Obama
gregladen | October 5, 2012Romney did three things at the debate:
1) He totally randomized his policies, thus putting into effect an excellent version of the Chewbaca Defense;
2) He made up his own rules, forcing Obama to follow them and embarrassing PBS and Jim Lehrer; and
3) He made a bunch of independents giddy, so when the post-debate polls were carried out, he ends up winning or being statistically even in key swing states.
Today's polls are worrisome unless you hate America and The Earth. Obama is up only 2 points across the board, and Romney has pulled ahead (though statistically even) in Florida and…
denialism | October 1, 2012Slate has an interesting article about Romney campaign mailings that appear to contain buzzwords for chronic Lyme disease advocates in Virginia. Romney's plan for Lyme disease includes these two points:
IMPROVE SYNERGY
Ensure that government agencies have an open line of communication and work with patients, researchers, doctors, and businesses in an objective, comprehensive manner.
SUPPORT TREATMENT
Encourage increased options for the treatment of Lyme Disease and provide local physicians with protection from lawsuits to ensure they can treat the disease with the aggressive antibiotics…
gregladen | September 17, 2012Yeah, I'm bringing back the term "Sea Change" which was briefly popular a few years ago, in reference to the perception of party difference, the difference between Democrats and Republicans, in handling foreign policy. Let me say first that it has never been true that the Republicans were better at handling foreign policy than the Democrats. Individual presidents and individual congresses (if that term is appropriate) have varied a lot, and it could be that one party is not better than another. Having said that, I think Democrats have been better over recent decades, more or less. Imagine,…
gregladen | September 4, 2012The Science Debate Project, co-founded by my friend Shawn Otto of Minnesota, has been trying to get candidates for the office of President to engage in a public debate about science. There has been resistance to that idea, but at least, Obama and Romney were willing to answer a set of questions related to science and science policy. The questions with the President's and Romney's answers are HERE. A press release regarding the project is here.
Romney wants to improve education by allowing parents to send their kids to charter and private schools, and he wants to fund that. He is not sure…
lborkowski | August 17, 2012by Kim Krisberg
For years, Peter Rosenfeld was looking for an effective way to treat what doctors had diagnosed as severe and intractable migraines. He'd heard of medical marijuana, but thought it was a joke — that it was just a way for people to justify their marijuana use.
Then in 2000, the New Jersey resident enrolled in a California program studying the effects of medical marijuana. It was a blind study, so Rosenfeld didn't know whether he was one of the participants being given marijuana or not. It turns out he was. And it worked.
"Marijuana was the first effective treatment that I had…
illconsidered | July 20, 2012This is not my opinion! But forget about damning with faint praise, given the source this is damning with high praise.
Obama’s negotiator, Todd Stern, will be here today. They have kept the exact same principles and negotiating stance as President George Bush did for eight years. Obama has carried on Bush’s legacy. So, as skeptics, we tip our hat to President Obama in helping crush and continue to defeat the United Nations process. Obama has been a great friend of global warming skeptics at these conferences. Obama has problems, you know, for us, because he’s going through the EPA regulatory…
lborkowski | April 27, 2012By Rena Steinzor, cross-posted from CPRBlog
Yesterday evening, when press coverage had ebbed for the day, the Department of Labor issued a short, four-paragraph press release announcing it was withdrawing a rule on child labor on farms. The withdrawal came after energetic attacks by the American Farm Bureau, Republicans in Congress, Sarah Palin, and--shockingly--Al Franken (D-MN).
Last year, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said: "Children employed in agriculture are some of the most vulnerable workers in America." "Ensuring their welfare is a priority of the department, and this proposal is…
lborkowski | April 9, 2012In the New York Times last week, Gardiner Harris reported on tensions between FDA and the White House over FDA decisions that White House officials fear will be politically problematic for President Obama. Harris reminds readers that "The Bush administration repeatedly stopped the agency from issuing rules to prevent contamination of eggs, produce and other foods ... Much of the agency's staff assumed that the Obama administration would restore the agency's independence."
This assumption of the Obama administration restoring agency independence wasn't unfounded -- less than two months after…
cmonforton | March 14, 2012To mark Sunshine Week, the annual initiative to promote freedom of information and government openness, I'm examining OSHA's performance in disclosing information about worker fatality cases. My interest in this particular transparency issue stems back to the first year of the Obama Administration, when in October 2009, a new feature appeared front-and-center on federal OSHA's homepage. It read: "Worker Fatalities."
