Democratic Party Chairman Murdered in Arkansas

The chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party, Bill Gwatney, was gunned down at party headquarters in Little Rock, AR yesterday. The gunman in this case was Timothy Johnson. Johnson was a resident of Searcy, Arkansas who had been fired from his job at a local Target store for writing graffiti on a wall at his place of employment shortly before he showed up at Democratic Party headquarters. In a scene reminiscent of Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver, Johnson told a campaign staffer that he wanted to volunteer, then shot Gwatney several times. Johnson then fled the scene and was eventually shot by the police, who are now looking for a motive in the shooting.

Arkansas Police Seek Motive for Killing of Democratic Official
By Ryan Flinn

Police are searching for a motive after a gunman burst into the Arkansas Democratic Party headquarters in Little Rock and killed Chairman Bill Gwatney.

The man shot the former state senator several times in the upper body yesterday, before fleeing in his vehicle and leading officers on a 30-mile (48-kilometer) chase, said Lieutenant Terry Hastings of the Little Rock Police Department.

The suspect was killed in a shoot-out with police and his victim died later in the hospital, Hastings said. Police are investigating whether the shooter had any connection to Gwatney, he added...

Police identified the suspect as 50-year-old Timothy Johnson of Searcy, a town about 50 miles northeast of Little Rock, the Associated Press reported. He was fired that morning from a local Target store for writing graffiti on a wall, the news agency said.

Moments after shooting Gwatney, he pointed a handgun at a worker at the nearby Arkansas Baptist headquarters and said "I lost my job," AP reported, citing a church official...

Does this sound a little familiar? Is Gwatney the latest casualty of the New and Improved Culture War, now with a body count? Could Johnson have been inspired by prior right-wing extremist foot soldier James Adkisson's shooting of several people in Tennessee recently?

Details about Johnson haven't been released yet, but I suspect there will be a philosophical connection between Johnson and Adkisson. Little Rock police spokesman, lieutenant Terry Hastings, has told the press that there was no known previous connection between Johnson and Gwatney. Perhaps Johnson will have also written some sort of manifesto, as in the Adkisson case, that will reveal his motive for the shooting. It will be interesting to find out what he wrote on the wall at Target and whether there was any connection between that and the shooting. Perhaps we'll be finding out more about Johnson soon.

My money is on him being an Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh/Michael Savage fan, maybe a Freeper.

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Science Debate 2008 Date and Venue Set

According to a press release issued yesterday, a date and venue for Science Debate 2008 have been set and invitations to the remaining presidential candidates have been sent.

Candidates invited to debate science & economy
Intel Chair Craig Barrett joins Science Debate 2008;
Debate to be held at the Franklin Institute before Pennsylvania Primary

WASHINGTON – ScienceDebate2008.com, the citizens initiative calling for a presidential debate on science and technology policy, today announced that it has formally invited the presidential candidates to a debate on April 18 at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, four days before the Pennsylvania Primary. The invitation to the candidates can be found here.

"The future economic success of the United States depends on out-performing the competition with smart people and smart ideas," said Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel. "Without the best education system and investments in basic research and development we will become a second rate economic power."

“This is about the future of America,” said Shawn Lawrence Otto, one of the debate organizers. “Most of the major policy challenges the next president will face, from climate chance to jobs and economic competitiveness to healthcare to the health of the oceans, center on science and technology. Where is the next transistor economy going to come from? Is there going to be action to address climate change? Do we need a Marshall plan for science in America? What about peak oil? Why are our school children falling behind other countries in math and science, and what should be done about it? We are trying to elevate these important policy issues in the national dialogue. We want voters to have a chance to assess candidates’ in terms of their visionary leadership on these big issues and others like them. It’s not a science quiz, it’s about policy. We’re talking about the health of your family, the health of the economy, and the health of the planet. What are the solutions? We hope the candidates for president will want to explore these issues more thoroughly with the American people.”

The group, started in December 2007 by two out-of-work screenwriters (Otto wrote and coproduced House of Sand and Fog; fellow screenwriter Matthew Chapman wrote Runaway Jury), two scientists and a science journalist has garnered a series of impressive endorsements in recent weeks, including 97 major universities and other organizations, and leading business executives like Craig Barrett, chairman of Intel, as well as dozens of Nobel laureates and current and former government officials, including members of President Bush’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and Clinton Health & Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. It is now cosponsored by the AAAS, the Council on Competitiveness, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The list is here.

Apparently only the four remaining "major contenders" -- Clinton, Obama, McCain and Huckabee -- were invited. Ron Paul and Mike Gravel were not. As they've been mathematically eliminated as viable major party candidates at this point, I suppose that's understandable, although I would have liked to have had an opportunity to hear their ideas about the role of science in America over the course of the next four years and beyond, too.

It remains to be seen whether all four candidates will accept the invitation to debate on this topic. This may be a bit cynical of me, but I have a seeking suspicion that at least one of the four may opt not to take part (Huckabee). Of course, that's my own bias showing through; I have no concrete reason to say this, so take it for what it's worth.

