Today I thought I was actually going to have a day where something wouldn't piss me off. Well the FISA thing ended that notion, but also something else I read in the news.

I'm at work, and this is apparently just being broken, so I apologize for the brevity of this diary. Depending on workload, I'll try to flesh it out later.

According to Wired's science blog http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/ 06/regulator-wants.html
California is sending cease and desist letters to genetic testing companies that operate without a physician signing off on the testing. Each of the companies contacted had been providing "direct to consumer" genetic testing.

The scary part of this scenario only requires a few steps: A physician is required to order your genetic test --> The results of the test go in your medical records --> Insurance company accesses your records, and now has data on every genetic risk factor you possess and could potentially pass on. Maybe I'm a bit paranoid, but Gattaca keeps jumping into my head.

Biblical creationism, repositioned as creation science and most recently intelligent design has lost the contest of ideas on all counts: the rules, the criteria and the judging. It doesn't follow the scientific method; it doesn't allow us to explain, predict, and control better; and the jury of relevant experts (aka biologists) keeps returning the same verdict.

Now the creationists have taken a new approach that they hope will help them achieve their goal of teaching religious beliefs in our schools as science. That approach can be summed up in one simple word: whining.

One week from today, the new movie, Expelled, attempts to turn creationist complaints into mainstream media. Featuring Ben Stein, one of the conservative right's biggest whiners, the film makes several plaintive appeals: There's a conspiracy among big government and big science, and it's not fair! All we ask is for our perspective to get equal time! (Read: we lost, so let's split the prize.) All we want is for teachers to "teach the controversy"! This is all about academic freedom. Americans like freedom, right?

I'm a transfer from Kos, where, ignorant of the strike, I put up my first diary as a Clinton supporter. I described how I simply could not comprehend Senator Obama's membership of a Church whose leader preached the view that U.S Government scientists created the AIDS virus to commit genocide against African Americans. Here is the diary for those who can stomach going over to Kos.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3 /15/84638/8661

My wife has a cousin who went in for brain surgery just before an election. She voted absentee because she was afraid that after the surgery she would wake up a Republican. I seemed to have got to the same point without surgery, having this morning opened my copy of the WaPost and agreed with much of a column by Michael Gerson on Obama's speech.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con tent/article/2008/03/18/AR2008031802594. html?hpid=opinionsbox1

So I'm appealing for a lifeline. Given my very personal opposition over the past few years to the influence of religion on public health policy, how can I possibly vote in the Fall for a man who tolerated and financially supported a pastor who spread such dangerous rumors about the origins of AIDS? I've already rejected the excuse offered by the legacy of the Tuskegee experiments. Nursing mistrust is a terrible substitute for rational public health policy.

While watching a series on cable recently about the creation and development of the universe, based on the scientific knowledge which has been growing for centuries, I was stunned by the flat out statement that the Earth was created 4.5 billion years ago in the smashing together of meteors.

This was in the context of a 10-billion-year old universe which started with a Big Bang.

The billions of years of lava formations, the cooling of water and the 1.5 billion year old covering of the earth with ice, the development of single-celled creatures that eventually evolved into water creatures thousands of years before dinosaurs - all these things which have been proven by science I found amazing and spectacular.

Then I read an online article about Mike Huckabee... essentially a discussion of his conflicts with environmentalists... and it brought up his Creationist beliefs: the six-thousand-year old world created by God, the separate creation of man (in the Garden of Eden, I guess).

This makes him no different from the early European church that burned those whose beliefs led to scientific discoveries, that kept millions from learning even to read,  and made religion the basis of government.

How can time travel backwards in this way? I understand that there are millions of people who believe the same things and who will never allow themselves to read of, much less accept, contemporary knowledge. Religion, then, effects education, effects politics and effects our future.

We have spent seven years with a President who has all but disabled development in science, education and medicine, but who has used war and military invasions like the ancient Crusaders. Are we going to continue going into the historic depths of time?

Under The LobsterScope

I saunter into my favourite cafe in La Paz, Bolivia: La Terraza - where I know I can get a salad fit for a giant that is delicious, clean and cheap. I'm relieved that no one is smoking and I take a seat in the corner, yet quickly move to a window seat, "Much better for people watching!" I joke with the couple at the neighbouring table. We begin to chat. "We’ve been coming here for 14 years," the couple explains, as they tell stories of their lovely family and their experiences throughout a decade of changes in La Paz. "Wow, that's incredible," I gush in awe. "What a place to be." They offer travel advice of beautiful Incan ruins and luscious gardens, and then, "Have you been to Chacaltaya?" they ask me. "Yes - actually! I've written about that glacier. You must have seen major changes in the last 14 years of coming here..." as my tone drops and I subconsciously shake my head a little. "Chacaltaya?" the woman asks, as if we might not be talking about the same glacier. "The glacier just nearby - it's beautiful." "When was the last time you were there?" I ask. "Must have been 12 years ago now," the woman mumbles. "Its ice and snow have melted over 80 percent in the last 20 years - there's almost nothing left of it..." I sound like a broken climate change record. "But it's the highest ski hill in the world - a stunning place where the birds fly beneath you," the woman reminisces. I continue, "...They say it will be entirely gone in the next year or two. You should go see it while you're here." The tone in my voice and the looks on their faces made me feel like I was telling them they had to go visit a dying friend before she passed away, and this was the first they 'd heard she was ill.

crossposted on the NoSlaves.com blog

The House Science Committee held a hearing on November 6, 2007 completing their series on Globalization of R&D and Innovation.

Before you go to sleep, some fairly shocking testimony proving there is no worker shortage and some additional shocking facts on how the US debt is affecting job creation as well as how current research grant awards are inversely affecting R&D!

By Stephen Yellin

Just yesterday I wrote about New Jersey's upcoming referendum on Stem-Cell research, and why the proposal is an excellent one for New Jersey both economically and as a step in a progressive direction for the state. But while the voters of New Jersey will have their say on November 6th on the issue, they'll also have their say on 40 legislative districts across the Garden State. One of the most competitive ones that will be decided is one I have covered extensively before - New Jersey's 39th Legislative district, located in Bergen County. And one of the biggest opposition leaders in Trenton to the Stem-Cell referendum is Gerald "Gerry" Cardinale, the GOP's State Senator in NJ-39. Think Mitch McConnell as a purely New Jersey-style legislator, and you've got Cardinale. And like Mitch McConnell, Gerry Cardinale must be defeated.

Click here to learn more about his opponent