This is pretty silly. Half a mil went to fund the research of a climate scientist who happens to be under investigation?<p>Grab the bill ("American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009") and start paging through for fun stuff.<p>NOAA gets $230 million.
NIST gets $220 million.<p>And then we have<p>"DIGITAL-TO-ANALOG CONVERTER BOX PROGRAM 
For an amount for "Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program",  $650,000,000, for additional coupons and related activities under the program implemented under section 3005 of the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005"<p>That's right, more than half a billion dollars to make sure nobody misses any TV. And that's just page 15.