Montana: Stimulus Funds Go to Study Volcanoes in the Andes, Periodontal Disease, Shakespeare
by Michael NoyesFederal stimulus spending may evoke images of hard hats and road construction, but around $14 million has been allocated for projects at Montana State University that range from researching volcanic action in the Andes mountains and treatment of periodontal disease to funding to assist with productions of Shakespeare.
A total of $14.38 million in federal stimulus funds has been allocated for about 35 different projects to date at Montana State University, according to university officials. The grants are funded by the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed by Congress in February to spur economic growth and create jobs.
Critics of the funding say it misses the mark of the goals set by Congress and amounts to wasteful spending. Supporters say the research does have an economic impact and will produce numerous long-term positive benefits.
The spending was criticized by National Taxpayers Union Vice President for Politics and Communication Pete Sepp. He said many taxpayers think of stimulus spending as long-term job creation in the private sector and not “expeditions to the Andes or, more up close, expeditions into people’s gums.”
Around $400,000 has been allocated for a study of the “relationship between pluton growth & volcanism at two active intrusions in the central Andes,” with another $391,875 for research into “combinatorial therapy for treatment of periodontal disease.”
Todd Feeley, associate professor of geology at MSU, said the grant to study volcanic activity will provide employment for one graduate student for two years to assist him in looking at lava flows from previous volcanic activity in the Andes and related work. He said that experience should help the student gain experience and hopefully assist them in finding permanent employment after their studies.
Feeley said increased research funding also makes science a more appealing field. “More young people are going to want to go into science…if they see there’s more opportunity,” he said.
Stimulus funding listed by the university also includes $25,000 to pay partial salaries for two full-time employees for Shakespeare in the Park.
“Shakespeare in the Park brings a cultural opportunity to rural communities throughout Montana that otherwise would not have those opportunities,” said MSU News Service Director Tracy Ellig.
Sepp said families who are struggling with the cost to send their children to college may not see the benefit of spending stimulus funds on such projects, particularly when the cost may fall to future generations.
“They’re the ones who are paying for those projects, in the end,” Sepp said of college students.
Ellig said most of the projects could be characterized as basic research and could have “enormous implications for protecting America’s health.”
“The value of basic research can be difficult to quantify,” Ellig said. “However, it can have enormous, unanticipated payoffs in the future.”
As examples, Ellig pointed to a $447,000 study of viruses (Structural Studies of Crenaracheal Viruses) that he said could have application in combating airborne bio-terrorism at some future point. Ellig also said research is an important part of the work done at MSU.
In fiscal year 2009, MSU budgeted $98.4 million for research with most of the funding from federal grants, according to Ellig. That is up more than $2 million from research funding in fiscal year 2008. Ellig said it is too early to tell whether the stimulus funds will produce an overall boost to research funding in fiscal year 2010.
Sepp said the examples at MSU should be evidence enough to derail any thoughts of a second stimulus.
“(Those) who believe that ‘Stimulus Two’ is going to be any better than ‘Stimulus One’ need only take a look at examples like these,” Sepp said.
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We here in Montana are proud of our stimulus dollars. They have allocated a portion of those dollars to study wolves, and to build new Port-a-johns in Yellowstone Park. Truly stimulating…………
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I'd like to save or create a few million – where do I sign up?
Ask not what a trillion dollars can do for you – but what you can do for a trillion dollars?
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It would be simpler if they just left us alone and didn't seize our incomes.
Add in save the whales, save the seals and have the program run by a psychotic black tranvestite with nine different voter aliases, and you're a sure bet to be funded.
That's 1 job and half of two more jobs. Stimulating!
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous morons,
Or to take arms against a sea of foolish pork projects,
And by opposing end them?
The latter, please.
Putting us TRILLIONS of dollars in debt for GARBAGE….insanity
I'm so not ok with spending $400,000 so some stupid graduate student can find a job after two years of kicking back in Machu Pichu. This is nonsense!
We need TERM LIMITS for all elected officials! ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS!!
Maybe they could spend some of their stimulus periodontal money on figuring out why my teeth are clenched all the time!!!
If you dig deep enough into the various cancers eating away at our country, you'll find Ivy League flunkies gnawing away at the core.
Conservative, Liberal, Independent – their political calling cards don't even matter at this point. The "Big Problem" is that they're Incompetent.
But hey, it was fun while it lasted. I gotta go help my idiot kid get into the right school – maybe he can even be a Senator, or even President some day. If nothing else, he can run a few corporations into the ground, right?
be at the polls in 2010 and pull the lever for republicans. we must have a balance in the house and senate. we need to get the republicans back in charge, get rid of rinos with true republicans. this santiy has to be stopped.
i pray for my country everyday! imho.
Heck! In Detroit Michigan we are just handing the money out.
http://motorcitytimes.com/mct/the-sad-state-of-af...
It's the insulting principle of the thing here. Taxpayers could make as much good use of their own money as any graduate student studying anything and likely many of those taxpayers are already paying their own childrens' graduate school fees.
Congress increased spending on itself last year by 10.9 percent and by another 5.8 percent this year for a grand total of $4.7 billion. – Richard W. Rahn, Stimulus Scam, Washington Times, October 8, 2009
$4.7/535 breaks down to roughly $8.8 million per member. Chump change.
Croneyism works SO much better than Capitalism, don't it? The best and the brightest.
Not to mention Hardins own American Police force. You guys have it all dialed in. Seriously though, wtf is going on there?
My copay (I have dental insurance, which I also pay for) for a "deep cleaning" (to ward off periodontal disease) is nearly $400. And here I read I'm also paying someone in Montana to "study" periodontitis. I'd much prefer to have paid $400.less in taxes so I could then more easily pay my dentist next month.
To not fund it would be not only racist but intolerant, if you add in the black tranny thing. That is the Dem's kryptonite right there.
Ex-Michigander here, Steve… Got out about ten years ago. Sold my manufacturing corporation because I saw the creeping crud of liberal transition from Lansing and Detroit… Still have family there and they are ready to bail…losing most of their assets due to governmental taxing policies of Grandholm…. What a pathetic twit (might be a misspelling here)…
Just a little inconsequential thought….. Political "contributions" are bribes….for future favor and partisanship. (I was a lobbyist in Michigan).
In my next life…. What with all the racist, handicapped and politically correct assumptions about excusable behavior… I hope to return as an INTELLIGENT black, one legged lesbian who was discrimnated at my place of employment… I WOULD BE RICH !
Yeah! How about the government printing $1M bills and sending everyone in America $1M! Wouldn't that be stimulating! Stagflation, anyone?
Some stuff you have to read before taking the H1N1 vaccine
http://myfreepress.net/2009/10/08/bayerbaxter-kno...
some would say that it isnt a party without adding a black tranny
that's silly talk
You people act like you expected the Stimulus to add jobs. It did. They are just not job-jobs.
Most of my family (immediate and extended) has bailed. When I visit them, I get the "when are you moving down here, there's nothing left in Michigan" speech.
I'm glad you were able to get while the getting is good. Where did you move to?
I'm an optimist (although it gets tougher every day) and I hope we get a conservative government in Lansing in 2010.
Thanks for the response, Steve…. Moved to Florida on the Gulf…. Bought here when it was "reasonable"… You have a very tough road in Michigan…. I vote with your family.. It is unlikely things will improve as the manufacturing base is nearly gone due to tax policies. Grandholm is only part of the problem….the Michigan lesgislature is as corrupt as they come.
I wish you and your family the best…. Start packing…. Unemployment will exceed 26% by 2011….
Nut-jobs!
Come on. You act like this is bad. It's not really theft-theft.
I always tease my dad with the "You said you want to spend more time with the grand kids, we are moving in!"
26%….. That would be devastating.
The lunatics are running the asylum.
They sort of did this with the "tax rebate". The problem with that was that the rebate amount is TAXABLE for this year's income!
Congress doesn't have any plans to help America. They do have a plan to help themselves.
It's like when BO was elected, the power went out in DC and congress broke into the government store and started looting. They are looting as fast as they can because they can hear the GOP coming.
Somebody is coming, but it isn't the GOP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHa21UCtNYg&NR...
The last time i saw this much pork, i was at a hog farm.
But then again, i think thats what the government has become….a hog farm
OINK OINK!
What a waste of MY MONEY! Oh, my…and they want more to throw away!
[...] Montana: Stimulus Funds Go to Study Volcanoes in the Andes, Periodontal Disease, Shakespeare [...]
All of this is distraction while the Health Care Plan goes though. From the should I shouldn't Swine flu shot too the money give away. Do not lose focas please, they believe you are idiots who will be easily led.
No matter what it is, someone can find justification for something they want and claim it benefits the economy and has long term benefits. I can easily justify a study as well as the spending of taxpayer's dollars on just about anything that my devious mind can dream up. That doesn't mean it benefits the economy, has any long term benefits nor anything else beneficial.
The taxpayers are being fleeced daily by our politicians and various groups such as the scientific community who are just out for one thing, to get their hands on our money. They force the taxpayers to fund countless items that have little or nothing to do with economic stimulus under the banner of economic recovery. It needs to stop now. If we taxpayers are going to be forced to pay for economic recovery projects, then that money should be spent on actual economic recovery projects, not scientific research and the multitude of other non-economic things it is being spent on.
I just discovered the recipe on how to get stimulus dollars!
1. Form a Union
2. Give gobs of union member money to the dems, spread it around
3. Demand the dems you gave money to reimburse you $1,000 to your $1 donation in the form of an earmark
4. Tell everyone you are only doing it for the underpriviledged and of course the Children, oh yes and to save the planet.
SIMPLE ENOUGH???
Ummmm…. Hate to be the black cloud raining on Montana's parade…BUT… The GOVERNOR (whom I respect) can quite easily refuse the pork…and send it packing back to Washington…. Why hasn't he..? One needs to peruse the other side of this equation…. And ask the hard and obvious question… It takes two to TANGO ! ____If we are to stop or at least diminish this ludicrous spending it will take a very ballsy and gutsy chief executive (governor) to front the Obama administration. And always keeping the 10th amendment in mind…
Remember…. For a contract to be "LEGIT" , there has to be an OFFER and an ACCEPTANCE ! Jes sayin'…
If "stimulating the economy" was actually what the purpose/intent of the Stimulus money was about, why didn't D.C. just take the whole lot, divide it up by American taxpayers and send out checks to each? The money would then "recirculate" in our economy and the actual human beings associated with it could then spend THEIR OWN MONEY (what it is, in fact, not the government's) any which way they/we chose to. Not to disparage the one graduate student in Montana (or anywhere in the U.S.) who is now looking at two years of being supported by the taxpayers to study lava in the Andes, but the point here is, actually, maybe there are taxpayers who have better ideas as to how they'd want to spend their own money. No one asked the taxpayers — whose money this is — if they wanted to fund graduate students for two years to study anything.
NICE!! Also why I grind my teeth the instant I hit BigGovernment.com.
And what do these Porculus payments have to do with Max Baucus chronyism? Is Max bringin' home the bacon?
"Conservative, Liberal, Independent – their political calling cards don't even matter at this point. The "Big Problem" is that they're Incompetent. "
Yes they are Dems, Repubs and Independents. However I believe the BIG problem is they are Socialists and crooks that want to control everything and everybody.
Something similar happened here in WI. Our Governor, "The Porker" Doyle received quite a bit of stimulus money(s). He bailed out our budget, bailed out the Univ of WI system, and provided funding for stem cell research (embryonic)… Well, in the meantime, our citizenry voted out his proposal for a light rail system, which a big fat NOOOO!….So, in the meantime, Gov Doyle (D-WI) went to Spain and contracted for 2 trains to be built for us!
