Obama Spreading His Hope and Change All Over Science

I've been pretty critical of Barack Obama so far in his presidency. I voted for the guy, but I can't but be disappointment in his tacit support of some of the more egregious Bush-era policies like suspension of Habeas Corpus, warrantless wiretapping, and legal immunity for government torturers. Like any presidential candidate, he made a lot of promises on his road to the White House, and he's broken plenty of them. Or at least, he's been waffling about making good on many of them. But one of his promises--to expand governmental support for scientific research--seems to be a real priority. As Phil Plait wrote about at his Bad Astronomy blog, Obama has revealed in a recent speech to the National Academy of Sciences that he's throwing a butt ton of federal dollars at the kind of research projects that really create the technological, environmental, and medical future of our world. Click on over to read more, including the caveat that amongst all this money throwing there seems to be a disturbing silence about the future of NASA.