An unprecedented five consecutive years of stagnant funding for the National Institutes of Health is putting America at risk - a few prominent research institutions get together to voice their concern over flat funding of the National Institutes of Health over the past 5 years, in their report The Broken Pipeline (pdf). Bloggers comment [1, 2, 3].
posted on Mar 14, 2008 - View this thread

Better World Books - Recently recognized by Fast Company as one of the best for-profit social enterprises of 2008, they offer a wide selection of new and used books with free shipping in the US and less than $3 shipping elsewhere. A portion of the profits go to fund literacy organizations such as Room to Read and WorldFund, and their shipping is carbon-neutral. The only thing missing is the ability to import Amazon wishlists.
posted on Jan 16, 2008 - View this thread

Start Your Own News Web Site The Knight News Challenge is awarding up to $5 million for innovative news web site ideas that "transform community news." The contest is sponsored by the Knight Foundation, the folks originally behind Knight Ridder news.
posted on Sep 1, 2007 - View this thread

Lance speaks out on cancer: one of cycling's all-time greats and possibly the world's best known cancer survivor, founded the Lance Armstrong Foundation with the goal of inspiring and empowering people with cancer. He now campaigns for more government funds for cancer research and treatment. {commentary on CNN}
posted on Jan 10, 2007 - View this thread

When Scientists Go Bad
posted on Oct 27, 2006 - View this thread

the American God? The herders of this remote mountain village know little about America, but have learned from those who run a US-funded aid program about the American God. A Christian God. ...
posted on Oct 11, 2006 - View this thread

Webcasts from the Clinton Global Initiative conference (all wmv, archived of past 2 days and live tomorrow) --covering energy, healthcare, agriculture, poverty, religious and ethnic conflicts, etc. They're trying to turn "practical ideas into meaningful action". More here, including a cool waterpump/merry-go-round thing.
posted on Sep 21, 2006 - View this thread

1-800-SUICIDE loses govt. funding: Despite the fact that almost 2 million callers have reached help and hope over the last 8 years, and a government funded evaluation stating the benefits of 1-800-SUICIDE, the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA), a division of Health & Human Services, has decided to create their own government run system where they would have direct access to confidential data on individuals in crisis. (SAMHSA has already scrubbed their websites of any and all LGBT information, and gay youth are 2-3 times more likely to commit suicide.) Save 1-800-SUICIDE website here.
posted on Jul 28, 2006 - View this thread

...a growing campaign to force public schools, state colleges and private workplaces to eliminate policies protecting gays and lesbians from harassment. ...Christian activist Gregory S. Baylor responds to such criticism angrily. He says he supports policies that protect people from discrimination based on race and gender. But he draws a distinction that infuriates gay rights activists when he argues that sexual orientation is different — a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait. By equating homosexuality with race, Baylor said, tolerance policies put conservative evangelicals in the same category as racists. ... "Think how marginalized racists are," said Baylor, who directs the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom. "If we don't address this now, it will only get worse." Should Christians be able to sue for the right to not tolerate or abide by anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies meant to apply to all? Should they still be able to get school activity funding?
posted on Apr 10, 2006 - View this thread

"These are just slush funds for conservative interest groups" --The Compassion Capital Fund ($148 million of our money), and the Community-Based Abstinence Education grant program ($391.7 million of our money)--just 2 of many new programs. ...The distribution of new money to conservative organizations is a small part of an estimated flood of $2 billion a year in federal grants to religious and religiously affiliated organizations.--except it's only to organizations who have policies that agree with Bush and the GOP agenda on social issues, and not about need.
posted on Mar 22, 2006 - View this thread

Tin foil hats no longer required! Apparently mobile phone use *doesn't* cause cancer. We'd like to thank the MMF and the GSMA for funding this study along with the EU. I'll still not get one though...
posted on Jan 20, 2006 - View this thread

National Data Buoy Center (Google cache), "the premiere source of meteorological and oceanographic measurements for the marine environment" in the U.S., is located at the NASA Stennis Space Center on the Mississippi gulf coast, is a primary source of hurricane observational data, and is currently offline. At present, the U.S. spends only $50 million annually on ocean observations of vital socio-economic impact. The latest national commission for ocean policy recommended $4 billion annually, including the construction of a distributed, disaster-proof, national ocean observing system, as a component of a global system. The previous ocean commission report in 1969 resulted in the formation of NOAA and the passage of the Coastal Zone Management Act. Will Congress act? The E.U. has.
posted on Aug 31, 2005 - View this thread

