Don't fund science...

[Tero]

...because the professors get paid for reading books.

http://www.examiner.com/article/gop-rep ... d-too-much

[Clinton Huxley]

Burn ALL the books. And the book readers!

[Clinton Huxley]

Knowing things can only lead to new ideas and we don't want that.

Where does the GOP find these cretins?

[cronus]

He was maybe referring to comic books? I've seen it myself. Highly paid professionals sat there reading comic books.

[Gerald McGrew]

The GOP's been anti-science for decades now. They've been on the wrong side of just about every scientific issue since Reagan with AIDS and acid rain, and it's only gotten worse since. Now GOP state platforms include declarations against evolution, climate change, critical thinking, public education, etc., and during the primaries their presidential candidates decry college education and the "educated elite".

If one is at all scientifically oriented, I have no idea at all how that person can support today's GOP.

[PsychoSerenity]

You know what I find more infuriating than stupid politicians? Journalists who quote mine and then write headlines that barely even fit the out-of-context quote, to push their own political agenda. It's just more polarizing nonsense. How is anyone going to make progress when both sides spend most of their time flinging shit at each other?

[Tero]

In what way is the idiot politician misrepresented?

[PsychoSerenity]

He didn't mention scientists or professors. He mentioned bureaucrats on 6-figure salaries in an array of different federal departments - which happened to include the Department of Energy, but also included the Department of Commerce - reading books and magazines i.e. wasting time and money. His argument, for all it's faults, is about reducing the size of government, not about stopping funding for science. It's misrepresentations like this that give the left a bad name, and I find it infuriating that I have to end up defending a right-wing politician.

[Tero]

He has a track record of idiotic statements.

North Carolina voter in letter to the editor:

Rouzer recently proposed closing the Department of Energy because he
personally witnessed officials, “sitting there reading books”. I’m not
sure what David was trying to get at with that statement, but when
making the case for shutting down a whole government agency, too much
book reading probably isn’t your strongest argument.

At a recent Tea Party rally, Rouzer claimed that the unrest in the
Middle East is due to “girly men” in the White House. Are we really
supposed to believe the attacks on our foreign embassies are due to an
effeminate commander in chief?

Rouzer also made headlines in the NC Senate for pushing a bill that
banned the state from using scientific predictions of sea level rise
when making coastal planning decisions. As Steven Colbert quipped in
response to the legislation on the Colbert Report, “If your science
gives you a result you don’t like, pass a law saying the result is
illegal. Problem solved.”

(end quote)
The DOE manages a number of labs. They do not keep the neutrons for
the polticians to gawk at. Maybe there is a sample of uranium for
school tours.

The DOE National Laboratories are as follows:

Ames Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Idaho National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory
National Energy Technology Laboratory
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Sandia National Laboratories
Savannah River National Laboratory
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility