Sherry Chandler » The news is a laugh riot
The news is a laugh riot
Rebate Letters to Cost $42 Million:
WASHINGTON (AP) — At a cost of nearly $42 million, the IRS wants you to know: Your check is almost in the mail.
The Internal Revenue Service is spending the money on letters to alert taxpayers to expect rebate checks as part of the economic stimulus plan.The notices are going out this month to an estimated 130 million households who filed returns for the 2006 tax year, at a cost $41.8 million, IRS spokesman John Lipold confirmed.
McCain Sees Pork Where Scientists See Success:
WEST GLACIER, Mont. — If you’ve heard Sen. John McCain’s stump speech, you’ve surely heard him talk about grizzly bears. The federal government, he declares with horror and astonishment, has spent $3 million to study grizzly bear DNA. “I don’t know if it was a paternity issue or criminal,” he jokes, “but it was a waste of money.”
…
Kendall, on orders from her superiors, will not directly respond to McCain (”I really can’t wade into that”), but she clearly doesn’t find his jibes amusing, much less accurate. The truth is, her project is focused not on the DNA of grizzly bears, but on counting them.
As a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, she set out to get the first head count of grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide ecosystem. She and her co-workers at the USGS have used DNA primarily as a bear-identifying tool.
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Grizzly bears in northwest Montana are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. But Kendall’s project — the results of which will be published soon in a scientific journal — revealed that there are more grizzlies than anyone had realized. That suggests that three decades of conservation efforts, costing tens of millions of dollars, have paid off.
This could have long-term implications for the Northern Divide grizzlies, possibly including their removal someday from the threatened list. Delisting them would restore management of the bears to state control after decades of federal oversight.
“It was extremely well executed and well worth the money,” said Sterling Miller, a bear researcher working for the National Wildlife Federation. “Someone like McCain should be delighted, in fact. The Endangered Species Act works.”
So let’s see — $5 million (actual cost) to count grizzly bears or $42 million to send a letter telling people they’re going to get a rebate but not sending them a rebate. Which looks like wasteful spending to you?
And with apologies to those of you who liked The Road more than I did: Cormac McCarthy Does Toy Story 3:
An Oprah-fueled frenzy of book sales for my latest novel, The Road. An upcoming movie adapting my No Country for Old Men. Intoxicated with success, I sit looking out at the stark desert, and it comes to me like a fever-dream. I must call my agent …
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