The Bush admin has made a point of pandering to their contributors, whether by stripping environmental controls, invading other countries, or removing consumer rights.

Take a close look at this Union of (allegedly) Concerned (so-called) Scientists sometime.

Don't presume that I'm impling that the Bush administration is some fountain of impeachable truth; just take a close objective look at the UCS.

They're a lot of lobbyists with with science degrees and federal grant money that hinges upon determining that the sky, indeed, is about to fall on us.

I work in academia, and there aren't too many people concerned about politics over-riding real science. There've been some SNAFU's by the current administration, such as the federal stem-cell funding moratorium, but by and large I think politicos understand that America's dominance has in large part been enabled by technological dominance; and if we lose that edge, America's place in the world takes a nose-dive.

Scientists have a right to be angry at politicians ignoring what they consider sound and nearly proven theory (e.g. global warming), but this article, and the UCS, is really playing it's own game of Chicken Little -- the sky is not falling on American scientific dominance any time soon. The gap is narrowing, certainly, but we're still the 800 pound gorilla.

Part of the problem with chicken-littleism in modern science is that the media only pays attention to scientists who predict disaster.

Show me a scientist unhappy with the go'ment, and I'll show you a guy who thinks he didn't get a big enough piece of the federal grant money pie.

Oh, and I've got two words for Mr. Bruce 'Pharisaic' Sterling....SPOTTED OWL.