The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — (…) And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
-Barack Obama
Well, so far, the Feds are STILL not spending wisely nor being held to account
Sidenote: ($17 Trillion in the hole, thank you very much! Oh, but did you see that the abysmal (according to Progressives) Sequestration helped to give the Fed a SURPLUS this month! What was that NH saying…something like “low taxes is the result of”….ummm…help me out here….).
Anyways, I saw this $487K waste of our money, and the first thought was “I could have underbid this and save the Feds LOTS of money” and not only that, but doing my part in Saving The Planet! (emphasis mine, reformatted):
The taxpayer-funded National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $487,049 grant to a Brown University archaeologist for her “three-year study exploring gender, textiles and society in Iceland from the Viking Age (ca. 874-1050) until the early 19th century.” The “Rags to Riches” project “may also have practical applications in efforts to understand, and possibly mitigate for, the effects of changing climate in different areas of the world,” NSF spokesperson Peter West said in response to an inquiry from CNSNews.com.
“Rags to Riches” – I have some news for the NSF: spending more money on this instance of Gender Studies will result in only 1 job – hers (although compared to the Green Initiatives Obama’s been pushing, this might be the Deal of the Term for cost of job). Studying ancient Rags thinking that it will result in Riches NOW – it seems par for the course of the Smart People in charge of spending our money. Sigh….add to that, I do believe that our use of textiles and climate has progressed just a tad in the last 1200 years (even as common sense still has the same old adage, see below)
Smith, a research scientist at Brown University’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, has been collaborating with other universities and archaeological laboratories in the U.S., as well as museums in Iceland. Her research “will document and analyze women’s roles and women’s involvement in textile production” in order to “shed new light on women’s power within Icelandic households at different levels of the social system, providing a valuable contribution to social archaeological research in the North Atlantic,” according to the grant abstract. “Women were also in charge of transforming cloth into clothing and, through that process, produced the most essential items of daily life – clothing, blankets, tents, and other utilitarian items – that buffered Icelanders against a changing climate and often-severe conditions during the Little Ice Age,” principal investigator Michele Smith said in the grant abstract.
Right – notice what was NOT stated? This will torque off most Feminists: those women stayed home in doing this. Which proves what many Conservatives have held for years and get screwed for saying it. OK, add this: what was in the proposal was such a load of manure.
“By exploring the decisions that women made in transforming textiles – both domestic and imported – into clothing, this project will investigate the roles they played in establishing and changing markers of individual, family, regional, and national identity as well as decisions they may have made when facing increasing global climate cooling in the North Atlantic.”
Right – we have descended into that pit when ANYTHING that has “Climate Change” attached to it MUST make it good, right (er, I remember something similar a wee bit ago, something about having a “.COM” and that “Internet thingy” was the only thing you needed – lots of people put a whole lotta stock into that myth, too, but that just turned out to be just another cycle (and right after that cycle was real HOT!, it went REAL cold, too). Let’s get real – is this really all THAT important, in this time of huge deficits being thrown onto our kids and our kids’ kids forward into oblivion so we can indulge this Cloth And Gender specialist indulgent dream?
This is “spending wisely“?
When contacted by CNSNews with questions about the relevance of Smith’s research, West noted that congressional legislation supports activities to “Initiate and support specific scientific and engineering activities in connection with matters relating to international cooperation, national security and the effects of scientific and technological applications upon society.”
“The National Science Foundation’s mission and charter, as spelled out in its organic act, is to support fundamental research that adds to the knowledge base of specific disciplines,” said West. “While some NSF-supported research may, in some cases, have immediate benefits to economic activity, this is not the foundation’s role, as defined by congressional mandate,” he noted.
This project was “evaluated and supported as a result of a thorough examination of its intellectual merit and broader impacts in the NSF merit-review process,” West added.
Oh well, then – it MUST be good – it’s bureaucratic peer reviewed! What POSSIBLY could this mean?
Oh yeah, back to the common sense I mentioned above. By using only a single piece of paper (look, only a small twig had to give its life for a cool half mil!), I’m Saving The Planet! Not only that but submitting my results to those self-same bureaucrats at the National Science Foundation the result on that one page, I’m even saving even more taxpayer money in not having all that much to read (but still having a “full” answer!). And not ONLY that, I don’t need 3 years to complete the task.
If this whole thing is to “bring back the wisdom of the Ancients”, let me lay it out simply and plainly since the “researcher” has made Climate Change, with respect to textiles, the main issue:
Climate Change?
- If it warms up – take off heavy clothes, put on lighter ones
- If it gets colder – put heavy clothes on over the lighter ones
I’ll even throw in a bonus result (seeing that ocean is rising at a historic rate of 0.24 inches /year):
- If sea levels rise – build sea walls (it’s worked for the Dutch for centuries), we’ll have time.
- If sea levels lower – hire a real estate company (and help reduce our debt)
There, that about does it – see, not all that hard to do, eh?
(H/T: CNSNews)
