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More Accusations of Scientific Abuse by the Bush Administration
Saeed al-Sahaf writes "Last week, the Union of Concerned Scientists released new evidence that the Bush Administration continues to suppress and distort scientific knowledge and undermine scientific advisory panels. Of course we're not talking about such subjective issues like stem cell research which Bush objects to on religious grounds. Here we are talking about money. The cases discussed in this story detail incidents of suppression and distortion of scientific knowledge on issues ranging from mountaintop removal strip mining to endangered species such as wild Salmon in the Pacific Northwest."
Having said that, the context of this undermining is not clear. Certainly the administration may interpret scientific data any way they choose in forming political action, just as we are free to vote them out if we disagree with their policies or actions. Undermining access to the full set of data, however, should be a crime.
To be precise there were 48 Nobel laureates who singed that document mentioned in the article. You seem to imply that such people would put their signature on any document just so that the annoying organization bugging them to sign it would get out of their hair. I do believe this time it's different and they actually mean it. When will you start believing Bush needs to go? If only for the damage he's done to science and ecology.
I find the "suppression" of stem-cell research acusation particularly interesting. The administration did not ban stem-cell research...they simply banned federal funding of it. If stem-cell research is so great and promising, then let private industry fund the research. After all, they're the ones who are going to make money off it.
Too often millions of tax dollars are spent in R&D at government labs to develop a new drug, which is then licensed for pennies to a pharmacutical company, which then charges consumers (that is, the taxpayers who paid to develop it in the first place) $100/dose. Shouldn't liberals be happy we're ending this "corporate welfare?"
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Apparently you are unfamilar with President Bush's extensive background in particle physics.
See that great big yellow sidebar on the right side of all the ucsusa pages, with "Reports", "Cases", and "Activism" headings? It takes up nearly half of each page. The "Cases" section, as you might surmise from the name, contains links to specific pieces of evidence.
/. summary contains a "Related Links" box with a link to a 351k PDF. (The text is "Read the new report".)
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The page linked to in the
Here's the link, in case you still can't find it:
http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/report.cfm?pub
Here is the full report, published in February:
http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/report.cfm?pub
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
First of all, blaming the "Bush administration" for the actions of many varied government agencies is a bit disingenous. Does anyone suppose the FDA takes daily orders from the White House? Our government just doesn't work like that.
Son, sit down and let me explain something to you....
The UCS is attacking the Bush administration, because (and the articles reference this) the Bush administration is directly telling agencies to put policy in place that ignores the scientific facts.
Second, what [these particular] scientists seem to lack is a sense of perspective. There are no solutions to real-world problems. There are only trade-offs. Sure, it would be great to have perfectly clean water, but at what point is "clean enough?" How much effort do you spend saving one endangered species?
You're so ignorant of this case it's not funny. Bush is allowing power plants to dump higher levels of mercury into water supplies for starters. The Bush administration is rolling back environmental protections anywhere and everywhere it allows some business to make a buck, especially RNC contributors. This isn't some nitpicking little lefties handwringing over some endangered swan. This is a wholesale assault on our health and safety. We're not talking about perfectly clean water, we're talking about water that causes massive increases in birth defects. And guess what, contaminated water doesn't wind up in rich neighborhoods where they can afford to take care of expensive birth defects, it happens in poor ones, where people don't know any better. And what happens when half the kids in the trailer park turn out retards cause of the mercury? You pay for it in higher taxes and social costs. Unless you want some eugenics along with your laissez faire environmental policy, it's going to wind up costing you way more to let pollution go than it does to regulate it.
The progressive movement (modern lefties, Clinton Third Way folks and all) believes in regulating business and green environmental policies because the others just hide the cost. You may think you're getting cheap stuff out of this, or the economy will do better, but it will wind up costing you more in the long run.
The only people who are being unreasonable in this situation are the people on the right. But don't believe me, go do some freaking research. Quit trying to be so non-partisan, the Bush administration have demonstrated that they are irresponsible and incompetent time and again. They don't deserve your benefit of the doubt, everytime anyone gives it to them, it turns out to be a bad idea (i.e. War in Iraq).
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me