Stop Wasting Science Funding on Politicians' Pet Projects

I'm so fed up with seeing science funding being squandered on projects that are clearly driven by politicians' personal agendas rather than actual scientific merit. It's like they think we're all idiots and won't notice that they're just throwing money at their mates' pet projects. I mean, who gets to decide what gets funded, anyway, it's all just a big game of who you know, not what's actually going to make a difference.

I'd change the whole system so that funding decisions are made by actual scientists, not politicians or bureaucrats. Let's have a panel of experts in each field who can review proposals and decide what's worth funding, based on the science, not on who's got the most connections. And let's make sure that the funding is secure for more than just a year or two, so that researchers can actually plan and carry out some meaningful work, rather than just scrambling to find the next grant.