Bill Nye is Gay, Brah. . .

Our country's relative plummet in math and science literacy has greater consequences than not being able to understand your doctor the next time you get the flu. While both GWB and congress promised spending increases for the physical sciences, threat of veto has put science on the chopping block. The biggest casualty is the ILC, or International Linear Collider, a massive, 20-mile long device designed to study the cutting edge of particle physics by smashing particles together at ridiculously high speeds. Advancements in many areas were expected, including medical technology, energy production, and astrophysics. But how important is that? Congress excised $88 million dollars from Fermilab's budget, the Illinois based company running the project. Free-marketers may not see much of a problem with this, but keep in mind that capital is not going to steadily fund research that may not produce practical, profitable results in the short-term. It's one of those pesky areas where market failure requires government intervention, and it doesn't get publicity because the gap between the average person's science education and modern science is so great that the comprehension of the gravity of such a project is null. The most disturbing aspect of this is what congress did deem worthy of inclusion over the collider. Our senior Senator here in Nevada brought home the bacon to the tune of 72 million dollars in earmarks in the DOD budget alone, including a 4 million dollar program to combat drug use in the Nevada National Guard. The Homeland Security Budget contains 225 million dollars in "port security grants" that most observers have labeled as transparent pork, 79 million to Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to improve our current Coast Guard Fleet until 2018, when the hundreds of millions of dollars we have given them in the past for a new Coast Guard cutter will actually be done. And my personal favorite, 12 million dollars for improved security on public buses - evidently a mecca of terrorist activity lies on the CAT bus. Check out Citizens Against Government Waste for a lengthy and detailed look at current pork spending.