So, I see this as rationalization.

The fact is, you took a leadership position, and later turned your coat for reasons that perhaps made sense to you. But they don't really make sense to anyone else. So, yes, everyone who supported you then is going to feel burned.

You also made yourself a paid voice that was often hostile to Free Software, all the way back to the SCO issue. Anyone could have told you that was bound to be a losing side and you would be forever tarred with their brush.

So nobody is going to believe you had any reason but cash, whatever rationalization you cook up after the fact. So, the bottom line is that you joined a list of people who we're never going to be able to trust or put the slightest amount of credibility in.

And ultimately it was for nothing. I've consistently tried to take the high road and it's led to a pretty good income, I would hazard a guess better than yours, not just being able to feel good about myself.

Meh, it's easy to find people with skill. With values, OTOH...

You have a point.

You should have started at the top of the thread.

The FDA ordered Zmapp to stop testing back in July and ordered TMK-Ebola research suspended in January.

These were private companies trying to create treatments and vaccines who were literally stopped by the government.

As the government was actively preventing Ebola treatments, before having them "do this vital task", perhaps we should look at their record on the issue?

You apparently didn't read the whole article:
"On Tuesday, Health and Human Services (HHS) had to outsource efforts at an Ebola vaccine to the Baltimore-based Profectus BioSciences Inc. The company will receive $8.6 million to research and test their vaccine, a fraction of NIH funding that went to the above projects."

NIH is part of HHS. It is "the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research".

Are you attempting to disagree with me, or agree with me? It's not very clear...

What is your statement about the CDC in reference to? I don't see anyone here suggesting the CDC is the NIH. Was this meant sarcastically, like, "Well the NIH is no CDC", to imply that despite how screwed up the NIH is, at least they aren't as screwed up as the CDC has demonstrated itself to be recently?

The NIH is the government agency responsible for funding an Ebola vaccine research project (which they've recently assigned a budget of $9 million), which is why wasting $39 Million on other things instead of Ebola in the recent past is relevant.

In terms of the DOD, yeah, I agree that they waste tons (literally) of money, along with pretty much every other government agency, but unless you're trying to make that general point, the relevance to this discussion escapes me... The NIH obviously has the money for funding researching related to Ebola, they just chose not to spend it on that until very recently, previously having "higher priorities", like discovering why fat women go on fewer dates than skinnier women. I mean, hey, these are apparently deep mysteries to everyone in the government which require serious academics to delve into...

Pretty sure if you have the money to spend $39 million on researching why obese girls have a tough time getting dates, developing origami condoms, etc... the problem with not starting a $9 million research effort earlier isn't related to overall funding levels so much as to incompetent administration and politics driven priorities.

Let's test this by trying them all. Can you resist clicking the below to see what it is?

You'll never BELIEVE what your doctors don't want you to know about this One Weird Trick which will cause your Head To Explode because you'll be SHOCKED at what happens next when this woman's breast does WHAT to a hitchhiking killer?

Why do we have no good Ebola treatments already right now? Regulations. The FDA ordered Zmapp to stop testing back in July and ordered TMK-Ebola research suspended in January.

How much sense does it make to send a bunch of troops to Africa to build isolation camps (yeah, yeah,call them hospitals) for them? Zero. I mean, to your point, it's not like we couldn't save money by just paying local contractors to put up some buildings. Why do we want the military in the African construction business? Is it because that's the only tool available and the only semi-useful thing they could think of for them to do? Ideally, we wouldn't send anyone near other people with Ebola. It's called quarantine...

Why should I (and others) trust your price determination about various people's value and wages over the preferences of billions of people as expressed in the prices actually paid?

It's all well and good for you to think you know more than everyone else combined about what people's efforts and contributions should cost, but you'll perhaps understand my skepticism of that when you provide no empirical basis for your valuations other than it happens to be your personal opinion.

Is it possible that the markets for CEO/lawyer/engineer/scientist do a better job of pricing those occupations than you would? I'm pretty sure the Soviet Union (and others) have rediscovered the hard way that you can't just get rid of markets and prices for things and believe that some elite knows how to set all the relative needs and values.

Our current system, although distorted via government regulations, import/export restrictions and licensing, is still the product of literally thousands of years of continuous development and trials in the real world. It effectively results from billions of people's individual choices and the preferences they express through those choices about what to buy and who to buy it from (including labor).

Perhaps you could consider an economics class from someone who isn't a Marxist?