I gave OSHA's new leadership credit for reminding visitors to its website that workers are killed everyday on the job, many from preventable causes. The weekly postings by…
lborkowski | December 12, 2011My colleague Susan F. Wood had an excellent op-ed in the Washington Post over the weekend about the Obama administration's overruling of the scientifically grounded FDA decision to approve emergency contraceptive Plan B for over-the-counter sale without age restrictions. She begins by going back in time to a much more promising moment: President Obama's signing of a Presidential Memorandum on scientific integrity:
It was a proud moment, in the East Room of the White House, on a beautiful spring day in March 2009. In the room were leading scientists, Nobel laureates, the president's science…
kcollins | December 9, 2011
The news of The Kavli Foundation Video Contest has even spread to the oval office. Back in June, Robert W. Conn, President of the Kavli Foundation, met with President Obama to discuss the importance of science in America. President Obama commented that he and his daughters thoroughly enjoyed themselves at the USA Science and Engineering Festival last year. Obama commented that last year's video contest titled "Why Science is Cool" was wonderful.
Click here to view the article about President Obama and The Kavli Foundation.
Don't miss out on the chance to enter the contest! The 2012 Kavli "…
stoat | December 6, 2011
More politics, sorry. Still, if you want science, RC and J+J are blogging AGU. But CIP is delighted with Obama's speech on the economy. I'm less so; the comment there from Wolfgang (He always gave great speeches... this was one reason he won in 2008. The problem is that great speeches are not sufficient once the elcetion is over...) looks all too correct. But there is far more to talk about than that, so...
[Note: these quotes are heavily cut to compress them; please check the originals. But I don't think I've altered the sense.]
For many years, credit cards and home equity loans papered…
kcollins | October 19, 2010Monday, The White House held the First Ever Science Fair that Kicked off the Final Week of the USA Science and Engineering Festival. Here is an article from TIME Magazine about the Science Fair and the Festival.
Find the Full Article in TIME Magazine here
The White House Office of the Press Secretary MONDAY, OCTOBER 18 President Obama to Host White House Science Fair
President will Celebrate Winners of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Competitions and Announce New Steps to Inspire All Students to Excel WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, President Obama will host the White House…
kcollins | October 19, 2010Check out the live stream from today's Science Fair at the White House today. Find the full post on the White House Blog.
Middle school and high school students from across the country descended on the State Dining Room at the White House today with their award-winning science fair projects in tow. From a robot that plays soccer to a smart toilet that conserves water and an innovative approach to treating cancer, these student projects represent most cutting edge science, technology and engineering.
kcollins | October 18, 2010On Business Wire
The White House Science Fair this morning launches a week of activities that concludes with the USA Science and Engineering Festival Expo on the National Mall this weekend 10/23-10/24. From the White House, to an Expo hosted by Lockheed Martin and put together by 850 leading science organizations, to over 50 satellite events brought to you by AT&T, everyone from pre-schoolers to grandparents can join in this national effort to revitalize our young people's interest in pursuing careers in these fields. The USA Science & Engineering Festival is expected to draw more…
kcollins | October 17, 2010Today the White House will have their own Science Fair that will kick off the final week of the USA Science and Engineering Festival.
Read about it here.
Event Will Highlight Winners of National Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Competitions
WASHINGTON, DC -- On Monday, October 18th, President Obama will host the White House Science Fair celebrating the winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions. The President will view exhibits of these students' work, ranging from breakthrough basic research to new inventions, followed by…
lborkowski | October 11, 2010Several news outlets have reported that the commission appointed by President Obama to study the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill has issued preliminary reports that are sharply critical of the Obama administration's handling of the disaster. I downloaded the commission's draft working paper "The Amount and Fate of the Oil" to see how they described the federal response.
The report doesn't paint a flattering picture of the Obama administration's approach to a scientific question of national importance.
The draft report is written by the commission staff, who recommend specific questions and…
lborkowski | October 5, 2010Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House roof; Ronald Reagan took them down. Today, at the GreenGov Symposium (taking place here at George Washington University), Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced that the Obama administration will install solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the White House roof by the end of this spring. (Visit Adam Werbach's blog for a video of the announcement.)
This doesn't address the problem of Congress being unable to pass the climate legislation we need, but it does show that the Obama administration recognizes the importance of renewable…
catdynamics | September 17, 2010Krugman is is on fire today, as he has been for a while, this time talking about the tax cuts.
But, even he makes an essential error that all the democrats seem to be making.
It is not about Bush's tax cuts, or keeping Bush's tax cuts or Obama raising taxes.
Bush, for whatever reasons, proposed and got passed tax cuts that expire this year.
That is it.
They will be no more. Any changes in the tax code beyond that are not Bush's.
So, at the end of this year, there will BUSH'S TAX INCREASES.
That is the status quo, as set in law and signed by President Bush.
If your tax increases next year, it…