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Trump's Second Term

Tero said:
It was not a Trump rally. Not a good photo op even.
dr.susangiurleo

The NFL lost one battle but won the war. We assumed they were obeying by taking down the “End Racism,” but the whole event was a war on everything Dump stands for. They flaunted it right to his face. Starting with Jon Batiste repeating “Land of the free” 3 times, the Black National Anthem, NFL produced ads promoting supporting children from all backgrounds, with disabilities and the ad about girls flag football. Then Kendrick.This was the most DEI of all DEI productions ever produced.

Trump booed? mostly fake
www.threads.net

PettyAF.org (@petty.af_org) on Threads

Is this the BOO footage we’ve been searching for all night? 😳 Super Bowl LIX
www.threads.net www.threads.net
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there was also a ton of religiously affiliated ads run during the event. a propaganda fest imo
 
Mike! said:
Please elaborate for those of us not in the know.
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John 8:12
Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
 
Donald on the Super Bowl

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

The worst part of the Super Bowl, by far, was watching the Kickoff where, as the ball is sailing through the air, the entire field is frozen, stiff. College Football does not do it, and won't! Whose idea was it to ruin the Game?
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Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump.

The only one that had a tougher night than the Kansas City Chiefs was Taylor Swift. She got BOOED out of the Stadium. MAGA is very unforgiving!
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Donald's on making the country larger and Canada

We’re making our country larger, we’re making our country stronger.
And in the case of Canada—if this should happen—I don’t know how they can do it without us. Because without the U.S., Canada really doesn’t have a country.
They do almost all of their business with us, and if we say we want our cars to be made in Detroit, with a stroke of a pen, I can make that happen. And other things, in addition to that, would not allow Canada to be a viable country.
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Video in link

https://twitter.com/x/status/1888760312578425305
 
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Andy_Ross said:
John 8:12
Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
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Can that be it? I thought it must be something more specifically symbolic about a light over the country, but I couldn't think of anything except the star over Bethlehem which didn't seem relevant unless Trump imagines his second term is literally the second coming.

Thanks to Mike! for asking the question.
 
A true leader puts his own country first. This is what you’re seeing here. All you libtard globalists can go ◊◊◊◊ yourselves.
 
TomB said:
Actually, the ~25% numbers people have mentioned seem rather low, based on my experience. I think the project I was PI on a several years ago had indirect costs of around 39%. Not cancer or healthcare related, but enough to give me some perspective.

Usually an organization or university has an indirect cost rate that they charge for all clients. These are included in the bid, so if the indirect costs are excessive, the bid will not be competitive.

So what does indirect costs pay for? I don't really know how it's calculated. It probably varies from organization to organization. Some things covered by indirect costs at one place may be directly itemized at another. The most obvious things would be things like facility maintenance, utilities, Janitorial service, IT, etc. And, of course, you have your administrative services: personnel, purchasing, and other support staff.

For a lab, it may include overhead to operate and maintain equipment. It's not cheap keeping lab instruments running. Service contracts can run $10-15k/year per instrument. (And those can pay for themselves very quickly.) Some places may include that type of thing in their indirect costs. There are rules as to what can be charged to a grant. And then rules as to what equipment purchased with one grant can be used on the next grant. One project cannot subsidize another.

Anyway, capping the indirect cost rate is not likely to actually save any money at all, in my opinion. Bids and proposals will just be written differently. For example, instead of lumping IT into overhead, I suspect that the IT charges and fees will instead be itemized as a direct cost. The way this would work is that the IT department would charge the grant a fee for IT service. Similar things would likely be done with facilities overhead.

Is 50% indirect costs excessive? I really don't know. Like I said, I don't know how it's calculated, just what I have and have not seen as line items on grants. It would probably depend on the nature of the research. When I think about medical research, I tend to think in terms of a lab. And the major lab instruments cost $100,000-$300,000. I know of one lab that spent, as I recall, around $300,000 for the instrument to analyze for PFAS. Lab instruments and the lab buildings themselves create indirect expenses that aren't present in, say an engineering or architecture firm designing a building or a bridge.
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When I worked for a cooperative institute at a university, the institute charged the govt. 1.44 times the employee's salary (which they claimed was about 90 percent of what a typical private company would charge). I always considered the 0.44 to be "overhead", even though it appeared to cover items like employee health insurance, workmen's compensation insurance, and payroll taxes that some articles that I've found on the Internet claim are "direct" expenses (how would health insurance premiums be partitioned among billable hours on different projects and among people with different salaries?). Perhaps my understanding of "overhead" is not correct).

I would expect that buildings used in biomedical research would be more expensive to build and maintain than typical office buildings, given items like the need for strict climate control in labs and the need to be isolate specific areas to contain possible leaks.
 
