What study is so important that half a million dollars be taken from workers? Only the most important topic ever: gay bars.
This team of scientists is going to live in Argentina for the next two years. They'll go to gay bars, trying to discover what factors lead gay men to engage in risky sexual behavior while drunk.
I'm going to save the American people $400,000 right now: Drunken gay men engage in risky sexual behavior for the same reason drunken straight people do: THEY. ARE. DRUNK!
Seriously? You need two years, a trip to Argentina, and $400K (which you can't raise yourself, so you take it by force) to figure out that alcohol makes bad sexual (and other) choices seem like good ideas? I thought it'd been common knowledge since roughly the dawn of time that alcohol makes really stupid ideas seem brilliant.
I recently spent four years engaged in an exhaustive study of alcohol-fueled poor decision-making--and I did it for free. It was called "high school," and there I personally observed dozens if not hundreds of people making profoundly stupid decisions, all thanks to that magical chemical--decisions ranging from countless drunken hook-ups between people who can't stand each other in daylight, to a bizarre rendition of the Mexican hat-dance with a dead bobcat on the dancer's head. So you want to remind me why it was so important to send these researchers to Argentina?
This would be hilarious--if it were a one-time oddity, or if it weren't being paid for by people who have no say in the matter. Unfortunately, we are forced to pay for it, and garbage like this is the rule, not the exception.
