
US agriculture department suspends data collection on honeybees - anigbrowl
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/451839-agriculture-department-suspends-data-collection-for-honeybees-after
======
eks-reigh
I spent the summer of 2017 as an intern in the department of the interior. At
the time, the white house was proposing to cut the DoI's budget by an order of
magnitude. I went to a fascinating talk about how they strategize when faced
with budget cuts. They don't just cut things from least to most important,
they start by cutting things that have champions. For example, the first
things on the chopping block at the time were Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay
restoration, because those programs have champions in Congress who would fight
to get them funded again. More obscure programs don't have that advantage, so
if they get cut they're just gone.

~~~
internet_user
who are the bee champions then? Can't think of a specific name, seems too
obvious of a thing to support.

~~~
eks-reigh
I have no earthly idea, really, but I don't think we would have seen this on
hacker news of they were suspending studies of pill bugs, or food packaging,
or something boring like that.

------
Havoc
So while Europe is warning of a insect apocalypse the US is following a eyes
closed approach. sigh...

~~~
infinite8s
We are already in the middle of an insect apocalypse.

~~~
sprafa
Didn’t they figure out it was mostly pesticides? Makes sense if the
manufacturers were American.

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pstuart
But meanwhile we can give the military more money than they asked for, with
_zero_ accountability.

It's not about money, this is a war of ideology.

------
atoav
Such a shame, not only are bees incredibly fascinating beeings we also _need_
them _a little bit_ maybe.

Ever wondered how we pollinate our food without bees?

~~~
DocTomoe
In China, they use humans with little brushes.

No, really: [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/humans-bees-
china_n_570404b3e...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/humans-bees-
china_n_570404b3e4b083f5c6092ba9)

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devoply
What do you do when your prevailing ideology fails, well double down on it
obviously. Any economist worth her salt will tell you all you need to do is
pay more and you can get all the insects and honey bees you want. Same goes
for animals, environment, natural resources. You just gotta pay more and the
invisible hand will produce these things. It's really magical thinking that
works.

~~~
dang
Please do not take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. They are highly
repetitive, therefore predictable, therefore off topic here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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olliej
The Republican Party has repeatedly demonstrated that if actual facts stand in
the way of their god driven view of the world they just stop collecting facts,
or claim that facts are a conspiracy by “liberals” and “socialists”

~~~
dang
Would you please not take HN threads into political flamewar? Such discussions
are all the same, and lead nowhere but deeper into flamewar hell.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Edit: would you please not post political flamebait to HN generally? It looks
like you've done this repeatedly lately, and the site guidelines explicitly
ask you not to.

