Sometimes it is the headcount, and sometimes that's with good reason. It costs a lot more than a salary to keep a person on payroll, and the overhead for each employee is only getting higher. And it is genuinely risky for the institution and the students to rely on any proprietary system, home-grown or COTS, if there's really only one person who knows how it all works.

Why? There are all the usual reasons why homegrown applications are replaced, plus the issues specific to course management, student tracking, academic assessment, FERPA compliance, etc.

And the worst part is, you and I need to vote for him next time, too,

Then you're a fool, and you'll get exactly what you deserve. You're enabling a political monoculture which does not have your best interests at heart. But because the President makes the right noises and smiles reassuringly and plays to your self-righteous fear, you do nothing. Rube.

I said this during the last election, and I've been proved right: If you want a Presidential administration which is held to any standard of accountability, then you need to vote for the Republican candidate. Because this administration has shown, quite clearly, that a Democrat can do everything Bush did, and much worse, and never even be asked to justify their actions.

"OK - so what's your alternative?"

Simple. Make sure the bad guys are being closely watched by other bad guys with opposing goals and loyalties. Divide power to make sure that no one group of bad guys can ever control enough of the system to gain a permanent advantage. And make sure they all know that no matter how bad they are, they answer to you.

As Mr Madison put it:

But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other -- that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights. These inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite in the distribution of the supreme powers of the State.

How about we stop granting these stupid software patents in the first place? Then the government wouldn't have to argue with the government about whether the government will graciously permit its subjects to think today.

Yeah, the Holy Roman Emperor's court physicians would've perfected this technique decades ago if it hadn't been for all these distracting wars.

I find it strange that you blame the state legislature and the GOP for universities unable or unwilling to control their costs. Apparently university administrators exist only to request increasingly astronomical sums of money from the government.

If this were some esoteric and highly specialized area of knowledge that requires access to a scientist to verify then you might have a stronger point. But, in this case, the claim itself was patently ridiculous. And also easily checked by anyone with an ounce of skepticism or perspective on the issue. Scientists shouldn't be upset that they weren't consulted; they should be embarrassed that they've browbeaten people into this kind of mindless credulity.

"Now glaciologists are left trying to figure out how not understate the importance of the extent glacial ice melt, while at the same time correcting the error."

The problem here is that glaciologists, and scientists in other climate-related fields, are placing themselves into the position of determining the "importance" of ice melt in the first place. They need to focus on giving the world accurate data and admitting the limits of their knowledge, instead of proselytizing for their favored doomsday scenario. That way all of us would be more confident of the data, more informed about the possible meaning, and just generally have a clearer idea of what's actually happening. And, as a bonus, glaciologists wouldn't have to stay up nights worrying that their fickle followers would question their powers of climate prophecy and be lured into heresy whenever they make an honest mistake. If they want power and blind obedience without the interference of things like human rights and economic viability then they're doing it right. If they want accurate science and an informed populace, they're doing it wrong

Dealing with nuclear waste is a solved problem. Unfortunately, political interests and faux-environmentalists prefer to block that solution because they're zealots and demagogues with a superstitious fear of anything nuclear. And, quite often, a vested interest in obtaining subsidies for certain alternatives.

So, how many people die annually from nuclear power accidents due to all these sociopathically inadequate safety systems?