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Barack Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor to fill David Souter’s seat on the Supreme Court. I don’t know much about her on the merits; I was idiosyncratically rooting for Kathleen Sullivan, who I had met while I was a grad student and impressed me as uncommonly brilliant. One thing that immediately strikes you about Sotomayor is her personal history — raised in housing projects in the Bronx by a single Mom, she fought her way up to graduate summa cum laude from Princeton, and then to law school at Yale where she edited the Law Review. Doesn’t mean she’ll be a great Justice, but it’s an impressive record.

The opposition research has been out for a while, of course, because that’s how politics works. One of the things brought up by Sotomayor’s critics is this clip, where she talks about the difference in emphasis between a district court and an appellate court. (Appellate courts need to look beyond the facts of the case to consider implications of setting precedent for future decisions.)

This clip drives people crazy, because she says that the courts of appeals are “where policy is made.” You’re not supposed to say that! (As Sotomayor immediately jokes.) The legislatures make the laws, and the courts are merely referees, interpreting the words of the statutes by lights of their objective and unchanging meanings.

In reality, of course, Sotomayor is simply telling the truth — a cardinal sin in law as well as politics. In law and politics, and for that matter theology, we are presented with a sacred text of one form or another. And we are supposed to pretend that the text has a One True Meaning — we may, of course, argue at great length about the proper procedure for divining what that meaning actually is, but admitting that the text is inherently ambiguous (or even contradictory) is not allowed. We need to act as if the authors of Leviticus and the Framers of the Constitution were trying to say something very clear about contemporary debates, if only we had the interpretational acumen to figure out what it was.

Which is why, as much as I enjoy the rest of the world of human endeavor, science will always be my true home. Our job is to interpret the natural world, which really is unambiguous and non-contradictory, if only we can make sense of its behavior. Other fields have a professional obligation to pretend that there are right and wrong answers, but we actually have them. Yet another way in which being a scientist is so much easier than other jobs.

Glenn Beck — who has a daily TV show on a popular cable news network and therefore must be taken more seriously in some quarters than scruffy people ranting on streetcorners — assembles his friends to war-game the coming civil war. Apparently a combination of 95% tax rates and a flood of unwashed Mexicans is going to provoke militias made of Bubbas to rise up against the U.S. government. Also, Obama is going to force states to accept stimulus money against their will.

Beck follows up by explaining how God fits into all this. The answer is: God gave this country freedom, and God has a method of communicating to us when our freedoms are being taken away. That method, apparently, goes through the gut. Imminent threats to freedom are foreshadowed, if I understand correctly, by a mild sort of indigestion.

You might think this is an isolated case, but here is Alan Keyes — who used to have a TV show, and was recruited by the Illinois Republican party to run for Senate, and therefore must be taken more seriously in some quarters than random fulminators on internet message boards — also warning darkly of the coming civil war.

Indeed, it may have already begun. If I understand this article from HumanEvents.com correctly, several states have already declared sovereignty, paving the way to full-scale secession from the Union. Nobody wants this to happen, you understand; but if the Democrat party wants to undermine the Constitution and redistribute the wealth, the consequences are simply inevitable.

Here at Cosmic Variance, we believe in always being prepared. The coming civil war isn’t going to be pretty. Don’t say you weren’t warned!

Tonight, an AP article reports that senate “moderates” are working on a compromise stimulus package that cuts $88B from the nominal senate version.  Doesn’t sound so bad, until you read the fine print.  Here’s what they plan on cutting:

 Nearly 20 senators from both parties met twice during the day and reviewed a list of possible cuts totaling 88 billion. They included elimination of at least $40 billion in aid to the states, which have budget crises of their own, as well as $1.4 billion ticketed for the National Science Foundation.

Geesh!  We’re talking more than $800B of stimulus and the very first thing on the chopping block is basic science.   That demonstrates just how low basic science is regarded.  It looks like education is also being cut.

I don’t have anything intelligent to say about this situation.  I don’t think there is anything intelligent to say about this situation.  They just don’t get it.  It’s been shown time and again that advances in basic science stimulate the ecomony. If you’ve ever thought about contacting your senators, the time is now.

