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Willful Ignorance

I find this just amazing:

Beginning next month, Florida researchers won't be able to travel to Cuba to carry out any studies. Although the United States allows such interactions, the state has banned faculty members at Florida's public universities from having any contact with the island nation under a law enacted last week. "This law shuts down the entire Cuban research agenda," says Damián Fernández, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami.

Cuba is one of six countries that the U.S. State Department has designated as a "sponsor of terrorism," although U.S. scholars can travel to Cuba for research if they first obtain a government license. The Florida measure, which passed the state legislature unanimously, essentially closes that loophole by disallowing state-funded institutions from using public or private funds to facilitate travel to such countries. (The list includes North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Sudan.)

"Florida's taxpayers don't want to see their resources being used to support or subsidize terrorist regimes at a time when America is fighting a war on terror," says David Rivera, a Republican Cuban-American state legislator who introduced the bill. Florida researchers won't miss out on anything by not going to Cuba, he adds: "I don't think there's anything there that cannot be studied in the Dominican Republic or other Caribbean islands."

Except Cuba. Duh.