Tomorrow is Election Day!

*Updated below
Voters in Eudora will be asked tomorrow to cast their vote for mayor, city council, and school board members. While the turnout for local elections is typically very low, I would encourage anyone who is eligible and registered to take the time to exercise this civic duty.

Tom Pyle, who is currently serving as mayor, will be running for re-election to that office against Jean Farmer and Scott Hopson. The mayor serves a four year term.

Three Two seats on the city council are up for grabs among five candidates. Bill Whitten is the only incumbent running for re-election in this race, and he will be challenged by Brian Nyp, Tim Reazin, Tonya Summers, and Mike Warner. The three two winning candidates will join the three board members elected two years ago to form the six-member five-member city council. Terms for this board are four years.

As in the city council race, there There are three open seats up for grabs on the local school board. The five candidates for these three seats are Daniel Dickerson, Michael Kelso, Keith Nowland, Eric Votaw, and Mike Warner. None of the three incumbents are seeking re-election. As with the city council, the The three winners of this election will join the three four board members elected in 2007 to form a six seven member board. School board terms are also four years in length.

Last week, the Eudora Chamber of Commerce hosted candidate forums for each of the three races. The Eudora News wrote stories summarizing the school board, city council, and mayoral races.

*Update: The six seats on the city council are composed of 5 members and the mayor. This year, two members and the mayor are up for election to four year terms. I was confused...but I think I've got it figured out now.

God and Global Warming

Great news! We don't need to worry about global warming...it's in the Bible:

Obama Lifts Stem-Cell Ban

President Barack Obama today signed an executive order that will allow federal money to be used for embryonic stem cell research. This order essentially overturns a ban placed on the use of federal dollars for this type of research during the Bush administration. Embryonic stem cells are taken from a human embryo when it is about 9 days old (at this stage its called a blastocyst) and is a ball of a few dozen cells. At the center of this ball of cells are embryonic stem cells which have not yet differentiated. To put it in simple terms, these cells are all identical and haven't yet decided what they want to be when they "grow up". Some of these cells will become muscle cells, some heart cells, some nerve cells, some skin cells, etc. This is why we call them stem cells.

In order for these cells to be used in research, scientists must "harvest" them from a blastocyst. Opponents of this type of research argue that since a blastocyst is a human embryo at its earliest stage of development, to destroy it is essentially to destroy human life. Science advocates claim that, since these embryos are the "left overs" from in-vitro fertilization procedures and would never be implanted in a human womb anyways, then they might as well be put to legitimate use. And since these cells have the potential to become any cell type in the body, their uses in the treatment of a wide range of diseases is very promising.

The policy adopted by the Bush administration was that federal money could be used to fund existing lines of embryonic stem cells. The idea here is that the "damage" had already been done, so they might as well continue to use them. What was banned under Bush was the funding of new lines of embryonic stem cells, which prevented federal funds from funding the destruction of more embryos. Keep in mind that this research was never made illegal...it just wasn't publicly funded.

Obama's order to lift this ban will allow the National Institute of Health to establish federal guidelines for embryonic stem cell research. It is being widely praised by pro-science advocates as a return to "science over ideology" in government. On a personal note, I've made references here before that I support the current administration's efforts to return science to a legitimate place in public policy. However, to equate opposition to embryonic stem cell research (which is based on a fundamental belief as to when human life actually begins) with a denial of global warming (which is based on a consumerism and the influence of the Big Oil lobby) isn't just or equitable. It would do the pro-stem cell folks some good if they could practice a bit of humility in accepting why people may have such a strong aversion to this type of research.

And on the other side, why is it that religious groups (such as my own Catholic church) are so vocal when it comes to opposing this type of research, yet remain relatively silent on the ethics of the in-vitro fertilization practices that result in the hundreds of thousands of embryos destined to never be implanted and given the opportunity to grow into a person?

Darwin for President?

Science vs. Bush

I really try to keep politics out of this blog. But we're existing in times when that's difficult to do. Especially when science is abused for political gain:

More than 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement yesterday asserting that the Bush administration had systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry at home and abroad.

The sweeping accusations were later discussed in a conference call organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent organization that focuses on technical issues and has often taken stands at odds with administration policy. On Wednesday, the organization also issued a 38-page report detailing its accusations.

The two documents accuse the administration of repeatedly censoring and suppressing reports by its own scientists, stacking advisory committees with unqualified political appointees, disbanding government panels that provide unwanted advice and refusing to seek any independent scientific expertise in some cases.

''Other administrations have, on occasion, engaged in such practices, but not so systemically nor on so wide a front,'' the statement from the scientists said, adding that they believed the administration had ''misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies.''

You can read this quote in context in today's New York Times. What really worries me, though, is the implication that it's almost acceptable that "other administrations have, on occasion, engaged in such practices".

Maybe that's why I take what I do more seriously than I should.

Quote of the Day

From the "Voices" call-in opinion line at the Kansas City Star:

"The Democratic presidential win is a victory for the media and proof positive that a free press can control the thinking of America."

Umm...really? You really want to go there? I can understand that it's tough to swallow when your candidate doesn't win. But you REALLY want to blame it on the First Amendment?