Next Up: War on Humanities

As if you needed an excuse to be happy about the end of the Bush administration, here's an interesting piece from Chris Mooney at Slate about Bush's so-called "war on science" and what scientists need to do to prevent another flareup. Although I don't really consider myself a scientist (despite currently working toward an M.S. I would only really identify as a social scientist, and only when trying to sound high-falutin'), I certainly rely heavily on scientific data, so I found this especially prescient. Woooooo science.

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Oxymoronic

This article about a speech Pres. Bush gave in West Virginia yesterday angers me on many levels. Statements such as, "Coal is affordable. Coal is available right here. And coal provides jobs," make me want to vom everywhere. But here's the sentence that really irked me:

"We have spent $2.5 billion in clean coal technology. This year, we will spend $650 million for advanced coal research, the largest amount in 25 years."

CLEAN COAL IS NOT A THING. Let me repeat myself: There is no such thing as clean coal. All of the nasty stuff that is coal to begin with doesn't just disappear - it just goes somewhere else. Also, mining for coal? Terrible, especially since in West Virginia, the main form of coal mining is mountaintop removal. Besides all that, why are we still spending so much money on non-renewable resources?

Argh.

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