Update: The senate reached a compromise last night and due to everyone’s efforts,  funding for basic science was mostly restored!  The Senate stimulus bill gives  NSF $1.2B in additional funding,  $330M for DOE Office of Science ($100M for supercomputing was cut), $1B for NOAA, $475M for NIST,  $1.3B for NASA, and $2.6B for DOE energy efficiency and renewables.  We’ll see what comes out of the House/Senate conference, but this is a good start.  Sometimes democracy works.

I’m sorry, but I cannot seem to get this stimulus package off my mind. For my whole life I have watched the federal government bounce along with a few hundred billion dollars of non-military discretionary spending, give or take. Mostly take - this portion of the federal budget is the part most under pressure, year to year. Of course the largest portion of federal spending goes into servicing the national debt, and into Medicare and Social Security. But I digress.

Now, under extreme economic duress brought about, ultimately, by the collapse of the housing market and with mortgage-backed securities added as an accelerant, the economy is in free fall. The government is seemingly on the verge of an absolutely massive, $900 billion spending spree, most of which is for the sorts of discretionary spending that would have taken years, or decades, to happen. If ever. It’s among the most extraordinary things I think I have seen in my life.

Many in Washington appear to be very, very, nervous about doing this, but just about all are convinced that the government needs to do something, whatever it can, to avert what would amount to a very long, deep economic depression. Opinions abound, and there is a lot of crazy stuff being said on both sides. A lot of it comes down to the old partisan bickering about how the Dems want to tax and spend, and all the Repubs want is to stop spending and cut taxes (though all they did when in power was cut taxes, for corporations and the already rich, and dramatically increase spending). There has been a lot of noise about this or that item in the various versions of the bill, with detractors invariably questioning its “stimulatory” value. (For example, check out what the GOP thinks is non-stimulatory here.)

So what’s the best thing for the government to spend money on? Where does one get the best bang for the buck? Lost in the main stream media discussions has been any mention of the velocity of money. If the government spends a dollar on something, how likely is it that it will be spent again, and again? How likely is it to generate revenue? Create jobs? Increase GDP?

If money has velocity, then its mass must be its value. The product of the two is the momentum of the economy. And, as good physics students, we all know that to change momentum you need a force. That, I assume, would be prices: the less the price the more likely you are to spend it, increasing the velocity. But, then, the lower the price the more value the money has - here the analogy with Newtonian physics breaks down. It’s non-linear.

Over at MotherJones.com there is a very interesting, if short, article by James K. Galbraith. But even more interesting is the graph accompanying it:

They say this comes from Moody’s Economy.com, though I have not found it yet…I am not a subscriber. It purports to show the economic return enjoyed for each type of dollar spent, though I am not quite clear on just how economic return is defined.

Anyway, taken at face value this graph would seem to squelch definitively the incessant chant for tax cuts, and give strong motivation for spending on infrastructure and the economic safety net. Come on, MSM, cover this story! Galbraith’s main point is that the government ought to be taking a much longer view, and I think that at least part of the $900 billion stimulus does exactly that: the portion devoted to research and development can lead to the sorts of new technologies that will truly sustain the next economic expansion.

I would love to see added to the graph above a bar corresponding to federal support for basic scientific R&D. Even if you just figure that if you give a professor money she spends it all on hiring a postdoc, how does that impact the economy? One of my main worries is that all the science money in the stimulus package will go to “one-shot” big-ticket items, when what we need is people, too. But that kind of money is not represented by a one-off stimulus, but a sustained year to year program of spending on science. What we need is a long-term increase in federal spending on science. A long term commitment, in other words, reflecting basic science policy.

Indeed, also lost in the discussion has been this: just what the hell is the federal budget for 2010? Ordinarily, the administration’s budget request would be rolled out the second week of February or so. Like, next Monday. Not to mention that there would usually be a State of the Union address; all we know for the past 10 days is that Obama will address Congress some time in mid-February. If I were him I would like to do it after passing the stimulus package…

We do live in interesting times.

