I’m sure there were lots of campaigns to conceal JFK’s assignations.
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For those people that seem convinced that private enterprise can somehow deliver critical government services more effectively or efficiently also remember that in the US we have a wonderful thing call the Freedom of Information Act. For any federal agency any US citizen can submit a FOIA request to peak behind the curtain and get more info. Obviously this doesn’t pertain to info declared Classified or Secret but if private enterprise takes over services or data collection and management expect the amount of transparency to go way down.
Like I said earlier, in addition to all of NOAA’s services and products that are provided free to the public, one can also access all the requisite source data used to generate their products. Beyond that every government employee’s official communications and emails are also available via FOIA.
For those with an innate mistrust or skepticism of big entities the Federal Government is FAR more transparent to the public than any large corporation.
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Good article from gcaptain:
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NOAA also is one of the outstretched hands for many free gibs as grants. NSF is very cozy with NOAA Fisheries, the welfare agency for low-skilled biologists and state school students without job experience.
NOAA is elbow deep in backdoor funding for projects nobody wants via grants and NGO kickbacks.
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Documented examples?
Oh FFS. Google search 'NOAA Fisheries funding.
Don’t be that guy, dude. Asking for a source on widely available info is just being pedantic.
1+1=2. Do you need a source for that too?
As for the low academic barriers to entry, I dunno, glassdoor maybe if you want to double check what was obviously a personal opinion.
I check NOAA’s grants regularly and haven’t seen any awards to low skilled biologists however they do supply education funding for some schools if the grant is approved. Backdoor funding for projects nobody wants? Haven’t seen that even though we have looked at NOAA awards often over the years.
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What most Americans don’t see is the degree to which NOAA (NFS) carefully monitors US fisheries. The USCG monitors where fishing vessels go, and keeps foreign vessels out. But NOAA monitors the catch and watches the fish stocks.
A very complicated business because NFS has few boats. They monitor everything with observers on the fishing boats and inspectors ashore monitoring the catch, just for Alaska something like 500 million pounds a year. It’s a big money industry. One that would succumb to overfishing if it wasn’t carefully monitored.
All but the smallest fishing boats have fisheries observers on them, collecting data. The observers have biology degrees but it’s a not a big money job. They take samples of earbones to see if the fish populations are crashing or aging. Mostly they analyze what proportion of species is being caught per day, and where it is being caught. The observers work for private companies contracted by the NFS, but they send NOAA the data.
It’s not a glamorous job. The observer is low man on the totem pole on a fishing boat.
Once the 500 million pounds of product is landed ashore other observers carefully document the weight of each species processed, making sure overfishing isn’t occurring.
Without all this research and cross-checking fish stocks would be wiped out, and a valuable industry destroyed. You couldn’t do it without NOAA.
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From what I have been able to find out, at present the Feds are paying out $16,000+ per student for what some say is a substandard education. Then, states have to use “education lotteries” to raise billions more for “education”. I know I’m old but I remember when $16,000 paid for a year of college including tuition, residence, and meals.
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Yet another reason to allow states to form leagues to fund social programs such as tuition at the league level rather than the federal level. Red states would be able to do away with a department of education, while Blue area could maintain one. A win-win situation.
I imagine a lot of commercial fishermen feel like the old USSR fishermen that had to have the KGB onboard.
That doesn’t even pay for a semester anymore
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What students where? I know some students that could use that kind of money
Unfortunately states have been using lotteries for years to fund all manner of essential state services such as schools. Lotteries prey on the most vulnerable and contribute to the onslaught of gambling opportunities that have only worsened with the recent onset of legalized sports betting. Gambling is bad enough in our society but to have your own state sponsoring it and advertising it is disgusting. We certainly wouldn’t support states making and advertising their own brand of liquor or cigarettes but accept state sponsored gambling even though it is addictive and destroys lives.
State lotteries are a tax on those who can least afford it or resist it, all so that states can avoid having to enact the real and fair taxes that would actually be required to pay for necessary services.
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Using lotteries, and ‘sin taxes’ such as taxes on alcohol and tobacco to pay for education are popular in the Bible Belt states in order to keep from raising property taxes . At some point the schools will have to start teaching the benefits of gambling, smoking and drinking or the property tax will have to increase. In Finland and some other countries if there are low performing schools the national government sends in teachers and supplies to the individual school in order to bring them up to a national standard. What a novel idea.
But this is not on topic and best to circle back to NOAA
My daughter working with our ministry of fisheries was an observer before she started her post graduate studies. The results of fish such as the Antarctic tooth fish were shared with NOAA. At one stage she lectured at the University of New Hampshire.
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Any guesses as to how much longer that access will be available?
I’m surprised it hasn’t been cancelled already. Transparency has been redefined as a threat to government “efficiency”.
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In any other country this would be considered a coup. The only thing left is ignoring judicial orders and then the Department of Justice to fails to obey judicial orders.At that time your republic become nonexistent.
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I believe we already have one foot over the edge of the cliff. History has shown us what lies below.
What is horrific is that today’s situation was so easy to see so long ago and so many observers tried so hard to warn voters of the danger.
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But state sponsored lotteries are a lot different than “sin taxes” and so much worse. Sin taxes make sense in that people are making bad choices that will quite possibly result in cost to the state, so to mitigate for this cost to society a sin tax can both help to discourage the behavior by making it more expensive and be a source of revenue to offset the cost to the state of the behavior. In an ideal world a sin tax might eliminate a behavior such as smoking that results in a great deal of expense to the state.
State lotteries are held by the state. They exist because the state chooses to put them in place. They were created by the state to generate income. They want people to participate and even run advertisements trying to encourage participation. This isn’t the state taxing gambling provided by a private company. This is the state going into the gambling business to get an alternative source of revenue other than more typical taxes that might be levied in a fairer, more equitable, and less predatory way. Taken a step further the state would actually run casinos. I know in Oregon it’s nearly this bad as the state lottery includes slot machines at many bars and restaurants. The machines wouldn’t be there if the state didn’t allow it and get revenue from the negative behavior.
Neither state lottery nor sin taxes are limited to the Bible Belt. There’s the aforementioned Oregon, and I believe Washington State uses lottery funds to pay for schools, and cigarette tax to pay for children health care.
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