House Appropriations panel eliminates ALL public funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS Ready To Learn. From this morning's Cynopsis:Kids e-newsletter: "In our nation's capital yesterday, a House Appropriations subcommittee voted to approve a new bill that will see budgets sliced for both public TV and radio. Specifically in the line of fire in the kid TV universe is the elimination of the full $23m in funding for Public TV's Ready to Learn initiative. Ready to Learn provides some funds for PBS series including, Sesame Street, Between the Lions, Arthur, Reading Rainbow, Clifford the Big Red Dog and could have Buster sending smoke signals instead of postcards. [...] Though the President proposed a small budget reduction for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting this past winter, yesterday's subcommittee vote would also eliminate all government monetary funds intended for the CPB over the course of the next two years, beginning with a $100m decrease in funding to $300m for next year." Perhaps this will free up some money for No Child Left Behind?
posted on Jun 10, 2005 - View this thread

Midlothian mom looking to raise money for the school band discovers the local TXI cement plant is draining millions from the Texas school system. This while getting paid burning hazardous waste in their back yard. When she seeks to right these wrongs she finds that the environmental regulators include lobbyist for TXI, and their House representative, Joe Barton, cares more about "economic development" than her kids.
posted on May 12, 2005 - View this thread

Fundable.org. Bringing together buyers and buyers and buyers and buyers and buyers and buyers and buyers and sellers.
posted on May 12, 2005 - View this thread

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism --...Although hotels and industry have already started reconstructing on the coast, in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and India, governments have passed laws preventing families from rebuilding their oceanfront homes. Hundreds of thousands of people are being forcibly relocated inland, to military style barracks in Aceh and prefab concrete boxes in Thailand. The coast is not being rebuilt as it was--dotted with fishing villages and beaches strewn with handmade nets. Instead, governments, corporations and foreign donors are teaming up to rebuild it as they would like it to be: the beaches as playgrounds for tourists, the oceans as watery mines for corporate fishing fleets, both serviced by privatized airports and highways built on borrowed money....
Naomi Klein on "reconstruction" money after natural disasters--and who benefits. (Makes Wolfowitz seem like a less unlikely choice to head the World Bank after reading, too.)
posted on Apr 17, 2005 - View this thread

Ever wonder who gets the spin money from the government to sell us everything from wars to reforms to reconnect the Army with the American people. A rundown on the seven biggest PR firms doing business with the government, and their refusal to come clean about what it is they're doing with our tax money. PRWatch has much, much more, including exposing the funding and associations pushing Social Security "reform"
posted on Mar 10, 2005 - View this thread

"Pentagon Budget Blackmail" A milblog is reporting that there's some funny accounting going on with the funding that's used to pay US troops. "I think it's early May when we run out of money," reads one ominous quote. This is all tied into the supplemental funding the Bush Adminstration has requested of Congress; in a related (hopefully soon to be non-)issue, the specific request for increased death benefits seems to be on a bit of a spacewalk at the moment.
posted on Mar 2, 2005 - View this thread

Governors Work to Improve H.S. Education The nation's governors offered an alarming account of the American high school Saturday, saying only drastic change will keep millions of students from falling short. "We can't keep explaining to our nation's parents or business leaders or college faculties why these kids can't do the work," said Virginia Democratic Gov. Mark Warner, as the state leaders convened for the first National Education Summit aimed at rallying governors around high school reform.
posted on Feb 27, 2005 - View this thread

Court orders $5.6 billion per year increase in NYC schools funding. The order, being appealed by Gov. Pataki, compels a 35% increase in operating funds for NYC public schools, and an additional $9 billion for school construction, but doesn't say which taxes ought to be raised to pay for it. Supporters and opponents both agree that, if implemented, the order would have a dramatic effect. Supporters think poor black and hispanic students will get a better education; opponents are dubious about the educational benefits and certain of the disastrous effects of a massive tax increase. A second arguments concerns whether the city ought to bear some of the costs, or the state should have to bear them all.
posted on Feb 18, 2005 - View this thread

Who's sorry now? Artists! Have you ever felt the need to apologise for the hurt caused by your Satan promoting work? Have you ever been forced to apologise or see your public funding withheld in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights? Have you then decided to say sorry by organising a parade, whipping yourself and leaving wreaths outside cityhall?
posted on Dec 15, 2004 - View this thread

From Genesis to Apocalypse: one more threat to NASA's pure research funding.
posted on Sep 8, 2004 - View this thread

