It ain't over, and won't be for awhile

Even though it appears that there might be a deal that will make the immediate threat of a government shutdown go away, the Republicans are playing from the Dick Morris playbook and will demand cuts to avert a shutdown every time the reguarly-scheduled shutdown becomes nearly imminent again. At some point there's going to be a true stalemate. I'm going to write more about how the proposed cuts are not exactly in line with actual fiscal reality, even though I'm not the first one to note that, and won't be the last, either.

Meanwhile, here's Scientific American pointing out how STUPID it is to cut science budgets:

House Budget Cuts Could End U.S. Science Leadership

[Raymond] Orbach -- who served as DOE's undersecretary for science under President George W. Bush -- called the House cuts "devastating."

"I can personally attest that funding for scientific research is not a partisan issue -- or at least shouldn't be," wrote Orbach, now director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas, Austin.

"The cuts proposed in H.R. 1 would reverse a bipartisan commitment to double the science research budgets of the National Science Foundation, the DOE Office of Science, and the National Institute for Science and Technology over 10 years. These are national goals supported by both Presidents Bush and Obama, and they were affirmed as recently as last December in the America COMPETES Act," he said.

Orbach called on the Senate to reverse the House cuts.

"Failure to do so would relegate the United States to second-class status in the scientific community and threaten economic growth and prosperity for future generations of Americans," he wrote.

Hear, hear -- especially you, tone-deaf Republicans.