The day after the inauguration I picked up a copy of the Washington Post. Right on the front page, below the article on our new President, was an article about the performance of the stock market on Inauguration Day (including a handy table of the performance over the last 15 inaugurations). The markets tanked, with the Dow shedding 4% of its value. The Wall Street Journal also ran some commentary noting the connection between Obama’s election and market performance. Is there an important message here? No. There is essentially zero causation between Obama’s installation in the oval office and market performance on the same day. It’s not like stock brokers woke up that Tuesday morning, flipped on their TVs, discovered that Obama was about to become president, and decided to dump their portfolios. Obama’s election has been incorporated into market valuations for months. These articles are tantamount to talking about the weather on inauguration day (brutally cold, I can assure you). Obama had little to do with the miraculous break in the clouds and sunshine that immediately preceded his swearing in. Newspapers are unlikely to devote an article to the weather on 1/20. And they’re certainly not going to put such an article on the front page. So why are the markets so fetishized that their performance is considered front-page “news”, even on a day with plenty of other notable events?

The market drop is indeed relevant, not as a sign of what Obama will do to the financial markets, but rather, what the financial markets will do to Obama. We are in an era of immense volatility and huge losses. In other times a 4% drop would be highly unusual and notable. But, sadly, in the present climate it has become routine. The economic downturn will almost certainly impact essentially every aspect of Obama’s time in office.

As it happens, the weather can also play an important role in the inauguration of a President. It was bitter cold for President William Harrison’s inauguration in 1841. His speech lasted for almost two hours (a record length), with him standing outside with little shelter. He caught pneumonia, and within a month was dead. There was undoubtedly little correlation between the cold and his death. But it makes for a perfect apocryphal story.

The new Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, addressed the national labs in an all-hands video transmission today. I was not there, but my colleague and friend Rob Roser at Fermilab was there, and sent me a very nice bulleted summary. So, you are getting this second hand, and people who were there can add nuances in the comments, but here goes:

• Energy is the defining issue of our time.
• Addressing the environment is the major reason Chu took on this job.
• These problems provide a tremendous opportunity for the DOE, but it comes with a burden: we can not fail.
• The DOE is the principal supporter of physical sciences in the US, and the physical sciences are the conernstone of prosperity for the US future.
• This was part of the message of the “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” report.
• The DOE should endeavor to replace the great industrial labs that no longer exist as they once did.
• The DOE will be the “go to” organization for a multitude of key problems — will depend on all labs to help.
• The DOE can quite literally “save the world” by developing a sound energy policy going forward, and invent new science that will provide new technologies.
• Our current use of energy not sustainable — have to move forward.
• We are facing something society has never been asked to do before: to deal with ominous problems with climate change. If half of the things climate science tells us are half true, we have a huge problem on our hands and the DOE has to work to provide those solutions.
• The Obama administration is creating a new Energy and Climate Change Council which will serve as a coordinating body including all stake holders in this arena. DOE is first and formost in this but Interior, Agriculture, Treasury and Defense etc. all play a role.
• The DOE is the science and technology “arm of energy”.
• There is a core of truly oustanding scientists at the national labs, and these labs have trained many successful scientists.
• The national labs are “crown jewels that the US doesn’t want to lose”.
• Restimulation of the economy is #1 on the priority list. DOE will get considerable funds in the stimulus package, not just to get the economy going but to provide a long term path for the US.
• We can’t be completely overwhelmed by the short term economic woes; we need to still find a path to solve our long term problems. The DOE has to invent transformative technologies that will allow us to get to the next level of energy independence.
• Chu sees a lot of young and middle age scientists shifting careers to deal with energy, and the DOE is optimistic to capture the best and brightest to work on these issues.

I am truly awed by the vision presented by Chu here, and so hopeful that we can get our country back on a path to long term prosperity by supporting research in the physical sciences. At least half of our present economy relies on the knowledge gained in the 20th century about our physical world…one can only imagine the revolutions to come.

Tuesday morning I woke up well before the sun did. Got on a train. Then stood in line for over three hours in below-freezing weather, shoulder to shoulder with millions of my fellow citizens. All to see this:

This is a photo of Bush leaving the building, a few minutes after Obama was sworn in. The transition is surprisingly emphatic. I managed to clamber on top of a raised platform meant for TV cameras, leaving me with an essentially direct and unobstructed view of Obama taking the oath of office.

