Northern Trust under pressure...

[Craig Van Egmond]

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."   Teddy Roosevelt

[Paul Stephenson]

Joe...

I think survival of bees should be all our responsibility....

LOL!  I love it....the nanny state extends to bees.

I guess that's the difference in a nutshell, then, isn't it?

I think that, first and foremost, the survival of each bee ought to be that individual bee's responsibility. 
  

Tell me...does the nanny state's obligation to support bees extend to enemy combatant bees?  Should we be closing all beehives immediately by executive order and releasing enemy combatant bees because their habeeous corpus rights have been violated?   

Boy this is going to sound silly, but here goes...

About $15 billion worth of crops each year are pollinated by bees in the US.  Beehives are leased to fruit growers in the south and California each year to carry out this task. 

This task is becoming more important since the feral bee population is decreasing due to urbanization, pollution, pesticide use, etc.  All relatively new phenomenon that arrived with us humans.

I guess what I'm saying is that the bee funding makes some sense to me as there is a bigger (15 billion) picture here.  Or is agriculture, like manufacturing,  not important anymore either?

[Craig Sweet]

I think figuring out why bees are dying left and right should be a major concern...like he said...BILLIONS of $$$  in crops need bees...

[Paul Stephenson]

[
About $15 billion worth of crops each year are pollinated by bees in the US.  Beehives are leased to fruit growers in the south and California each year to carry out this task. 

Then bee funding is a giveaway to the farmer's lobby.  It's their crops.  It should be their business expense.  If it's them spending the money, there's less likelyhood for waste, because they have a bottom line to protect.  And the guy who figures it out first may be able to patent something, make a buck, hire people, and have a business advantage.

Doling the money out willy-nilly doesn't accomplish any of that.  All it does is entrench the free-spending dope in Washington who wrote it in...

I agree that money shouldn't be doled out willy-nilly.  Do you believe that government should fund research?  If your answer is no then stop reading, but also be prepared that agromony research will be cut and we may never get "fast and firm" conditions for the whole country   

If you think they do have some role to play, then $500K for research to potentially lower the costs to farmers (they are paying to lease the bees) in a $15 billion market doesn't seem unreasonable to me.  There are others.  Like the $5 million to buy farmland in PA for a flight 93 memorial.  That's just the land cost.  I might feel different if that was the total cost, but we'll have to wait to find out what the cost of the memorial itself is.

[RJ_Daley]

Looking in context of Obama going along with signing the 410billion spending bill with the 8500 earmarks, that was a leftover legislative intitiative of the previous congressional session, and saying he is not willing to take on the 'business as usual' wasteful spending isn't exactly correct, if you believe the linked article.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/29505601

Whereas the 8500 earmarks mount to some 7.4 billion in 'diverted from pure stimulus' or wasteful spending if you wish, Obama taking on the actual most pernicious activity in the government procurement process says something of his intentions to make good on that aspect of his campaign promises.  That is the motherlode of all waste and also the most dangerous area for any politician to tread.  That is where all the graft and corruption and lobbying and porkbarrelling and rotten profiteering of corps on the backs of U.S. taxpayers takes place.  It is a labyrinth of trapdoors and political land mines.  Yet, Obama says he is going to tread there.  

He may have to be Gandi and Christ all wrapped into one, to take on all the powerful interests and graft meisters in that arena.  But, so it goes... we'll see how he comes out on that endeavor.  

[jeffwarne]

I think figuring out why bees are dying left and right should be a major concern...like he said...BILLIONS of $$$  in crops need bees...

Is that a Beelout?

[Paul Stephenson]

I think figuring out why bees are dying left and right should be a major concern...

I couldn't agree with you more, Craig.  The question is "whose concern?"

It's the crop owner's concern.  It's not the federal governments...until, that is, some drunken sailor of a Congressman slips his pet project in at the request of the all-important agricultural lobby in his district that threatens to support somebody else unless he plays ball with them.

Then it becomes our problem.  And it is our problem because it's WASTEFUL, by definition. 

It shouldn't be.  This is a production/assembly problem, and should be rectified by a big company or even a small, innovative businessman with a profit motive. who sees an opportunity and a market advantage if they can solve it. 

If the money just gets funneled to some government agency, the only incentive they have is to saw through the money, say "this is more complicated than we thought" and ask for more...

What if it is not a government agency, but a university or private research facility?  Which is more than likely the case. 

Some of that bee money was earmarked for Weslaco Texas, which just happens to be home to Texas A&M's Agricultural Experiment Station, Government Extension service, and Citrus Center.

I can't believe I'm talking about bees on a golf architecture site 

[Craig Sweet]

Shivas...if you eat food I think you should be concerned about bees...

[Craig Sweet]

The bee research is Republican Bob Bennett's earmark....$302 thousand...

He also has a $1 million dollar earmark to study the effect of large predators on cattle/sheep....in other words...wolves.   I can save him some money...wolves eat cows and sheep...and they were here first.

[Mike_Cirba]

The bee research is Republican Bob Bennett's earmark....$302 thousand...

He also has a $1 million dollar earmark to study the effect of large predators on cattle/sheep....in other words...wolves.   I can save him some money...wolves eat cows and sheep...and they were here first.

Isn't he from the Beehive State?

Where's Kalen Braley, that pinko??!   

[Kalen Braley]

The bee research is Republican Bob Bennett's earmark....$302 thousand...

He also has a $1 million dollar earmark to study the effect of large predators on cattle/sheep....in other words...wolves.   I can save him some money...wolves eat cows and sheep...and they were here first.

Isn't he from the Beehive State?

Where's Kalen Braley, that pinko??!   

Lol..

I'm too bee-sy doing stuff to respond to this thread...so buzz off!!

On a side note, great to see wide spread acceptance of the new Mortgage Assistance program. Sorry I couldn't resist!!   Next time don't wake the slumbering giant you Philly-CheeseSteak... 

On the day that the Obama administration begins implementing a new program to fight home foreclosures, a new national poll suggests that most Americans think the plan is unfair to those who pay their mortgages on time.

Sixty-four percent of those questioned in a Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday feel the Obama administration program is unfair to those who pay their mortgages on time. Only 28 percent say that the president's $75 billion plan is fair. More details on the program, which is aimed at helping up to nine million borrowers stay in their homes using refinanced mortgages or modified loans, were released Wednesday.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/04/poll-majority-say-obama-mortgage-plan-is-unfair/

[Craig Sweet]

Shivas...

Is the money wasted?

I am concerned about the bees...we need them whether we have farms or not....

The study of large predator impact on sheep and cows we do not need....as much as I love beef, I love the role the wolf plays in the "food chain" more....they are certainly "thinning" out the elk and deer to something resembling a healthier population....and the wolf lovers have set up a repayment plan for ranchers that lose livestock to wolves.