The Onion on The Constitution

Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be

My favorite bit: Mortensen's passion for safeguarding the elaborate fantasy world in which his conception of the Constitution resides is greatly respected by his likeminded friends and relatives, many of whom have been known to repeat his unfounded assertions verbatim when angered.

Critical and Political Thinking

I mentioned the importance of critical thinking to the democratic process the other day and it got me thinking about my own experience with our government. The last eight years pissed me off so much and President Obama has said and done so many things just in his first few days in office that I am in an near-constant state of elation.

This is both good and bad.

The thing I have to remember is that every thing the Obama administration does isn't going to be something with which I agree. The trick, here, is going to be for me to keep a truly open mind. If they stick to their rhetoric, though, I will at least know that they are about to do something I don't like.

The very fact that this administration is doing a lot of things I have been wanting government to do for a long time means that I need to watch them even more closely. And they are providing the tools for the American people to do that watching. Chief among them, Recovery.gov (which currently has no content) and the White House's website (which has plenty of content).

No matter what your political beliefs are, make your opinion known and look for evidence behind the words of our leaders. Don't just trust or mistrust blindly because the person saying something is a career politician.

Barack Obama: Science President!

The latest presidential weekly address fills me with even more hope (there's that word again) for the future of our country. The whole thing sounds great but here's my favorite bit:

To ensure our children can compete and succeed in this new economy, we’ll renovate and modernize 10,000 schools, building state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries, and labs to improve learning for over five million students. We’ll invest more in Pell Grants to make college affordable for seven million more students, provide a $2,500 college tax credit to four million students, and triple the number of fellowships in science to help spur the next generation of innovation.

President Obama recognizes not only that education (proper education!) is vitally important to the economic future of America but that science education is even more vitally importanter.

And my skeptical heart grew three sizes when I heard him say these next words:

I know that some are skeptical about the size and scale of this recovery plan. I understand that skepticism, which is why this recovery plan must and will include unprecedented measures that will allow the American people to hold my Administration accountable for these results. ...every American will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars by going to a new website called recovery.gov.

Critical thinking ain't just for analyzing bigfoot, Heaven, and UFOs, folks. It should be applied to everything, politics doubly so. This level of transparency is what government should be practicing.

Here's the whole thing:


Also, I have to say that the presidential addresses being distributed via YouTube fills me with glee. Go 21st century!

Restoring Science to its Rightful Place

I've talked a little about President Obama's good choices for his science team. The following quote from his inaugural address give me even greater (dare I say it?) hope:

“We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its costs. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.

After eight years of faith-based bullshit, I am so glad to have someone who talks like this in the oval office. Oh, also? He actually mentioned non-believers.

Needless to say, I'm happy so far.

Quick note

You know? I looked all over www.huffingtonpost.gov and I can't find that David Kirby post that everyone's talking about.

Must be a hoax.

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Obama Chooses His Science Team

This is my favorite radio address so far.



President-elect Obama has made some very good choices for his science team. This makes two Nobel-prize winners on his staff. It's hard to pick a pullquote from this address because the whole thing is incredible (read the transcript here) but the following excerpt sums up why I am so glad we elected this guy (emphasis mine):

Because the truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States.

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Interview with Sharon Long, Science Advisor to Obama

Steve Mirsky from Scientific American's awesome Science Talk podcast interviewed Sharon Long, a Stanford biologist and one of the Obama campaign's science advisors the day after the election. Click here for a link to the episode along with a transcript of the interview.

My favorite bit was Dr. Long taking Sarah Palin to task for criticizing government spending on fruit-fly research.

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Obama's Cabinet Taking Shape - A Good Shape

Just a quick note to say how glad I am about President-Elect Obama's cabinet and advisor choices, so far. Two, in particular, have me doing happy dances.

Lisa P. Jackson is the designate to head the EPA. She's the former commissioner of New Jersey's EPA and she has a master's degree in chemical engineering from Princeton instead of a law degree. She's already two up on RFK Jr.

The second designate that makes my heart grow three sizes is Steven Chu, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, for Secretary of Energy. Hell, yeah! A Nobel-Prize-winning experimental physicist! 'Nuff said.

Still no word on his science advisor but the two appointments above are encouraging.

And now a word from China's Andy Rooney

When The Onion is on they really nail it:


China's Andy Rooney Has Some Funny Opinions About How Great The Chinese Government Is

It's gotta be hard to be a skeptic in China.

Special Bonus Article: I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians

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Obama and Science

John McCain showed himself to be dangerously anti-science during his campaign. Barack Obama, on the other hand, seems to have his head on straight when it comes to these things. I say "seems" because he might be getting some bad advice and it is up to us to try to steer his administration away from quackery and towards good science policy.

For example, he might be considering Robert Kennedy Jr. as the head of the EPA. That's right, anti-vaccination RFK Jr. That would be bad. He's on Timothy Noah's list of people Obama should not choose along with those of several others.

Please get in touch with Obama's people via whatever means you have and urge him to choose someone else. He has not picked a science advisor yet. Sounds like he needs one.

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