President Obama Overturns Bush Stem Cell Ban
During a ceremony at the White House today, President Obama signed an Executive Order to overturn President Bush’s 2001 restrictions on using federal funds for research on embryonic stem cells. The Executive Order is focused on stem cell research, but it signals a desire by the Obama Administration to return scientific integrity to its policy decisions. Accompanying the Executive Order will also be a Presidential Memorandum to ensure that the government’s scientific decisions are insulated from political influence. This is a welcome change after 8 years of the Bush Administration ignoring or distorting science to further its political agenda.
While it is reasonable for governments to keep the most sensitive aspects of nuclear policies secret, the rights of their citizens to have access to general knowledge about these issues is equally valid so they may know about the consequences to themselves and their country.
Nearly one year after the Pentagon certified the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program to continue after it incurred critical cost and schedule overruns, the new nuclear missile could once again be in trouble.
“The era of reductions in the number of nuclear weapons in the world, which had lasted since the end of the cold war, is coming to an end”
Without information, without factual information, you can’t act. You can’t relate to the world you live in. And so it’s super important for us to be able to monitor what’s happening around the world, analyze the material, and translate it into something that different audiences can understand.