Facts, Stats and Data
sb admin | November 10, 2008From the BBC:
US President-elect Barack Obama will seek to reverse Bush administration policies when he enters office on 20 January, his transition chief has said.
John Podesta said executive orders by President George W Bush on issues such as stem cell research and oil drilling were at odds with Mr Obama's views.
Plans to pass a raft of last-minute regulations are also being watched. ...
Read the rest here.
sb admin | November 6, 2008SEA has put together a list of state ballot measures that involved science including info on what the end result was. The list can be found here and below. It was particularly interesting that Colorado rejected an amendment to the state constitution that defined "the moment in which an egg becomes an established "person."" Also heartening was the passing of the Minnesota constitutional amendment to "allocate funding for protecting Minnesota's water sources, environment, cultural heritage through an increased sales and use tax rate."
California, Proposition 7
By 2010, government-owned…
mstebbins | November 6, 2008SEA has put together a list of state ballot measures that involved science including info on what the end result was. The list can be found here and below. It was particularly interesting that Colorado rejected an amendment to the state constitution that defined "the moment in which an egg becomes an established "person."" Also heartening was the passing of the Minnesota constitutional amendment to "allocate funding for protecting Minnesota's water sources, environment, cultural heritage through an increased sales and use tax rate."
California, Proposition 7
By 2010, government-owned…
sb admin | November 4, 2008The day is finally here. You've heard it from everyone, but I'll pile on...VOTE! Our final tally on the YouTube AVoteForScience challenge is 30 something videos from scientists endorsing Obama....and not one video from a scientist endorsing McCain. That seems to reflect a general consensus on the issue of who is better on science policy issues. It's too bad, really. It would have been nice to see a good justification for voting the other way if such an argument could be made on science issues. Here are two entertaining videos from the submissions.
Happy voting everyone!
gregladen | September 27, 2008It is a shame when a perfectly good research project gets picked up by a vote grubbing elected official to use in a derogatory way in a sound bite. It is embarrassing when we are talking about the presidential election and the candidate is incapable of hitting his mark properly ... mispronouncing the term "paternity."
You all saw this is Fridays debate. Well, hat tip to Virgil, who points us to a piece published in Scientific American last February that looks into McCain's long standing tiff with bear research.
McCain ... hits .. research in speeches on the stump, cracking jokes about bear…
apalazzo | September 24, 2008Here we are going to look at the best available figures for offshore drilling, specifically the areas that are currently off-limits. That's what the current political fight is about.
First, how much oil we consume and how much we "produce":
The bottom line is that we consume a heck-of-a-lot more oil than we prodce, about three times as much.
And how much more could we get "offshore" from areas that are currently off-limits?
Well if you comb all the literature out there, the simple answer is that we don't really know. Here's the closest that I've been able to get from an article in…
grrlscientist | September 21, 2008tags: socialized medicine, uninsured Americans, health care policy, election2008, politics
I have a confession to make: I am an American who has no health insurance, and I have been so ever since my postdoctoral funding ended four years ago. But I am not alone: according to the most recently available statistics, somewhere between 45-47 million Americans are living without any sort health care coverage, and every year, more and more working adults and families join the ranks of the uninsured. Shockingly, according to the Urban Institute's estimate, 22,000 Americans actually died in 2006…
apalazzo | September 19, 2008Governmental funding of science is fundamentally important to our economic future.
First let's look at funding for the National Institutes of Health, the main source of money for biomedical research in the US:
Joseph j7uy5 @ Corpus Callosum points out:
I can't help but notice that the funding leveled off the same year that the Iraq War started.
How about the Physical Sciences, Engineering, Math & Computer Sciences? They have all flat-lined since GWB came to power:
On the biggest issues of our time, energy, the story is no better. Money for alternative energy research has been flat…
mstebbins | September 19, 2008Here is your Friday Trivia question brought to you by Scientists and Engineers for America.
Question: What percent of new R&D sites planned for construction in the next 3 years will be built in China or India?
A. 38% B. 54% C. 68% D. 77%
Click HERE for the answer.
thusspakezuska | September 18, 2008Strictly speaking, McCain's and Palin's policies, but Palin's got the alliteration thing going there. Plus, let's face it, she's just more interesting.
In an earlier post, I wrote about how Palin presents an un-scary, Nice Feminist face to the average voter, which facilitates the sense that one is being all progressive and modern and supportive of women, without actually having to change anything. The liberals want you to support reproductive health policies for women that will actually facilitate their independence from men and give them control over their own bodies. This, of course,…
apalazzo | September 17, 2008Once upon a time, one of America's greatest strengths was its ability to lead. Citizen from other nations looked up to the US as a model. In WWII soldiers would give up to the US on purpose, because they knew that they would be treated fairly. How do I know this? My grandfather who fought for the Italians was one of them. Imagine that type of power. You are so highly regarded that your enemies would rather give up to you than fight you.
But we've squandered that. In the name of fighting terror, we torture. In the name of justice, we invade a country without justification. In the name of…
apalazzo | September 16, 2008Back when I lived in Canada, health insurance was never a worry. Sure you might have to wait a bit before you got it, but you could always count on being seen by a doctor when ever something is wrong. If you wanted you could have purchased additional health insurance that pays for upgrades, but almost all Canadians (91% in a recent poll) prefer Universal Health Care to the American system. But what is the situation down here in my adopted land? (I've lived in the US for the past eleven years) The Democrats want to change things, they recognize that the system is broken. In contrast the GOP…
apalazzo | September 15, 2008Again here's a simple graph that says it all.
And they say that Democrats are fiscally irresponsible.
apalazzo | September 14, 2008We've been told by the talking heads on teevee that Americans will decide this election based not on the issues but on personality. However, as a scientist I firmly believe that we must make conclusions based on the data. In this series of posts, I'll try to give you access to all the available facts.
So let's start off with taxes, there's a clear difference between Obama and McCain's plans.
(ht: Digby, Crooks and Liars, Washington Post)
sb admin | September 13, 2008 Candidate's promises and positions do not always match what is constitutionally or procedurally possible. It is possible to wrap oneself in the Constitution and hide behind it at the same time. Several years ago, a child died when a string attached to his 'hoodie' was caught in the frame of the playground slide down which he was hurdling. He was strangled. Over the course of any given year or two, a small number of children are run over by cars, killed or injured, as they run carelessly into the street in pursuit of the carillon-playing ice cream truck.
The former incident, in…