Beam me up, Scotty

Via Chris Mooney, creepy CalPundit thread on Bush admin's movement toward Conservative Lysenkoism, i.e. having science "peer reviewed" by industry-funded 'scientists'. Think the tobacco industry here. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but what comes next, are we all going to vote on what's true? if so, why bother to fund the research? From the thread -

"I'd make it a goal to make sure that local folks got to make the decision as to whether or not they said creationism has been a part of our history and whether or not people ought to be exposed to different theories as to how the world was formed."
George W. Bush, Nov. 14th, 1999

And an interesting point made in this comment, on motives for clamping down on publicly funded stem-cell research -

Ah. So we're establishing prohibitive regulation on government-funded research, while leaving privately-funded research alone. So those who want to develop stem-cell based cures and then charge huge amounts of money for them have an advantage...

In Wired today, privately funded research into life extension

Stereotypical, but too often true: "You believe that tobacco's link to cancer and global warming are 'junk science', but Creationism should be taught in schools."

New campaign promises, from The Onion

Ralph Nader, the world would be a much better place if you had never been born. Yet another reason to support
emergency contraception ("according to Planned Parenthood, EC will eliminate the need for more than 50% of the medical and surgical abortions in this country. Um, how can anyone argue that this would be a bad thing? ")

From Dave Pollard (can't find URL) - "the one decision we make that has the greatest impact on the environment is whether or not to have another child"