; he was just misguided.

As for David Stockman...that fucker was evil right to the bottom of his coal-black heart which pumps not blood like yours or mine, but a thick black gelatinous fluid which collects in his brain and causes his Nazi-ass patterns of violent behavior. This guy needed to slash everything he could to pay for Reagan's tax cuts.

In Europe, they actually fund pure science because it's actually good for something! Horrors! In America, all we fund are programs that will generate immediate revenue. What's wrong with those insolent French?