Don't want scientists talking about global warming? Easy! Just take away their money for going to conferences. That's what someone in the senate (rumored to be Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn) did to NASA. The effects extend beyond muzzling the NASA scientists affected by this cut, as reduced conference registration is likely to hurt the societies that sponsor the conferences as well.

At least, they were less thorough in their slashing than they might have been: when this first came to light, it was thought that it would affect NASA contracts and grants as well as NASA employees, but that seems not to be true.

The New York Times compares McCain and Obama's positions on science and technology. Via Digby. Scariest clip: McCain has said he would freeze all federal research spending for at least a year.

61 Nobel prizewinners endorse Obama due to Republican politicization of the government's scientific advisory process, stagnant support for scientific research, and most especially due to government attempts to suppress or minimize the significance of research on global warming.

Via Kos, which also links to a story in The Guardian detailing Sarah Palin's attempts as Alaska governor to reverse the threatened-species listing of polar bears by using research from oil-company-funded climate change skeptics. Her past actions foretell the likely position of a McCain-Palin administration on the issue:

The Guardian's findings show without a doubt where Sarah Palin stands on global warming, regardless of what she has said in recent interviews.

It also presents a disturbing view of what a potential McCain-Palin administration would look like. It would simply be a continuation of the Bush administration's science policies.

The only difference is that Bush admits global warming is real.

From the link below:

The world’s largest database on [scientific field], containing citations with abstracts to scientific articles, reports, books, and unpublished reports ... has been changed so that one can no longer search the term [XXX] ... As the representative from [the database] states, “As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now.”

See this link (or these earlier ones) for details. And don't tell me I'm censoring anything for leaving out those details here: I've left out the key words describing exactly who at Hopkins runs this database and what they censored, deliberately, not as a matter of censorship but because I think this is appalling no matter the field and I'd prefer to focus more on issues of academic freedom and less on any emotional reactions people might have to the specific topic. It's a term that is relevant and likely to be searched within this field of scientific inquiry. It's still present in its uncensored glory if you follow the link.

ETA: Wired, /., BB; C+L update, NYT, JHU.

An interesting post from Shakespeare's Sister on the academic job market and on the likelihood that any individual claims of being discriminated against due to politics are more likely due to not standing out among the 400 applicants for the same job.

British born and raised musicologist, working as an assistant professor at Mills college with an H1-B visa, kicked out of US. Still no explanation a year later for what makes her study of English romantic composers so dangerous. Someone quoted in the article states, “What is at stake is America’s pre-eminence as a place of scholarship,” and while this may be a bit hyperbolic (there are bigger factors placing that pre-eminence at risk) it's true that the more bureaucratic obstacles we place on entry to the US, the more potential faculty and students and conference organizers will just go to Canada or Europe or Asia. It's a problem that affects a lot more than a single professor in an obscure field at a small college.

Via Shakesville.
ETA: Mefi has more links.
ETA2: Boing Boing.

Unclassified scientists and other workers at Yoyodyne JPL (a government lab devoted to space science and operated by CalTech) are now being required to undergo an intrusive government background check process that, among other things, examines their sexual history and orientation. There's no statement that their political leanings are also being examined, but there's also no statement that they aren't.

This quote from the L.A. Times version of the story is especially unreassuring, given the present administration's history of politicizing previously nonpartisan executive-branch units:

David Mould, a NASA spokesman in Washington, said JPL employees were being treated no differently than other executive branch workers.

The Bloomsberg version of the story states that "the requirements are part of a uniform identification system for federal employees", but the New York times clarifies that the affected scientists are not actually federal employees.

Who doesn't like Venn diagrams? And here's a fun one: politics, stupidity, and religion. Via Pharyngula.

When a person is removed from a totalitarian regime's history, face erased from past news photos, etc., he becomes an unperson, right? So what do we call it when it's a whole species?

I have some concerns about the viability of computer security as an academic subdiscipline of computer science in the USA after this incident: security researcher announces flaw in airport security, congressman calls for his arrest. Whether or not Soghoian's proof-of-concept boarding-pass-generator crossed some line, it does not seem possible to do security research in an atmosphere in which pointing out flaws in security is seen by the government as evildoing and an opportunity for grandstanding. Too soon to have an opinion on how meaningful this development and Soghoian's subsequent lack of communication is, though.

And of course, if security research withers in the US, the net effect will be simply that the expertise in that area will be located elsewhere...not necessarily a desirable outcome.

See also: /., wired.

Everybody else is doing it. And it is very tempting to make a fluffy little post about how I had a very pleasant day sightseeing at the Sagrada Familia and Parc Güell, came back from a great dinner around midnight, and made the mistake of turning on BBC. But really, who but me would care?

Instead, go read this. And this. And this. Because it may be too early to get a clear perspective on what happened then, but it's not too early to pay attention to what's been happening since.