Politics
catdynamics | February 13, 2009ok, thomas.loc.gov now has the final version of the stimulus bill as being put to the vote to be sent to Obama - this is the House/Senate conference compromise plus extra bits the Speaker's office insisted upon after being unhappy with the Senate prematurely announcing agreement.
It is good for science, as good as can be expected. Maybe a bit too good in that we might pay a price later.
Interesting clause on executive compensation limitations.
PS: Bill has now passed senate and house and goes to President Obama for signature.
Not that I'm a worrywart or anything.
Ok, this particular…
gregladen | February 13, 2009"While Al Franken, Harry Reid and their allies will likely continue their efforts to short-circuit Minnesota election law, you can be assured that I will continue fighting to ensure the Minnesota voters -- and nobody else! -- will truly decide who won this election."
Source: MnIndy
cmooney | February 13, 2009Science Debate has done a great analysis of the science funding that has emerged from the House-Senate reconciliation process on the stimulus bill. For the most part, science funding was restored through the reconciliation process: $ 3 billion for NSF; $ 2 billion for DOE Science; $ 5.4 million for DOE research on efficiency and renewable energy; and 10.4 billion for NIH.
You can check out the full analysis here. Assuming this bill gets to the president's desk and is signed--which seems a fairly safe assumption at this point--then this is great news for science and American innovation.…
j7uy5 | February 13, 2009A minor controversy has erupted over the health care provisions that
were slipped in to the economic stimulus bill without discussion.
It has provisions such that..
Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a
federal system...One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of
Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure
your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and
cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and "guide" your doctor's
decisions.
This verbiage is found in a
href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039…
pharyngula | February 12, 2009Obama made a Lincoln's birthday speech, and a fine speech it was. It was a call to work for the common good, for strong government, and for investment in things I happen to value: education and science. It also includes a brief nod to Charles Darwin.
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If only he'd left off the 'god bless America' nonsense at the end, it would have been perfect.
terrasig | February 12, 2009This guest post comes to us from a colleague and friend, Dr Michael Wolfe. Enjoy!
The simultaneous celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the births of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin today offers a special opportunity to reflect on the state of our democracy and the status of science in our society. That these two iconic figures were born on the exact same day is, of course, a coincidence. And yet, as often happens in life, a chance confluence of events can help us see connections that we might otherwise miss.
Today we lionize Lincoln as perhaps our greatest President, and his eloquent…
tqa | February 12, 2009
Updated - The archived video is now available on the committee website, so I've been able to go back and fill in the details I missed due to earlier technical problems.
Due to technical problems, this liveblog of the Confirmation hearings for Jane Lubchenco and John Holdren begins in progress. Dr. Lubchenco is giving her opening statement.
.......
Opening Statements:
Dr. Holdren:
Honor and privilege to appear as Office of Science and Technology Policy nominee. Office has two areas of responsibility. One is input into policy, education and training, and fostering innovation. Other is…
cmooney | February 12, 2009Over at Science Progress, I've been involved in putting together not one but two items timed for Darwin Day.
The first is an op-ed coauthored with my prof here at Princeton, D. Graham Burnett, who teaches Darwin. We argue for historical nuance, which leads one to reject the idea that Darwin should be considered an icon of conflict between science and religion. In fact, we call that idea "a hackneyed story, lacking in historical nuance and ultimately running counter to the project of drawing helpful lessons from the life of one of history's greatest scientists." A brief excerpt:
...Science-…
pontiff | February 12, 2009The Computing Research Policy Blog is reporting possible good news for science funding:
Speaker Pelosi's office just released a fact sheet on the conference agreement for the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act and, wow, it looks good for science agencies in the bill. Here's the relevant bit:
Transform our Economy with Science and Technology: To secure America's role as a world leader in a competitive global economy, we are renewing America's investments in basic research and development, in training students for an innovation economy, and in deploying new technologies into the…
catdynamics | February 11, 2009there is a revised version of House Resolution 1 on thomas.loc.gov
looks like it might be the "final version" of the stimulus bill, post-conference
assuming that it is, here are the relevant bits (thomas.loc.gov is dynamic, can't provide static links):
UPDATE: Nope, those are too small - Pelosi put back a lot of the science funding
and it is even better than this version of the compromise - see David Bacon's comment
I'll update later.
