Back-Scratching

I don't think that rags like Salon and the Daily Kos fully understand just how the science game (and, yes, you can rest assure that it is a game) is played nowadays. In order to even be considered for federal research money, you have to use certain key words in your proposal. You can't, for example, just say that you want to study the mating patterns of the Vietnam ferret badger, in that that will get you nowhere. What you have to say instead  is that you want to study the mating patterns of the Vietnam ferret badger AS IT PERTAINS TO GLOBAL WARMING. That, and you can totally forget about studying the PDO, cosmic rays, underwater volcanoes, etc., as those items pertaining to global warming continue to be a) lacking in cache and b) totally untaxable.