Good thing the economy is “recovering from the Biden disaster”, eh?
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And Bob - that’s all money that US consumers have paid in increased prices for goods. So it’s more money out of everyday American’s pockets.
Remind me again what the inflation rate was in 2024? Oh, yeah. 2.9%. And what direction was it going? Oh, yeah. Down.
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For any folks with “medical research budget” curiosity but hesitant to click on anything involving hegseth and matters of the rectum:
Hegseth’s claim about marbles being inserted into the rear ends of cats is correct, but lacks all context. Soldiers – or anyone else – who suffer severe spinal cord injuries can lose control of their bowels. The study used anesthetized cats as test subjects to study the impact of a new procedure to restore functionality in the sphincter and rectum. The marbles were meant to simulate defecation and determine whether a procedure restored control in test subjects.
The results were encouraging, according to the American Journal of Physiology.
“[The] study indicates the possibility to develop a novel…device to restore defecation function after spinal cord injury using a minimally invasive surgical approach.”
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Soldiers – or anyone else – who suffer severe spinal cord injuries can lose control of their bowels. The study used anesthetized cats as test subjects to study the impact of a new procedure to restore functionality in the sphincter and rectum. The marbles were meant to simulate defecation and determine whether a procedure restored control in test subject
Just more William Proxmire antiscience bullshit. They can’t even be bothered to come up with a new schtick!
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When I was in the DC area recently I stopped by the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring. It’s actually operated by the military, not the Smithsonian, and features a lot of health and surgical innovations developed by the military. (Also, they’ve got items from Lincoln’s autopsy, including the bullet…)
One clear takeaway was that the U.S. military has come up with some amazing life-saving stuff over the years. Borne out of wartime necessity and just a drive to get stuff done they’ve developed all kinds of treatments and procedures to meet needs that the civilian medical institutions hadn’t effectively addressed. Repurposing ordinary items that weren’t originally meant for medical use has happened again and again. And they historically haven’t shied away from important but “touchy” subjects like avoiding the transmission of STDs, treating erectile dysfunction, etc.
So anyway, screw anyone who wants to defund these guys, especially if they’re doing so because they think that innovative and out-of-the-box thinking is inherently wasteful.
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Hmm - I hope that stiffing National Guard troops will have a more immediate (and dare I hope for, umm, visceral?) impact than merely stiffing building contractors and lawyers.
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Today I learned a little bit about William Proxmire. Thanks @Docosc!
Relevant bit from Wikipedia:
The first Golden Fleece Award was awarded in 1975 to the National Science Foundation for funding an $84,000 study on why people fall in love.[4] Other Golden Fleece awards over the years were awarded to the Justice Department for conducting a study on why prisoners wanted to get out of jail, the National Institute of Mental Health to study a Peruvian brothel (“The researchers said they made repeated visits in the interests of accuracy,” reported The New York Times), and the Federal Aviation Administration for studying “the physical measurements of 432 airline stewardesses, paying special attention to the ‘length of the buttocks.’”[4]
Proxmire’s critics said that some of his Golden Fleece awards went to basic science projects that led to important breakthroughs. In some circles, his name has become a verb for unfairly obstructing scientific research for political gain, as in “the project has been proxmired.”[67] In 1987, Stewart Brand accused Proxmire of recklessly attacking legitimate research for the crass purpose of furthering his own political career, with gross indifference as to whether his assertions were true or false as well as the long-term effects on American science and technology policy.[68] Proxmire later apologized for several canceled projects, including SETI.[69]
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Oh yeah, I was in the car with my family when this came on… we all scoffed angrily when it got t that part and then we collectively invoked the leopards.
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Last week I was at Arlington and saw the house that Lee lived in before it was seized by the Union when he decided to wage war against the U.S., eventually turning his estate into the cemetery.
No punishment would ever be enough for Lee’s many crimes, but at least he died without getting his house back, or any compensation for it, which he tried to get for years.
And I know that it was built by his Father in Law but damn, that front porch was tacky! It has huge, fake marble columns that are completely out of proportion to the rest of the house. They recently restored it to the original paint scheme and it’s just so cheesy looking, like a McMansion built by someone with more money than taste.
Maybe that’s one of several reasons that Trump sees Lee as a kindred spirit?
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The results were encouraging…
Well, see, there’s the real problem.
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I have fond memories of this screensaver.
So pretty.
There were only four of us working on Macs at the time, in a pre-print workplace.
Cost us nothing.
Found less than one alien.
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I’d say the most disturbing images in the pandemic were people hours away from dying gasping “I wish I had gotten the vaccine”
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My lasting reason to curse his name is that he made mainstream the attitude that basic science is worthless because it cannot be monetized now. He could not understand that basic research leads to applicable tech, you can’t have one without the other. But the know-nothings have taken that to a full-blown art form.
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