1 Every time I have seen you comment on science or research, you get the facts terribly wrong. You can't just ask for money, you have to demonstrate to your peers that you have a good idea that has a good shot at working, and a well-planned research strategy. In addition, you have to have already received a federal research grant, which is not easy to get. You can't just claim to do research--you have to actually do the research. If you don't, you can go to prison for a long time. Businesses are free to do research and compete against one another. Visit Research Triangle Park sometime, and you will see lots of businesses doing just that. However, the earlier research is too high-risk to convince most business investors to invest. Even the paragon of private research, Bell Labs, is moving away from basic research. However, without basic research, technology comes to a halt, as it has no foundation. So, the government (not just in the US, but worldwide) has decided to publically fund research, and make the results publically available, to stimulate businesses to develop new technologies. We've been doing this for quite a while, with great success. And here you come, using the tools public science helped develop (computers, semi-conductors, Internet, and probably nuclear power from your friendly neighborhood power plant) to bitch about it. How ironic.

2 You like to quibble about little things that have absolutely no bearing on my topic at hand, don't you? The point is that the government is giving away money that *I* earned to benefit a business who asks for the money. It's wrong, no matter what you claim. It's anti-freedom, no matter how "difficult" you claim it is to get the money. What's amazing to me is that I bet you actually believe that if you didn't steal my labor that suddenly we'd be back in the stone ages because no one would research anything -- and there's a lot of total fools who agree with you.

3 Do you believe that algore invented the internet with tax dollars, too?