It is hard to describe the feeling of participating in such a historic moment. The general camaraderie and good feeling and excitement was like nothing I have ever experienced.

After a long afternoon trying to restore feeling in my toes, I put on a tux (which is by no means a familiar sartorial choice), and joined in congratulating Obama in the somewhat more intimate confines of the Midwestern Inaugural Ball.

Doesn’t he look happy and relaxed? It was an historic and magical day. But, as Obama tells us, now it is time to remake America. And it won’t be easy.

Both Obama and Roberts are nervous! It’s so cute.

Party today, roll up sleeves tomorrow. Much to be done.

Many scientists have been actively supporting Obama. This support stems, in part, from a feeling that any change from the past eight years can only be an improvement. But there has also been a belief that Obama fundamentally understands how science works. That he appreciates its relevance to the key issues of the day. And that he will actively solicit input from the scientific community, and that this input will appropriately inform his decisions. All of this has been primarily hypothetical, based mostly on somewhat vague statements and sound bites. Today Obama gave his weekly radio/YouTube address, and it was exclusively devoted to science and technology. In addition to Steve Chu and John Holdren, he has now added Harold Varmus and Eric Lander as co-chairs of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He has assembled a scientific dream team, including two Nobel Laureates, and a host of eminent scientists with public-policy experience. A President is not expected to master the scientific issues at stake. A President’s effectiveness depends solely and crucially on their choice of appointments. These appointments are thus the first and most important scientific decision Obama will make, and he has done an extraordinary job. Of course, the next most important aspect will be whether or not Obama listens to their advice. This will be an extremely difficult group to ignore. In his weekly address Obama announces the appointments, but then articulates his concerns:

Whether it’s the science to slow global warming; the technology to protect our troops and confront bioterror and weapons of mass destruction; the research to find life-saving cures; or the innovations to remake our industries and create twenty-first century jobs—today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation.
…
Because the truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States—and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work.

This is a wonderful holiday gift to the scientific community. We no longer have to hope that Obama will do the right thing. We now know he is doing the right thing.

The movie “Milk” opened last weekend. It tells the story of Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay politicians in the United States. Although I have not seen the movie, without a doubt the story of Harvey Milk is a tragedy of epic proportions. He fought prejudice, and overcame tremendous odds to get elected. Ten months later he was gunned down, along with the Mayor of San Francisco, by a former colleague. The murderer was Dan White, an ex-policeman who admitted to shooting both men in cold blood, and was subsequently given a light sentence in the infamous twinkie defense. White served five years, and within a couple of years of being released from prison committed suicide. As if all this were insufficiently “Hollywood”, the events are strangely intertwined with the mass suicide at Jonestown (the second largest loss of civilian American lives, after 9/11).

We are tempted to think of all of this as ancient history, and irrelevant to our more enlightened times. But here we are 30 years later, and in the very state where Milk lived and died a (slight) majority of voters have gone out of their way to inscribe into the state constitution a measure explicitly depriving gays of civil rights. This is known as Proposition 8, and Sean has a nice post on why it’s an appropriate issue for a science blog.

As it happens, one of the largest individual donations to support Proposition 8 came from John Templeton. Of course, Cosmic Variance readers are familiar with the Templeton Foundation, as my esteemed co-blogger Sean has tangled with them previously. Templeton, when he’s not spending his money taking away the rights of his fellow citizens, has a predilection for spending money on scientists. Historically I’ve been uncomfortable with the Templeton Foundation because of their attempts to conflate religion and science. However, their Foundational Questions Institute appears to be a genuine effort to generate cutting edge science. Although I’m sure there is much I would disagree with in a conversation with Templeton, his support of basic science is to be applauded. Arguably the United States has been immeasurably strengthened by both the separation of church and state and the separation of church and science (the latter is not to be taken for granted; think of Galileo, or Bush’s incursions into stem cell lines and global warming). That even Templeton recognizes that science works best when it is unfettered, as much as possible, by external preconceptions is an encouraging sign. We can only hope that he spends more money on science, and less on politics. We thus wish Sean the best of luck in winning the $10,000 jackpot, a prize he will no doubt share with his co-bloggers.