Great News on Climate Change and Energy

President-Elect Obama is set to appoint Nobel Prize winning physicist Secretary of Energy.

For those of us in the science community wondering how to communicate the urgency of the situation to politicians and the wider community this seems to indicate that scientists who dedicate themselves to working on this issue can have an impact.

I hope it is also a sign that the Obama administration will be able to make some progress, despite the global financial and economic crisis.

Chu used to work in my field of atomic, molecular and optical physics before shifting to the top job at Lawrence Berkeley Labs to work on alternative energy sources several years ago. Some of Professor Chu's thoughts on climate change can be found here.

Don't mock the constitution

The worst applause line in Palin's often hilarious convention speech was this

"Al-Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America and he's worried that someone won't read them their rights."

Not so much because of the rights reading as because the Americans having mounted a rather more thoroughgoing assault on the rights of terror suspects and prisoners of war.I really hope that McCain will protect habeas corpus and end torture as president, but we'll see.

Obama has finally come out with a strong attack on this line. After reiterating his determination to target and kill those involved in planning 9/11 Obama mounts a defense of habeas corpus and pleads "don't mock the Constitution".

"The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It's because that's who we are. That's what we're protecting," Obama said, his voice growing louder and the crowd rising to its feet to cheer. "Don't mock the Constitution. Don't make fun of it. Don't suggest that it's not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It's worked pretty well for over 200 years."

Eight is Enough

It's a commonplace observation now that the similarity of West Wing Presidential candidate Matthew Santos to Barack Obama is not a case of life immitating art but rather of art being modelled on life.

However I haven't seen anyone notice that the much commented-on line "Eight is Enough" in Obama's acceptance speech last week is taken from a fictional convention speech on the TV series. The Republican vice-presidential candidate uses it in his own convention speech to attempt to tie Santos to the two-term Democratic President Bartlett. This corny appeal to the family entertainment seventies TV show causes Josh Lyman to loose his cool in a bar.

Presumably this is Obama's speechwriters having a little fun with us?