The Separation of Science and State

There is a fairly well-documented tendency by the current White House
administration to make political appointments to various science-related
agencies, such as EPA and NASA. While this may be not a novel practice,
what is novel is how brazenly some of these appointees are pushing a
decidedly political and non-scientific agenda at these agencies.
Luckily, a few of these appointees seem to be even less qualified than
their credentials suggest, like Mr. Deutsch at NASA, who lied about
receiving his undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fahd/misc/news_archive/20060207_NYT.pdf

It is one thing to debate whether Supreme Court nominations should be
made based on ideology. It is another thing to assign political hacks
and lackeys to ensure that scientific output from government agencies is
twisted to fall in line with the Executive branch's desires.

I'll see if I can find more of these stories, and attach the links to
this post.

My thoughts on cartoons

Freedom of speech vs. religious sensitivity. There are many ways of seeing this debate. I'll try to be brief in my postings:

1. Should freedom of speech be exercised solely to prove its existence, especially when the subject matter is unnecessarily provocative?

2. Is it or is it not: Secularism, a god in the grand debate of "My god is better than yours"? Seculars cry foul when they are criticized for criticizing another religion's dogma, but then again, what exactly is the variant of "freedom of speech" in the context of #1 above?

3. The European press rode their high horse, but neglected what I personally consider is their duty: start or contribute to a debate on religion and violence. The artist who drew the bomb-turbaned Muhammad obviously has a message. Had that message been put in words, and backed by logic and actual historical facts, there could be a debate, rebuttals, you know, "democratic" discourse. But it was more fun to caricature, wasn't it?

4. To the fools who are going around destroying embassies and killing ppl (or getting themselves killed, at least): the Prophet, peace be upon him, never took himself so seriously as to go crazy on the people who abused him. Oh, and they abused his person, embargoed his family members to death, horribly tortured his friends and followers. Perhaps you need to study your religion, specifically the life of the Prophet himself, a bit better before you go off in the streets, following the latest power-hungry mullah. If you really want respect, communicate your beliefs to those who do not understand it, instead of trying to kick them (and falling over in the process).

5. Finally, for those of my readers who do not know me, I have no common grounds with Holocaust deniers or for that matter, Israel deniers. The Holocaust happened, and it was a great human tragedy, not just a Jewish tragedy, no matter how it is spun today. The State of Israel exists, and we have to recognize it as such and find a way to live with it peacefully. However, if freedom of speech is absolute, and religious sensitivities have no place in deciding what to print in secular press, then I propose my own cartoon: a rabbi, holding up a German/French bank with a representation of the millions who died in the Holocaust, and milking that the economies for all they're worth. Let's see if that tickles the European funny bones.