TomB said:
Actually, the ~25% numbers people have mentioned seem rather low, based on my experience. I think the project I was PI on a several years ago had indirect costs of around 39%. Not cancer or healthcare related, but enough to give me some perspective.

Usually an organization or university has an indirect cost rate that they charge for all clients. These are included in the bid, so if the indirect costs are excessive, the bid will not be competitive.

So what does indirect costs pay for? I don't really know how it's calculated. It probably varies from organization to organization. Some things covered by indirect costs at one place may be directly itemized at another. The most obvious things would be things like facility maintenance, utilities, Janitorial service, IT, etc. And, of course, you have your administrative services: personnel, purchasing, and other support staff.

For a lab, it may include overhead to operate and maintain equipment. It's not cheap keeping lab instruments running. Service contracts can run $10-15k/year per instrument. (And those can pay for themselves very quickly.) Some places may include that type of thing in their indirect costs. There are rules as to what can be charged to a grant. And then rules as to what equipment purchased with one grant can be used on the next grant. One project cannot subsidize another.

Anyway, capping the indirect cost rate is not likely to actually save any money at all, in my opinion. Bids and proposals will just be written differently. For example, instead of lumping IT into overhead, I suspect that the IT charges and fees will instead be itemized as a direct cost. The way this would work is that the IT department would charge the grant a fee for IT service. Similar things would likely be done with facilities overhead.

Is 50% indirect costs excessive? I really don't know. Like I said, I don't know how it's calculated, just what I have and have not seen as line items on grants. It would probably depend on the nature of the research. When I think about medical research, I tend to think in terms of a lab. And the major lab instruments cost $100,000-$300,000. I know of one lab that spent, as I recall, around $300,000 for the instrument to analyze for PFAS. Lab instruments and the lab buildings themselves create indirect expenses that aren't present in, say an engineering or architecture firm designing a building or a bridge.
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Exactly, even varies within an organization from contract to contract. In my days of doing engineering and estimating we might have specialty tooling for a contract just under indirect costs (we would then own and use the tooling however we saw fit). If the customer wanted to own or control the use of the tooling it would then be ameterized out as a line item in the per unit cost of whatever we were making for them.

In the chip FAB I'm working now much of the production tooling was sold, some years ago, to various customers who then had priority on or dominance of that tool but could still lease out its unutilized production capabilities (if any) for other customers or purposes.

Think the machine that goes 'ping' in The Meaning of Life


The 'Property of XYZ' stickers have been off the tooling for some years now, so I expect that bit has ended.
 
theprestige said:
USAID isn't the only source of funding for such things. And Tero's argument was specifically about cancer researchers needing jobs. He could have made an argument about how USAID funding was a vital element in global cancer reserch, but he didn't. He made an argument about how cancer researchers need to pay the bills.
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The Musk tweet was about NIH funding research. The Trump team attacked NIH before Musk was on board. Probably due to Trump's deep fear/hate of science/Fauci. RFK Jr will take it from there and cut most funding that NIH is funding. NIH funds public and private universities to a large degree, for research. NSF is the non-medical part of funding. That too will be cut. I was funded by federal aid some 7 years in collgege. I did the research. Teaching assistant funding is largely via the University, however they do it. Research is directly funded by science departments. Private and federal funds.
 
Wait till Trump takes Congress's lunch money away:
Members will be able to get cash back for rent, hotel fees, food and travel for days that qualify as "official business" – when Congress is in session or days designated for lawmakers’ relevant committee work. Days when members are traveling in and out of Washington are covered up to 75%.
Meals and incidentals are capped at a daily maximum total of $79, which is in line with current regulations for federal employees by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).
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www.foxnews.com

House lawmakers reimbursed for rent, food, other expenses as new policy takes effect

Lawmakers have long complained that being forced to foot their own bills for food and lodging in DC is a barrier to entry for politicians who are not independently wealthy.
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com

Looks like corruption to me. I don't spend 79 dollars on my meals. I think they should get 5 bucks for lunch and 12 for dinner and no drinks, just water.
 
Tero said:
The Musk tweet was about NIH funding research. The Trump team attacked NIH before Musk was on board. Probably due to Trump's deep fear/hate of science/Fauci. RFK Jr will take it from there and cut most funding that NIH is funding. NIH funds public and private universities to a large degree, for research. NSF is the non-medical part of funding. That too will be cut. I was funded by federal aid some 7 years in collgege. I did the research. Teaching assistant funding is largely via the University, however they do it. Research is directly funded by science departments. Private and federal funds.
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OK?
 
theprestige said:
USAID isn't the only source of funding for such things. And Tero's argument was specifically about cancer researchers needing jobs. He could have made an argument about how USAID funding was a vital element in global cancer reserch, but he didn't. He made an argument about how cancer researchers need to pay the bills.
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Tero was very clearly making an argument about the necessary overhead costs of cancer research.
 
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