Evidence-based Policies

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Monday April 06, 2009 · 1:46 AM PDT

2009/04/06 · 01:46

After my diary from last Friday, criticizing Obama on not rescinding a Bush tradition whereby he at least gives the impression of giving his ear to activist leaders of the Christian Right, I wanted to point out that many of the young President's moves have been praiseworthy. Not coincidently, my example today comes from a Bush administration order that Obama did rescind. I'm talking about Pres. Obama's decisions relating to Embryonic Stem Cell Research and integrity in science.

The executive orders, signed in early March, were well-received by the American public, which has strongly been in favor of permitting federal funding on research with embryonic stem cells. But it's the other part of the bill that I think is more important in the long run. Calling it a "scientific housecleaning", Chris Mooney explains how scientific integrity and transparency are good for America:

cellsnbirds

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Friday April 03, 2009 · 2:06 AM PDT

2009/04/03 · 02:06

Following on the heels of yesterday's dairy entry, where I tried to set the tone for future entries as that of holding our elected officials' and our medias' feet to the fire in the hope of getting the best from them, here's a great example of the Obama presidency not living up to expectations: The Creeping fungus of religion in government:

President Bush seems not to have been able to make public decisions without reference to right-wing religious beliefs. That inclination was probably reinforced by his practice of having a weekly conference call with conservative Christian clergy.

It is troubling to learn that President Obama appears to have instituted the same practice of scheduled weekly consultation with clergy.

When did the separation of Church and State get forgotten? In America, clergy don't have any privilege over that of any other citizen. And where did the Freedom of (and from) Religion get forgotten? Majority of the country or not, one religion should not EVER get a monopoly on the ear to any elected official. Much less the President.

cellsnbirds

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Thursday April 02, 2009 · 2:23 AM PDT

2009/04/02 · 02:23

This being my first dKos diary entry, I thought I'd take a moment to iterate where I'm coming from before getting on to other things. That is, while I want more equal access to education and healthcare in America, and reaffirmation of the separation of Church and State, even more important is that we ask our elected officials to enable a meritocracy.

By meritocracy, I mean that we resist the temptation to turn the country into our political ideal. That would be no better than what the Republicans did during the Bush presidency. We must do something different - hold the Obama presidency accountable and feel free to question its major decisions. And we must ask for the best policies, conceived by the brightest minds and considering all of the options, in trying to re-invigorate technological innovation, enable equal opportunity to all, and to circumvent the mess that is lobbyism and spin that prevails in politics today.

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Evidence-based Policies

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