These people do much more harm than good for science: "Top Psychiatrist Failed to Report Drug Income"

The argument that we should teach both creationism and evolution in public schools has been the fundamentalist argument since 1968, when the Supreme Court ruled that states can't ban the teaching of evolution. If you can't ban evolution, maybe you can neutralize it with a dose of Biblical literalism in biology class.

Congressional appropriations are largely stalled, with the exception of defense spending:

Congress has made little progress on the federal government’s budget for fiscal year (FY) 2009, which begins October 1, leaving federal funding for research and development (R&D) in limbo... The federal investment in basic and applied research totals $58.2 billion at the start of FY 2009, a small $244 million or 0.4 percent increase due to large research increases in the finalized DOD [Dept. of Defense], DHS [Dept. of Homeland Security], and VA {Veterans Administration] budgets offset by cuts in research funding for agencies such as NSF, DOE Office of Science, and NIH that received supplemental 2008 appropriations in June but lose those funds in the CR. After adjusting for inflation, the federal investment in research could decline for the fifth year in a row in 2009.

It's all going to defense R&D:

Howard Berg is a physicist turned systems biologist, and he's been a systems biologist long before it was trendy to be one. He's one of the smartest systems biologists around, and a nice guy too (one who was nice enough to sit down for lunch next to an alone, confused, awkward grad student who I'm sure came off as a tremendously boring person...) Berg has devoted his career to understanding information processing in E. coli, and this week in PNAS he describes a physical model of how E. coli senses food in its environment.

Nature columnist David Goldston love to bash the supposed political naivete of science community leaders, and this week is no different (subscription required):

Can anyone cite any decision that has been different because the current head of the OSTP, John Marburger, was not called 'Assistant to the President'? The prominence given to the recommendation about a title speaks volumes about the scientific community's hypersensitivity to perceived slights and its excessive insecurity about its stature, but it says almost nothing about governance... The science community is blind to all this because of its insular focus. It tends to assume that decisions related to science policy primarily reflect attitudes towards scientists and science when in fact they are often driven by broader concerns. As a result, the two reports implicitly asked the wrong question about a president's politics. The best indicator about the future OSTP director's title may be a candidate's views on government secrecy, not science... The reports seem to assume that having a well-known science adviser with good access to the president will mean scientists will be happy for the next four years. But that just isn't the case.

He's talking about the recommendation that the next US president rapidly appoint the Director of the OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy), and that the President restore this position to Special Adviser to the President status, a status which was withdrawn by Bush when he appointed his OSTP director. Goldston is way off base here -