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Re: Bush and Science



As the moderator suggested, I will respond to this

off-server.



--- Howard Long <hflong@pacbell.net> wrote:

> John,

> Bush is a blessing to scientists. This IS a

> radiation safety issue.

> 

> I have, as a Board Member of Doctors for Disaster

> Preparedness, critically

> questioned experts in three of the areas listed by

> Waxman, (a government

> expansionist). I find Bush policy generally sound

> science.

> Radsafe IS directly concerned with these:

> 

> 1, Missile Defense

> A newly improved Patriot barely stopped an improved

> Scud from wiping out the

> Quatar command center - and the general staff that

> then conducted a war with

> the least loss of civilian life in history

> (especially compared with the

> dire predictions of Waxman). That improvement would

> not likely have been

> available, had the US Supreme Court allowed the Fla

> Supreme Court to make ex

> post facto law about ballots. Boost phase missile

> stoppers will soon protect

> us in ways the Clinton-Gore regime had blocked. That

> is urgent with N Korea

> having NUCLEAR weapons. Teller and Lowell Wood (

> LLNL developer of Brilliant

> Pebbles) are among those we quizzed about missle

> defense at several

> meetings.  Bush is credible here, critics not.

> 

> 2, Global Warming

> Bush's Kyoto stance agrees with 17,000 scientists

> www.oism.org/pproject

> Again, Bush is credible, critics not. With Kyoto,

> there would be little

> money for new reactors, fewer fossile fuel

> generators and a lower stanrd of

> living from less energy. Besides, there is more CO2

> coming into the USA from

> the west than going out to the east! (Europe should

> pay us!). With Bush, we

> should expect more NUCLEAR generators started than

> with Gore or Hillary,

> wouldn't you agree?..

> 

> 3, Workplace Regulation

> Repetitive injury, like obesity, is largely personal

> responsibility. I treat

> it daily. Bush removal of some regulation just made

> less lawyer fodder.

> Three physiotherapy offices told me last year that

> over 90% of their

> referals involve lawyers.The cost of

> that drives businesses (including NUCLEAR) out of

> California - until the

> Terminator cleans house of politicians like Waxman.

> 

> I find Bush much closer to science than was his

> predecessor - or is the

> misinformation you perpetuate below.

> 

> Howard Long

> 

> 

> ----- Original Message ----- 

> From: "John Jacobus" <crispy_bird@YAHOO.COM>

> To: "RADSAFE" <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>

> Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 6:37 AM

> Subject: Science and government policy

> 

> 

> I would be remiss in not posting this article.

> However, I would suggest that futher discussions

> should be held off line as it is really not a

> radiation safety issue.

> 

> The original can be found at

>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31318-2003Aug7.html

> 

> The Web site listing administration bias is at

> http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/.

> 

> I believe that is important to consider all side of

> an

> issue and make up your own mind.

> -----------------

> 

> 

> 

> Bush Misuses Science, Report Says

> 

>  By Rick Weiss

> 

>   The Bush administration has repeatedly

> mischaracterized scientific

> facts to bolster its political agenda in areas

> ranging

> from abstinence

> education and condom use to missile defense,

> according

> to a detailed

> report released yesterday by Rep. Henry A. Waxman

> (D-Calif.).

> 

>  The White House quickly dismissed the report as

> partisan sniping.

> 

>  The 40-page document, "Politics and Science in the

> Bush

> Administration," was compiled by the minority staff

> of

> the House Government Reform

> Committee's special investigations division. It

> marks

> the launch of a new

> effort by Waxman and others in Congress to highlight

> simmering anger

> among scientists and others who believe that

> President

> Bush -- much more

> than his predecessors -- has been spiking science

> with

> politics to

> justify conservative policies in areas such as

> reproductive rights, embryo

> research, energy policy and environmental health.

> 

>  "The Administration's political interference with

> science has led to

> misleading statements by the President, inaccurate

> responses to

> Congress, altered web sites, suppressed agency

> reports, erroneous international

> communications, and the gagging of scientists,"

> according to the

> report, posted yesterday at

> www.politicsandscience.org. "The subjects

> involved span a broad range, but they share a common

> attribute: the

> beneficiaries of the scientific distortions are

> important supporters of the

> President, including social conservatives and

> powerful

> industry groups."

> 

>  White House spokesman Adam Levine said it would

> take

> time for the

> administration to address the specifics of the

> report.

> However, he said,

> "I'm hard-pressed to believe anyone would consider

> Congressman Waxman an

> objective arbiter of scientific fact."

> 

>  Several prestigious scientific journals have

> editorialized about the

> Bush administration's dealings in science in recent

> months, including

> Science, Nature and the New England Journal of

> Medicine.

> 

>  An editor at Science, for example, recently said in

> print that the

> administration was injecting politics into arenas of

> science "once immune

> to this kind of manipulation."

> 

>  And the editors of  the  Lancet noted "growing

> evidence of explicit

> vetting of appointees to influential [scientific]

> panels on the basis of

> their political or religious opinions" and warned

> against "any further

> right-wing incursions" on those panels.

> 

>  The General Accounting Office has been

> investigating

> such allegations

> since some in Congress asked the agency to do so in

> September, but it

> has not released any findings.

> 

>  Among the purported abuses documented in the

> report:

> 

>  .  "Performance measures" used to determine the

> effectiveness of

> federally funded "abstinence only" sex education

> programs were altered by

> the administration in ways that made it easier to

> say

> the programs were

> effective. And information about how to use a condom

> -- along with

> scientific data showing that sex education does not

> lead to earlier or

> increased sexual activity in young people -- was

> 

=== message truncated ===





=====

-- John

John Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist

e-mail:  crispy_bird@yahoo.com



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