This is an important issue to me, and it's likely important to many other individuals in the scientific community by which term I include scientists, science students, and general members of the public who keep up with science and technology in general. Let's hope that more than one of the current crop of candidates feels the same way!

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Hillary Clinton's Big Mistake

Hillary Clinton put in an appearance at my university today. I didn't try to go see her. I have other things to do and I hate crowds. I see plenty of her on television and she has a website, too, so I felt no particular burning desire to attend her event.

Clinton was scheduled to start her talk at 11:30 this morning. When I left for lunch, though, there was still a line of people waiting to see stretching up the block. It looked like a mix of students and nonstudents.

When I came back from lunch, the line was still there. I found out later that she didn't actually show up until a bit after 2:00 PM. There were people waiting for three hours to go hear her speak and, I would assume, have the opportunity to ask her questions. Personally, my afternoon was consumed by a phylogeny seminar and an attempt to slog through an exceptionally dense paper on chromalveolates and related supertaxa.

One of my fellow grad students, an avid Patriots fan, brought up a good point about the whole Hillary-fest today, though. What was Hillary thinking? Here it is, the day after the Patriots lose the Superbowl to the New York Giants, and a Senator from New York shows up in Worcester to campaign! She's lucky nobody pied her. Not only did she have the uncannily bad timing to show up the day after the Big Game, but then she kept everyone waiting for hours, too.

Bad, bad move, Hillary Clinton. I just hope she made it out of Worcester alive.

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I Just Became Slightly More Likely to Vote for Hillary Clinton

I've been keeping an eye on the contenders for president, and nobody has really stood out to me so far. The closest I've come to a decision to date has been some waffling around Bill Richardson. I've looked at Obama because, hey, he's a rock star — or was — but I haven't been all that impressed, particularly when he's spoken in unscripted situations. Edwards? Eh. I'm not ready to support anyone who pushes faith-based values as part of his political platform, even if I do happen to agree with some of those values coincidentally. As far as the Republicans go, well, that's just not going to happen unless they start changing in ways I can't imagine them changing.

I've never been a big fan of Hillary Clinton. She gives me a bit of the willies, honestly. Something just doesn't seem right. I don't trust her. Then again, I generally don't trust politicians. It's always been a pet theory of mine that anyone egomaniacal enough to run for president should be disqualified on the basis of potential mental illness. Hillary gets under my skin a bit more than most.

Nonetheless, the likelihood of my voting for the woman has just increased due to some things she said during a tour of the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. It turns out that she's actually capable of carrying on coherent, unscripted conversations about science with real live scientists (unless, of course, she was briefed beforehand about the benefits of using recycled denim as insulation, which I find a tad unlikely). Here's a bit from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle:

...Did growing plants on a roof instead of nailing down shingles sound goofy to her? Nope -- she understood the "urban heat island" effect, which means that the soil-and-plant roof will be 40 percent cooler than a typical top.

And how hippie-silly is using shredded blue jeans to insulate the walls? Not at all, she said -- aside from the recycling benefit, it snuffs the danger of glass-like fibers breaking down and polluting the air.

"It's exciting to tour someone who is so aware of the issues of sustainability, of green buildings and even the challenges of creating green buildings," said a shell-shocked-looking Chris Andrews, who as the academy's associate director led Clinton and Newsom through the $484 million structure. "I frankly did not expect that.

"I've led a lot of tours like this with a lot of officials, and believe me, this was pretty unusual to have someone understand what I was talking about."

Admittedly, this isn't rocket science... but after listening and reading what some of our current crop of candidates have had to say about any number of science-related issues, even this much is enough to get my ears pricked up. Clinton's next statement is largely political, granted, but I certainly find myself in agreement with it and she's the first candidate I've heard phrase this with something resembling passion for the subject:

"Scientists have been muzzled, information has been taken off of government-sponsored Web sites, the leaders of our country have dismissed scientific research and advancements," Clinton said. "There has been a concerted effort against stem cell research, a campaign against evolution. I mean, it has been relentless."

"It's important to have institutions like this, with such a distinguished history, that can perpetuate curiosity and intellectual inquiry. But it would help to have a president who actually supported science again."

All of which is true and addresses a number of the concerns I have about the future, if it couldn't be guessed from my almost daily explosions over the Creationist/"Intelligent Design" boondogglers and the like. And yes, it would be nice to have someone in the White House who didn't see evolutionary biology as some sort of witchcraft and understood the difference between a cluster of cells stored in a freezer and a human being. All of that is stuff I could certainly get behind.

This isn't to say that I'm anywhere close to making up my mind to vote for, or even support, Clinton in 2008. She has gained a grudging bit of respect from me, though. I wasn't expecting that to happen. I still disagree with her on other issues, and that's true of all the candidates. Still, her statements about science in general, and about the campaign against evolution in particular, gives me an inkling that she may actually be paying attention to what's going on on that front in the Culture War. It is, at least, a step in the right direction that she had the cajones to say so unambiguously.

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