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Bye, Bye, Fermilab

Solitaire said:
Okay. Did anything else get cut out of this budget?

P.S. Yes.
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The Wall Street Journal today urged Bush to do something about this:
How about if Mr. Bush now demonstrates that he meant what he said by making the Members live up to their applause? The President has the opportunity to do this as part of the $516 billion omnibus spending bill that Congress passed this week. That bill contains 8,993 special-interest earmarks, but most of them aren't even in the language of the law itself. Instead, they are part of an accompanying 500-page "committee report" compiled by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees and staff. We doubt most Members have even seen the report.

Mr. Bush has said he'll sign the actual spending bill, but that doesn't mean he and his executive branch must spend that money on the earmarks in the committee report. A December 18 legal analysis by attorney Todd Tatelman for the Congressional Research Service concludes that "because the language of committee reports do not meet the procedural requirements of Article I of the Constitution -- specifically, bicameralism and presentment -- they are not laws and, therefore, are not legally binding on executive agencies." In plainer English, this means committee reports have not been formally passed by both houses and "presented" to the President for signing.

This means Mr. Bush has the legal authority not to fund these projects, which lack the force of law. Mr. Bush's own budget office has asserted this authority before. Earlier this year, then budget director Rob Portman instructed federal agencies that they could disregard committee report language on earmarks. "Unless a project or activity is specifically identified in statutory text, agencies should not obligate funds on the basis of earmarks contained in Congressional reports or documents," Mr. Portman wrote. That's why there were fewer earmarks last year.

Federal agencies would still be obligated to spend the money appropriated by Congress. But they could choose to spend those dollars on higher priorities that would benefit all taxpayers, rather than on favors for special interests or political donors. For example, the $700,000 for a bike trail in Minneapolis could be used to rebuild the collapsed bridge in that city and to strengthen others.
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The problem is, Congressmen get nice photo-ops for their re-election campaign brochures when they go to a ground-breaking for a new bike path, or a ribbon-cutting for a new bridge. But nobody takes photos of them appropriating money for bridge maintenance and repairs.
 
Durbin's lying, there were over 11,000 earmarks in the last spending bill. Surely some of that pork could have been cut.

At any rate, Fermilab has wasted its share of money. I personally did a job there once where I tore down a wall in a conference room and rebuilt it about 6 inches over from the old one. You see, they had leftover money in the budget and had to spend it or risk losing it in the next budget.
 
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Speaking of which. When the war started, it seemed like everyone was interested in finding nuclear warheads that Saddam was hiding. And now all I hear about is freeing the Iraq people from oppression. Did this change of tune happen before or after they realized there wasn't any nuclear warheads?
 
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Perhaps Iran will make up the $160 million shortfall to ITER, if the United States asks really nicely?
 
ma1ic3 said:
Speaking of which. When the war started, it seemed like everyone was interested in finding nuclear warheads that Saddam was hiding. And now all I hear about is freeing the Iraq people from oppression. Did this change of tune happen before or after they realized there wasn't any nuclear warheads?
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Nuclear warheads? Really? Have you been misinformed and too ignorant to detect the BS, or are you just making stuff up?
 
Misinformed about what exactly? I am pretty sure no one misinformed me about what I kept hearing before and what I keep hearing now, being that I don't usually ask people what I have been hearing from other people... Do you? Were you misinformed about my post and too ignorant to detect the BS?
 
ma1ic3 said:
Misinformed about what exactly?
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No one every claimed Saddam had nuclear warheads....but back to the topic...


For fiscal year 2008, which runs until Sept. 30, Congress approved $320 million for Fermilab -- down $22 million from last year, and down $52 million from what lab officials expected.
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Yea...so? I like high energy physics...really, I do...but given that the return on the investment is about as profitable as the non-profit SETI, I gotta tell you I'm not too concerned.
 
Just stay on topic.

Here, I'll help. Fermilab is a waste. It shouldn't receive one dollar much less 320 million.
 
WildCat said:
Nuclear warheads? Really? Have you been misinformed and too ignorant to detect the BS, or are you just making stuff up?
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WC, it is not him who is disinformed..

With regard to uranium acquisition, the IAEA has made progress in its investigation into reports that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger in recent years. The investigation was centered on documents provided by a number of states that pointed to an agreement between Niger and Iraq for the sale of uranium between 1999 and 2001.

The IAEA has discussed these reports with the governments of Iraq and Israel, both of which have denied that any such activity took place.
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/03/07/sprj.irq.un.transcript.elbaradei/
 
Matteo Martini said:
WC, it is not him who is disinformed..

With regard to uranium acquisition, the IAEA has made progress in its investigation into reports that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger in recent years. The investigation was centered on documents provided by a number of states that pointed to an agreement between Niger and Iraq for the sale of uranium between 1999 and 2001.

The IAEA has discussed these reports with the governments of Iraq and Israel, both of which have denied that any such activity took place.
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/03/07/sprj.irq.un.transcript.elbaradei/
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Matteo Martini said:
Very close.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html
The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa
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The claim was "nuclear warheads", not anything that could at some future date be made into a nuclear warhead.
/derail
 
please stay on topic.

What's it worth to find the Top Quark?

This is a tough subject for me. I really (in truly) do like research but there does come a point where one expects at least a little return on the dollar. Cut Fermi lab by 95% and I'd be pissed, but even then I'd only expect a good explanation.

20%? Not so much.
 
WildCat said:
The claim was "nuclear warheads", not anything that could at some future date be made into a nuclear warhead.
/derail
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Apparently, there are not many uses Saddam could have done with uranium from Niger.
No, chemiotherapy does not count.
Sorry again for the derail, let` stay on topic

Rob Lister said:
please stay on topic.

What's it worth to find the Top Quark?

This is a tough subject for me. I really (in truly) do like research but there does come a point where one expects at least a little return on the dollar. Cut Fermi lab by 95% and I'd be pissed, but even then I'd only expect a good explanation.

20%? Not so much.
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The point is that ( probably ) all the modern microelectronics and informatics industry ( Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Google, Cisco ) would simply not exist ( not be so successful ) without the advances in modern physics.
Finding the Higgs boson is a further step in that direction ( I think the Top Quark has already been discovered )
 
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