re: UA President stepping down in July

Medical education online should be a thing. Do clinics and labs in person. Virtual reality will do wonders.

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Huntsville is now larger than Birmingham by almost 30k. It has been for several years.

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When people talk about largest cities they're generally always talking about metros. Huntsville is not even half of Birmingham's size there.

The municipal population comparison is not particularly meaningful since Huntsville's municipal boundaries cover 50% more area than Birmingham's.

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Ding ding ding ding. I have to drive by both the AU and the GTI building every day for work and actually have townhalls/meetings in the AU building a few times a year. It makes me sick

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Me too. Alabama is missing the boat up here. UAH is not the same thing..... just like UAB....LOL

The gateway area in front of gate 9.... where the 2 new Northrop buildings are located.

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Space Force is about to be re-located here from Colorado. It's a great time to live in North Alabama.

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Nope. Not happening.

It’s been pitched but it’s 1/60 finalists jockeying for 1/20th of the cash

Not sure if that ever makes it out of the pitching stage

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Not sure if that ever makes it out of the pitching stage

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The funding is a moot point right now. The research/innovation district is full steam ahead. The Grant money would have been a "nice-to-have" aspect

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Nope. Not happening.

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Really? LINK

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My favorite part about Huntsville. Full of small government Libertarians/Fiscal Conservatives...but don't you dare cut the federal spending that props up THEIR city...cut it everywhere else.

Back to the regularly scheduled programming: UA really hit it big with both Dr. Whitt and Dr. Bell. Hope the next hire is in that spirit and not like the Guy Bailey tenure.

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Almost nobody is a small government conservative. That is just canard to disguise that they just think anyone who is not them is undeserving of government assistance. It's not conservatism, it is narcissism. Liberals will try to spin that as "they don't want minorities" but I know from being around middle class white people - as one of them myself - that they also hold "the hayseeds" in contempt too. Doesn't stop them from buying F150s to never carry a load of anything nor leave hard top but just carry them from their suburban home to work or Target. Can't really understand that one...want to LARP rural white but also are contemptuous of them. Hell those assholes are the reason people who could really use a utility vehicle are priced out of buying new ones these days.

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You realize that there is a huge difference in the type of federal work that goes on in this country right? Huntsville is basically all DoD which protects this country and the people that fight for her. Most conservatives want to get rid of the non DoD bloat that has hit the federal government and the constant red tape that we have to deal with to get literally anything done.

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If you're not cutting DoD spending then there isn't really that much to cut other than medicare, social security, and medicaid. Frankly, I do think that the public-private interface that pervades DoD operations is a source of waste. Private companies operate on making profit but from the taxpayer's perspective their profit is waste. The private sector in the postwar boom did operate great theoretical and applied research laboratories like PARC and Bell Labs. However, corporate research has become less collegial and more shrouded in corporate secrecy it seems. I don't think academia can fill in that gap but I do believe we need to have a system where taxpayers fund laboratories that are non-profit then license their innovations to the private sector. It is just a bit hard to fund blue sky research with profit motivation hanging over everyone's head. In fact, the R&D portion of projects becomes a great nebulous area to blowout the budget and reap more profits from the taxpayer's pockets. Essentially, I don't think companies should own good ideas that enhance our position in global competition. By the necessity of the system that exists today, it makes the state and its people more beholden to corporations than they ought to be. The state should have a lot more flexibility with strategic intellectual property rights. Furthermore, as we've seen with corporations over the last 50 years: they are not really citizens of any nation and they'll sell a country down the river without a paddle if it advances their ability to lower costs and increase profits. People will call me a communist probably but I just don't think you can have corporations with such a degree of autonomy as they possess in this country when we live under a global capital system. Their motivations cannot be guaranteed to align with the nation.