Annoyed

First things first. The whole reason I logged in this morning (while allegedly sitting in on the class for which I am a TA; I'm such a responsible grad student) was this post over at Scientific Activist. Quelle suprise, the Bush administration is once again dipping its greedy, closed-minded little paws into scientific pots where it doesn't belong. By Executive Order, Bush has now decreed that every regulatory agency must now have a policy office run by a political appointee. On the surface, this sounds maybe, potentiall, reasonable. These are, after all, federal agencies, run with federal dollars. However, as pointed out by the Times, "This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts." Additionally, "The directive issued by Mr. Bush says that, in deciding whether to issue regulations, federal agencies must identify "the specific market failure" or problem that justifies government intervention." Does this mean we'll now be referring to things like post-hurricane Katrina New Orleans as a 'specific market failure'? On the plus side, does this mean that we can now employ market logic to political debacles and start firing some people for, you know, sucking at their jobs? As Nick says,

By pushing through rules with no other purpose than to ensure that the Administration line trumps agency scientists, the Administration is attempting to further institutionalize the culture of political interference in science that has flourished so well under its rule.

Although this smacks of the desperation surely felt by a President whose powers are quickly slipping from his grasp, this is still a dangerous and completely unnecessary directive from the Bush Administration, and it is one that should be thoroughly challenged.

In other news, blogger has finally succeeded in forcing me to migrate over to their new and improved and shiny blogger! Blah. I have been refusing to click on the blogger beta button for months (since AWB migrated to wordpress to avoid blogger beta's suckiness) but alas, they now have me in their clutches. Sigh.