He is resigning after his term is up….We don't want him to leave WI then, as he can suffer with us!
Every time one of Governors leave ofc, they move out of State.
They are SCABs: S – Socialist, C – Capitalist (Hey, Marx was a capitalist, just not free market), A – Atheist
and B – Brotherhood.
The Democrat party has been hi-jacked by the Socialist mind set. Therefore, their Lies are in Series, and our Truth is in Parallel!.
Montana Univ needs a new, conservative Bd of Directors and Conservative Professors, if possible.
GAO: Criminals May Have Been Hired to Assist in 2010 Census
In testimony before a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday, GAO Director of Strategic Issues Robert Goldenkoff said tens of thousands of temporary census workers were improperly finger-printed by bureau employees — including individuals with extensive criminal records.
FOXNews.com
Thursday, October 08, 2009
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Fingerprinting errors made by U.S. Census Bureau employees may have resulted in the hiring of 200 people with criminal backgrounds to conduct door-to-door canvassing, according to the Government Accountability Office.
In testimony before a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday, GAO Director of Strategic Issues Robert Goldenkoff said tens of thousands of temporary census workers were improperly fingerprinted by bureau employees — including individuals with extensive criminal records.
"It is possible that more than 200 people with unclassifiable prints had disqualifying criminal records but still worked, and had contact with the public during address canvassing," he said.
Goldenkoff's testimony, part of a larger progress report on the bureau's implementation of the 2010 Census, identified key pitfalls in the hiring of the nearly 1.4 million temporary workers needed to go door-to-door to count every person in the U.S. — including "weaknesses in the bureau's information technology."
The bureau implemented fingerprinting for the first time in 2010 to better screen its workers. According to the new guidelines, bureau employees are directed to obtain two sets of fingerprint cards for each prospective worker — and then send them to the bureau's processing center in Jeffersonville, Ind., where are they scanned and submitted to the FBI. If the candidate is found to have a criminal record, making him ineligible for employment, the bureau is "to either terminate the person immediately or place the individual in nonworking status until the matter is resolved."
If the first set of prints is deemed "unclassifiable," the bureau's processing center must send the second set of fingerprints to the FBI for processing.
Goldenkoff testified that of the 1,800 workers with criminal backgrounds, 750 — or 42 percent — were terminated because of their records, which included crimes like rape, manslaughter and child abuse.
But about 22 percent of the 162,000 hired so far to conduct the census had "unclassifiable prints" that could not be processed by the FBI because of errors that occurred when the prints were made. Goldenkoff said that, as a result, it was possible 200 individuals with such unclassifiable prints had criminal records but worked anyway.
"Applying these same percentages to the approximately 600,000 people the bureau plans to fingerprint for non-response follow-up, unless the problems with fingerprinting are addressed, we estimate that approximately 785 employees with unclassifiable prints could have disqualifying criminal records but still end up working for the bureau," he said.
The GAO said the Census Bureau is working to address the errors by improving the image quality for the fingerprints and by improving instruction manuals for its workers.
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you got that right….way back in 1989 I first saw the sign "Don't Californicate Montana"…. now it show read "they've Obaminated Montana"…..
where to move to now????
Funny and deliberately misleading article. All one needs to do to is to look at the photo. We are not working anywhere near the Matchu Pitchu or even in the country of Peru. So, if Michael Noyes is going to mislead us with this image (and he knows this because I spoke with him), think about what else is probably wrong with his “analysis.” I think I detect a deliberate liar. Please little boy, grow up and learn to tell the truth.
Todd Feeley
We have the same kinds of wasteful spending at our university…..our museum received stimulus money to build a display/exhibit of how much money is saved by using solar power (and installing panels on the roof) and also to pay for 3 museum staff postions…….I am so disgusted.
update….our university received $93 miliion for grants and research……how is that stimulating the economy?
