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Scientists Fight Back! Announcing Scientists and Engineers for America:

Concerned about the ideological and partisan manipulation of science, compromising of scientific integrity and harassment of scientists by the Bush Administration and Congress, leaders in the scientific and engineering communities announced the launch of a new organization on Wednesday, September 27th. The group, called Scientists and Engineers for America, is a 527 political organization that will focus on the need to address the current state of science policy by electing new political leadership.

Read the whole thing…

Opinions are split.
Matt Nisbett think it is bad here, here and here.
Sara Robinson thinks it was good here and here.
Although I have no great love for Bill Clinton, I am siding with Sara here (read her posts to see why), just on gut feeling. But also, check out this AOL poll (never known to be a bastion of liberalism):
Who do you find more convincing?
Clinton 62%
Rice 38%
Total Votes: 67,769
Do you blame either administration for failing to prevent 9/11?
Yes, the Bush administration 39%
Yes, the Clinton administration 22%
Yes, both administrations 22%
No 16%
Total Votes: 69,827
What’s your impression of Clinton in this interview?
Mostly positive 62%
Mostly negative 38%
Total Votes: 45,960
What’s your impression of Wallace in this interview?
Mostly negative 61%
Mostly positive 39%
Total Votes: 44,447
How fairly do you think journalists treat politicians?
Somewhat 52%
Not at all 40%
Very 8%
Total Votes: 42,719
How fairly do you think politicians treat journalists?
Somewhat 60%
Not at all 23%
Very 17%
Total Votes: 42,332
This suggests that Sara is more right than Matt, methinks.

I heard this on NPR and now it is available online on Bloomberg.com: USA has slipped from 1st to 6th place in the World Economic Forum’s annual rankings.
As I have predicted immediately after the 2004 election, US is not going to survive another 4 years of Bush and retain primacy in anything – economy, scientific/technological leadership, military might, or moral high ground. Moral high ground is hard to quantify but do you really believe we are still Number One, the Shining Light, Beacon of Democracy, etc.? Military might – you decide. Now, economy is officially gone. Science/technology is next.

Here is a nice article about Elizabeth Edwards and her new book and here is a nice interview with her. She is such a wonderful person. She should run for President herself!
As for her husband, a new poll from Iowa does not look good for Democrats, but of all Dem potential presidential candidates, Edwards still does the best of all of them. It looks really bad for Hillary, though, with negatives far higher than the positives.
There were a number of polls over the past couple of months, some polled everyone, some polled potential Democratic voters, some polled the Dem grassroots, and some polled the Dem netroots. It is interesting to compare these polls as they appear to be mirror images of each other, i.e., if you take the ranking order of potential candidates from a poll of Dem voters or grassroots and turn it upside down you get the ranking order of the netroots.
So, for instance, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Joe Biden rank high on the polls of Dem voters yet barely register in the opinions of the bloggers who generally despise those candidates. The netroots darlings – Al Gore, Russ Feingold, Mark Warner, Evan Bayh and Wes Clark are usually in single digits – or less! – in the polls of the average, non-informed citizens.
The only person who consistently polls 1st or 2nd in all polls – both superinformed netroots and uninformed Dem voters – is John Edwards. Perhaps that is the one we can all agree on and work for all together.

Revere and Lindsay now report that the Tripoli Six story has spread from science blogosphere to both Left and Right political blogs, ranging from DailyKos to Instapundit (gosh, even Free Republic!). This is certainly not just a science/medicine issue, and is certainly not a partisan issue – it is a matter of saving innocent lives!
Declan Butler, who has been on top of this, has already collected 82 blog links on Connotea and is working on the next step – getting the MSM to place this story on front pages. Can you help? Blogswarm this story by blogging about this, or blogging about this again, and again. Urge your readers to peruse this list of contact information and ask the congrescritters to pay attention and do something. If you know anyone in the MSM, hound them to write about this. This is not about the self-congratulatory pat-on-the-back about the “power of the blogosphere” – it is about righting a wrong and saving innocent lives.

Lance and the commenters.

Chris Nolan explains exactly what happened and why.