A very promising sign
You can say all you want about President-elect Obama’s cabinet picks so far. True, some aren’t as progressive as one might want. In fact, some are actual head scratchers. But some are looking awfully good. For example…
Obama is supposedly naming Steven Chu, Nobel-Prize winning experimental physicist and head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as his Secretary of Energy. Currently, the Laboratory is doing research on non-carbon-based energy sources under Chu’s direction, which is also an indicator of what (I hope, I hope) an Obama administration will become.
Hooray science! Thanks to Skepchick for this happy news.






I used to work at LBNL (back before it had “national” in it’s name!) and I’m excited he’s moving on as well. I hear the former EPA head is going to work with Obama as well – my dad just retired from there and used to work for her, so that’s good news as well.
Good news, but the fact that it IS good news shows just how ridiculous Murka has been for decades.
Elspeth: Ooh! What kind of work did you do there, if you can talk about it and don’t mind my asking?
Randal: I was thinking about what you said there. Even though things have gotten immeasurably worse in the past 8 years, people not paying enough attention to science and math really has been a problem for much longer. But yeah, the past 8 years has felt like…50 or so.
(edited to clarify something)