The Bush administration wants to move quickly on going to war, but on items it opposes will stall or underfund to a slow death.  Scientific research is just one topic with current legislation stalled or pending that will be dropped if the midterm elections result in a GOP domination of Congress:  As with its refusal to look beyond fossil fuels, the Bush administration pushes ideologies that will help our competitors and leave us as the world’s greatest producer of military hardware and standing armies, but not much else – except corn.  Even Hollywood has competition.  Cowboys and fundamentalists are threatened by the future, carried by science and technology. 

 

US SCIENTISTS SAY ACCESS TO STEM CELLS LIMITED @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2859-2002Sep25.html

 

EXCERPT:  Nonetheless, scientists said, the restrictive nature of the Bush policy, patent conflicts and the technical difficulty of keeping the fragile cells alive have conspired to stifle research in what they had hoped would be, by now, a highly energized research field.

"Embryonic stem cell research is crawling like a caterpillar," said Curt I. Civin, a pediatric oncologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  The cells, Civin said, are accessible "only to those persistent and patient enough to jump through a series of hoops and endure lengthy waits.  I am still waiting to receive my first stem cell line."

Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the ranking Republican on the Appropriations subcommittee on labor, health and human services, and education, said he is worried that delays could undermine the U.S. lead in the stem cell field. He noted that one expert witness appearing before the subcommittee had already moved his research from California to Britain's more inviting stem cell research climate.

"A big issue arises as to whether [the Bush policy] is adequate to carry on the research," said Specter, who supports proposed legislation -- widely regarded as unachievable this year -- to broaden federal support of the field.

 

END OF THE FOSSIL FUEL ERA @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3445-2002Sep25.html  The GM-financed, EU engineered hybrid hydrogen car is introduced in Paris:

EXCERPT:  The European Union and the United States are beginning to diverge in the most basic aspect of how a society is organized: its energy regime.  Nowhere was this more apparent than in Johannesburg, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, when the EU pushed for a target of 15 percent renewable energy by 2010 for the whole world, while the United States fought the initiative.  The EU has already set its own internal target of 22 percent renewable energy for the generation of electricity, and 12 percent of all energy coming from renewable sources, by 2010.”

HEADS UP: Again, if the GOP defeats Jean Carnahan out of her US Senate seat in the state of Missouri, due to it’s special election status, the seat will change hands immediately in November, giving the Senate to the GOP two and half months early.  Think what can be done with that time.  -  Karen

 

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