Ok, there is an eighth revision of the stimulus bill, which puts in even more money for science, I thought I had it right last night because the seventh…
oracknows | February 11, 2009Stick a fork in Keith Olbermann. He's done.
He has now officially degenerated into a liberal version of Rush Limbaugh, except that Rush Limbaugh is occasionally funny. Maybe he's more like Sean Hannity, particularly in his apparent dedication to the truth, or, rather, lack thereof. Hannity detests liberals and will immediately attack on the slightest pretense, even if the information given to him of "liberal wrongdoing" is dubious or outright wrong. Like Hannity, Olbermann will never turn down an opportunity to attack Bill O'Reilly or his paymaster Rupert Murdoch. Somtimes it's justified, but…
clock | February 11, 2009From The Alliance for Taxpayer Access:
CALL TO ACTION: Ask your Representative to oppose the H.R. 801 - The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act
February 11, 2009
Last week, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee (Rep. John Conyers, D-MI) re-introduced a bill that would reverse the NIH Public Access Policy and make it impossible for other federal agencies to put similar policies into place. The legislation is H.R. 801: the "Fair Copyright in Research Works Act" (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.801:).
All supporters of public access - researchers, libraries, campus…
catdynamics | February 11, 2009so a deal has been reached on the stimulus bill
final version will be smaller than either house or senate version
science is too minor to be mentioned in the news summaries, will have to wait for the revised text to know what they did
but, NIH emerged as a "winner" - Sen Specter inserted $6.5 billion as short term boost for NIH
Good for them, or is it... that is a heck of percentage chunk to absorb short term.
But, did the conference decide that was good enough for all the science?
Or did some NSF, NOAA, DoE and even NASA stimulus survive?
We'll find out, all too soon.
I don't know how they…
cmooney | February 11, 2009I'm posting this on Sheril's behalf, as she is in the hospital right now:
Dear readers and friends in and out of the blogosphere,
I am extremely appreciative for so many emails during the past week. Thanks for offering your guestrooms, travel recommendations, and road trip advice. Thank you for invitations to speak at universities along the way and participate in dinners and happy hours. I am very glad to know so many thoughtful people follow our blog and have been happy to hear from several old friends I did not realize were readers.
Last week I also began getting emails from many planning…
gregladen | February 11, 2009The following is the latest missive from Shawn Otto:
Last Friday you and others in the science community took action and helped to restore $3.1 billion in cuts to science that had been planned in the Senate compromise version of the stimulus bill. That was a good victory for U.S. Science, but it was just the warm-up act. Now we all need to come together as a community for the real show.
Even after the $3.1 billion restoration, the final approved Senate version of the stimulus bill falls far short of the House version when it comes to science and technology. You can look at the differences…
drorzel | February 11, 2009Back in the fall, I got all caught up in the election, like everybody else, and I added a bunch of blogs to my RSS feeds in Google Reader. I'm thinking that I might need to cut back to pre-election levels, if not lower, though. Following too many political blogs is giving me whiplash.
This has really been brought home to me as the progress of the stimulus bill has coincided with a busy patch, meaning that I've been sitting down in the evening to 60-80 posts worth of stimulus bill commentary. Going through a whole day's worth of blog posts about the stimulus reads something like:
The bill's in…
cmooney | February 11, 2009We're pleased to repost the latest email from ScienceDebate:
Dear Friend,
Last Friday you and others in the science community took action and helped to restore $3.1 billion in cuts to science that had been planned in the Senate compromise version of the stimulus bill. That was a good victory for U.S. Science, but it was just the warm-up act. Now we all need to come together as a community for the real show.
Even after the $3.1 billion restoration, the final approved Senate version of the stimulus bill falls far short of the House version when it comes to science and technology. You can…
pharyngula | February 10, 2009Jon Stewart is so good at drawing blood from his targets.
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evolvingthoughts | February 10, 2009Theologians can be monumentally stupid when they look at things through their doctrinal spectacles, especially when it comes to science. Since they think everything is theological, it must have a theological standing, either good or bad, and so they will undergo the most amazing gymnastics to achieve this outcome. Here's an example, by Anglican Bishop Tom Frame of the Charles Sturt University theological school:
The problem I face is weariness with science-based dialogue partners like Richard Dawkins. It surprises me he is not chided for his innate scientific conservatism and metaphysical…