Jackie, much of that money goes directly into your community and would otherwise not be there. Also, if, in the future we want to compete in a global economy, we need to train the next generation of scientists. Otherwise, we can just use the money to hire people to work for multi-billion dollar a year companies flipping burgers. In the long run (which is what is at stake here), this will get us nowhere. So, to answer your question, that is how the funds are stimulating the economy. I'm sure there are many employees at your local university who are relieved to be awareded these funds (and they are very compettitive to receive, whatever you might think; try writing a research proposal yourself to NSF or the NIH and see how it flies).
$400,000 for a five year scientific project to better understand how volcanoes work that will mitigate the economic effects the next time one of these things goes off? I too am disgusted. We could better use that money to pay for slightly less than two minutes of the Iraq war (http://www.costofwar.com/).
Well then Dave, you must be a really smart guy if you can easily justify a study and get it funded. My father used to point out guys like you to me when I was a little kid. I think he called them Mr. Know-It-All.
I LOVE Quito! Can I go, Can I go!!!!
This money does more than just provide money for a grad student it also builds better facilities at the university and keeps tuition low for students. By putting money into education and providing a foundation for our nations diminishing science programs we are securing our nations future as a superpower and keeping the jobs we have and creating new jobs in the future.
In response to apliee, I spoke with Micheal Noyes yesterday over the phone and he admitted that the Matchu Pictchu photo accompanying this investigative report is highly misleading because we are not working in Peru nor are we going to tourist destinations. He said he would post a comment to that effect on this site, but I don't see it so I presume he has too much other investigative reporting on his plate right now. He also said that he failed (i.e., he didn't even attempt) to contact anyone in the National Science Foundation or the National Institute of Health to discuss the merits of stimulus funding and how it is building science infrastructure in the country.
Also, apilee, if you can write a successful research proposal to the National Science Foundation that can pass the muster of very strict and critical peer-review, then you are more than welcome to go to Quito (but, you will have to go alone because Ecuador is another country we are not working in). Go for it – I wish you luck.
In my conversation with Mr. Feeley I informed him that I had absolutely no involvement whatsoever in the selection of the photo. (Notably, Mr. Feeley posted his accusation before contacting me to verify that I was the responsible party. As it turns out, I was not.) In reviewing the matter more thoroughly after our phone call, I do not find a photo of the Andes to be misleading when accompanying a story that deals in part with a research project that pertains to the Andes. If Mr. Feeley disagrees he should take it up with the responsible party.
As Mr. Feeley is not my assignment editor, I did not contact everyone on his suggested list. However, University officials were contacted and given the opportunity to point out benefits of the spending, as Mr. Feeley does himself in the article.
Mr. Feeley certainly has a right to promote his viewpoints and to champion such spending. I was happy to quote him doing so. However, he should verify his facts before making accusations. And it is simply unfortunate that the professor feels a need to resort to the name calling and personal insults dispayed above to make his points.
Its amazing how an academic professor can resort to name calling. Mr. Feely, For the respect and integrity of what higher learning is supposed to stand for, a little more professionalism would be appreciated. I think you miss the point, sir. Where you go is not the issue. Are you or are you not going somewhere to study lava with the price tag of 400,000 dollars of tax payer money. If you were getting the money to go to Australia or Yellowstone, the people would be equally appalled. I hope you enjoy the trip, because it will be your children and our children paying for it. That is the point. If you are not going on the trip, please let us all know and I'm sure the author would print a retraction. Complaining about a photo is aside the point and bottom line juvenile.
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Gosh, you forgot about the $4 million ARRA stimulus money to resurface 5 miles of road up the Boulder in Big Timber (creating a lot of new jobs), money to help the folks in the county (and every county in Montana) with their Medicaid costs and a new car for the Sweet Grass County sheriff to boot. Get real folks, the stimulus money is some of the best big government money you'll ever see,. aside from your Social Security checks. The state has a website listing expenditures in your county.