Science and technology pork is always on the menu for appropriators flush with cash.  This is especially unfortunate since the private sector, which stands to benefit the most from government giveaways, is usually capable of footing the bill on its own.  This year's VA-HUD spending bill, signed by the President on Oct. 20, 1999, brings us some truly weird science.

• Windstorm Simulation Project:  A $2.5 million science project for the folks at Florida International University, Miami, in the district of VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee member Rep. Carrie Meek (D-Fla.).
• Cayuga County Regional Application Center:  Thanks to the help of House VA-HUD Appropriations Chairman James Walsh (R-N.Y.), upstate New York will feast on $11.5 million in VA-HUD pork, including $10 million for the Cayuga County Regional Application Center.

• Ultra Efficient Engine Technology Program:  A corporate welfare giveaway to aircraft manufacturers to help them develop better engines.  This is $25 million that could have been spent by the private sector for research and development.
• JASON XI:  An overblown science fair project with the ambitious purpose of answering fundamental questions about the universe by exploring the ocean.  Cost to taxpayers:  $2.3 million.
• National Center for Atlantic and Caribbean Reef Research:  $1 million so that someone's kid brother can have cool fish in his aquarium.  Located at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Miami, Fla.
• Joint U.S./Italian Space-based Detection of Forest Fires:  Do we really need to spend $2.5 million on satellite technology to tell us that trees catch on fire?
• Livestock Pollution Abatement Study:  What that means in English – how to get rid of cow pies.  What it means to taxpayers – a $700,000 research grant for Tarleton State University in Texas.
• Garden Machine Program:  For only $1 million you too can study how to grow vegetables in the vacuum of space.  The money for the program goes to Texas Tech, located in the district of House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest (R-Texas).

• Study of Tributyltin Based Ship Bottom Paints:  There is no more urgent question facing the citizens of this nation than whether you can paint the bottom of a boat with Tributyltin.  In fact, it's a mystery that Old Dominion University in Virginia will receive $400,000 to unravel.