Let's Make Enemies ...The CPA has also confirmed that after June 30, the $18.4 billion the US government is spending on reconstruction will be administered by the US Embassy in Iraq. The money will be spent over five years and will fundamentally redesign Iraq's most basic infrastructure, including its electricity, water, oil and communications sectors, as well as its courts and police. Iraq's future governments will have no say in the construction of these core sectors of Iraqi society. Retired Rear Adm. David Nash, who heads the Project Management Office, which administers the funds, describes the $18.4 billion as "a gift from the American people to the people of Iraq." He appears to have forgotten the part about gifts being something you actually give up. And in the same eventful week, US engineers began construction on fourteen "enduring bases" in Iraq, capable of housing the 110,000 soldiers who will be posted here for at least two more years. Even though the bases are being built with no mandate from an Iraqi government, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of operations in Iraq, called them "a blueprint for how we could operate in the Middle East." ...
posted on Apr 2, 2004 - View this thread

Donors Choose "Public school teachers use Donors Choose to propose resources for their students. Concerned individuals like you can then select a proposal to fund."
posted on Mar 22, 2004 - View this thread

Libraries? Sports? Music Programs? Guidance Counselors? Not on my bill, buddy! That crap is for nerds and jocks. It's all good here in sunny California.
posted on Mar 10, 2004 - View this thread

The BBC's Website is currently under review, and the public is requested to give their opinion. With the Tories saying they would shut the website down, BSkyB demanding that they sell off their best shows, and rival networks describing their annual report as extremely vague about spending (not to mention the entire David Kelly fiasco...), it seems as though a review of the website might be more or less ignored by the public. (Personal opinion inside...)
posted on Aug 26, 2003 - View this thread

No Child Left Behind? States dumb down tests to avoid losing federal education funding.
posted on May 22, 2003 - View this thread

Political Fratricide: The GOP is reportedly [+] proposing $15 billion of cuts — or is it $25? — in veterans' benefits between now and 2007, and groups like the Veterans Against the Iraq War are hopping mad. Hell, I imagine the pro-war wing is pretty peeved, too. It's part of a plan with delusions of grandeur to deliver massive tax cuts AND kill the deficit ... you know, the one that did not exist before W was elected, as I understand it ... in six years. The original tip is from Stand Down. The actual status of the cuts is nebulous at this point, however, with the SF Chron reporting that they will likely fail in the Senate as the tax cut is halved and others reporting that the die is not yet cast. The House budget resolution, for metafilter accountants who like these things, is here.
posted on Apr 1, 2003 - View this thread

Bush's pledge to fight AIDS in Africa comes with some strings attached, it turns out. Bush is limiting the funds that clinics which perform abortions can receive. Is it moral to politicize an epidemic?
posted on Feb 17, 2003 - View this thread

An imaginative solution to California's school budget crisis.
posted on Jan 24, 2003 - View this thread

Not standing up to Bush on Iraq is costing the Democrasts money. I work fund raising for the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC, and all three have seen a drop in fund raising dollars over the last two months. The Dems claim it's a good year no matter what the numbers say, but I beg to differ, as a person working the frontline of their telemarketing campaigns the callers are hearing serious complaints from the donors, and we in middle management are getting no response on what to tell the donors. With the House having voted for Bush's resolution, and the Senate set to pass it, is it too late to save face with their donors?
posted on Oct 10, 2002 - View this thread

Big foundations pull funding from city school district. According to my inside source at the Board of Education here, the foundations and the BoE consider the school board's shenanigans to be "marginal." That is, unusual compared to most school boards for districts this size. I would think there are many bad school boards like ours, right?
posted on Jul 10, 2002 - View this thread

a quarter of world species face extinction and for some reason the bush administration refuses to fund UN backed family planning programs opinions?
posted on May 20, 2002 - View this thread

House set to vote on campaign finance reform It would be the biggest overhaul of the nation's campaign finance laws since Watergate. "We should win it," Shays, R-Conn., said Monday. "We've had the votes in the past and, frankly, I think our cause is just." Some people are against it.
posted on Feb 12, 2002 - View this thread

Pssst. Hey buddy: wanna name a bridge? Nothing is sacred. Or public.
posted on Feb 5, 2002 - View this thread

Troll of trolls In this one tiny piece in Modern Healthcare hot button issues are pressed all over the place: abortion, public funds ($40 billion) for religious doctrine, contraception, patients rights, etc. etc. Of course none of this would be an issue if poor unwed mothers would take West Virginia up on their offer of $100 to just get married. Flame away...
posted on Jan 25, 2002 - View this thread

