"Try to forget that the money one wishes to use for beer was allocated by the United States Congress to the Department of Energy to further the pursuit of climate science"

Whining and Dining — Part 1 |

When you’re a climate scientist on top of the world, using taxpayer dollars to socialize with your friends is easy. You just have to be careful to call the social events “symposiums.” What’s not easy, evidently, is using those same taxpayer dollars for beer and wine. Ah, the humanity!

An e-mail sent on June 16, 2008, from Ben Santer to Kevin Trenberth makes this painfully clear:

Anjuli has informed me that it will be possible to use up to $10,000 of my DOE Fellowship for the purpose of funding the Symposium. I’m assuming there may be DOE restrictions on using that money for purchasing wine and beer. I’ll check into this.