Today in City Hall Park—from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.—advocates for adult literacy will be protesting the Mayor's proposed budget. You should feel free to join them!

The City's money for literacy programs is a tiny, tiny part of the budget, but it's constantly being hacked at. All told, just $13 million in proposed cuts (in a $65.7 billion budget) impact thousands of people who are trying to master English.

The City should be throwing money at literacy, to make it the greatest city it could be. That something like a third of New York City residents aren't fully literate in English is a waste of human [...]

Do you want to care about something boring and dull but important? Sure you do! While the budget is being hammered out for our fine country's 2011 fiscal year, so far the House has suggested they'd be happy cutting $1.6 billion from the National Institutes of Health. What's that you say? We pay money from our taxes to go to health research? How disgusting! But it turns out that when legislators actually know what the NIH does, they want to give it more money, not less. Also? Unlike much of the government, the NIH makes money [PDF] for America. Through science! While they are, you know, curing [...]