Is this a real chance at campaign finance reform or are we just in for more partisan back and forth that in the end won't change much of anything? (NY Times link) And how long will the "Enron effect" last?
posted on Jan 25, 2002 - View this thread

A New Year's Idea: Pay For Some
So, slashdot says A Great New Year's Idea is to Pay For Some Freedom, eg. BSD, EFF or MozillaZine to name just a few, but what else can we do?
Metafilter, OddTodd, IMDB [Aren't they already owned by Amazon?], lots of good places to spread the holiday cheer. Seems like there is no shortage of Folks who are looking for something.
I like the idea of Getting Something In Return, not sure if that makes me greedy, or scroogey.
Seems like the web has really given us a new list of worthy causes...
posted on Dec 27, 2001 - View this thread

Well what did you expect? After years of forcing taxpayers to pay for stuff they hate, the National Endowment for the Arts "has been transformed from a lightning rod and punching bag into a benign institution, averse to controversy and with a significantly different mission than it had a decade ago."
posted on Dec 23, 2001 - View this thread

Luckyluncher.com Launches With $42 in Angelo Financing
Found this on Business Wire:
"A new web site to help Silicon Valley stock option refugees enjoy the extravagant lunches of yesteryear started today with $42 in Angelo financing.

That's Angelo financing, not Angel financing. 'My friend Angelo loaned me the 42 bucks to register the domain name' explains co-founder Gary Cook."
posted on Oct 19, 2001 - View this thread

This breaking story brings a new aspect to a complex debate. Reasearchers in a private clinic in the US have created human embryos specifically for the purpose of extracting stem cells. This seems a good platform on which to discuss the wider issue of the interaction between public/private research funding, technology and life. Here's hoping it won't just end up a pro-life/pro-choice bloodbath.
posted on Jul 11, 2001 - View this thread

Bye bye Webvan. "Although Webvan would be just one of hundreds of dot-com companies to go out of business, its story is somewhat unique. Webvan was one of the most well funded of all the dot-com companies, having raised, and burned through, around $1 billion in financing."
posted on Jul 9, 2001 - View this thread

$145 million in a search for evidence of Big Bangs! So far the popular vote indicates most are in favor of the spending--whatever the cnn data is worth. Am I the only one who'd prefer it spent on my undergrad work, or even biosciences research?
posted on Jul 1, 2001 - View this thread

Want college aid? Bush insists on total disclosure about prior drug use. "The thing that struck me was the Bush administration stance that a non-answer means you're guilty is ironic, since he spent the entire campaign not answering the question about cocaine," Hlinko said. "I don't care if he did coke 30 years ago, but this is hypocritical." I don't dislike Bush to the same degree as some of you, but this pisses me off.
posted on Jun 25, 2001 - View this thread

Senate passes amendment withholding money from schools that deny use of their facilities to the Boy Scouts on the grounds of their exclusion of homosexuals. Says Jesse Helms, sponsor of the amendment to Bush's education bill, this is meant to combat "the organized lesbians and homosexuals in this country of ours." Is this justified in light of the Supreme Court's ruling that the Scouts have the right to exclude whomever they wish, or just flat out anti-homosexual?
posted on Jun 14, 2001 - View this thread

75% of Americans favor Government funding of faith-based organizations. However, when asked about specific faiths, that number drops dramatically to 38% for Buddhist Temples and 29% for the Nation of Islam. So what did they expect, their own religion should get funds, but no others?
posted on Apr 11, 2001 - View this thread

The first cut is the deepest: Smithsonian to take massive money cuts Under the budget submitted to Congress this week, deep cuts to be made in Smithsonian programs and divisions, as well as personnel. It is, I believe, cuts, seldom making big media stories, that give us an idea of what is viewed as important by our political figures
posted on Apr 10, 2001 - View this thread

Remember Dart Pigeon? Check out this guy's beef on music funding. Please note the authors of both pages. Coincidence? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
posted on Apr 6, 2001 - View this thread

Maybe I spoke too soon. A lot of semipro tech-zines, sort of like blogs except with specific subject matters to cover, are financed by ad networks. In the recent past a bunch of them have lost their funding when their ad networks went out of business. Now one of the biggest networks which remains is changing their terms to the detriment of the web sites. I gather that a lot of the ad networks were running at a loss, and of course new funding has dried up. [more inside]
posted on Jan 5, 2001 - View this thread

Government gives money only to Sex Ed programs that teach not to have sex at all. Very disturbing article. Basically the teachers teach abstinence. No words about STDs or even contraception; or they'll lose their money.
posted on Dec 30, 2000 - View this thread