Rep. Lamar Smith has drafted a bill that would replace peer review at the National Science Foundation (NSF) with a set of funding criteria chosen and overseen by Congress... and he wants to use it as a model for every federal science agency we have.

Rep. Smith's bill would force the NSF to prove the "worth" of their grants men and women who are politicians, not scientists. And take a look at two of the main points those looking for a grant need to meet: securing national defense and answering questions he feels are important to society at large.

If we sit back and let the House pass this bill, we will be handing over our scientific research to men and women whose jobs are about political bias, not objective reasoning.

There's a reason no one before Rep. Smith has tried to pull this off -- because it opens the door to the defunding of research, the suppression of facts, and the injection of party politics into scientific research. Don't let him open that Pandora's box: join us in calling on the House to oppose Rep. Smith's egregious bill immediately.

PETITION TO MY REPRESENTATIVES: Don't let Lamar Smith undo all the NSF has done for scientific progress. Oppose his bill to turn objective research into political fodder today.

AAS 5/6/13
House passes campus-carry bill 102-41

By a vote of 102-41, the Texas House on Monday approved a final version of controversial legislation that would allow concealed weapons on college campuses in Texas.

But the final version of House Bill 972 does not automatically allow guns in dormitories, classrooms and other campus buildings.
Public schools would have the ability to prohibit them, and private schools would have the option of allowing them.

An amendment added to the bill on Monday gives the president of the university or college the authority to make the decision on whether or not to permit concealed weapons. That decision which has to be made with input from students, faculty, administrators, law enforcement and a school’s board of regents has to be ratified on an annual basis, according to state Rep. Allen Fletcher, R-Cypress.

(snip)
The measure now goes to the Senate, where its future is uncertain.

Huffington Post 4/30/13

Texas Judge's Order Upholding 'Bikini Tops For Strippers' Law Is Completely Hilarious

This is one of the funniest, most eloquent court documents we've ever seen.

In allowing the city of San Antonio, Texas, to enforce an order that strippers wear bikini tops instead of nipple-covering "pasties," U.S. District Judge Fred Biery noted that the issue had once again "fallen into the court's lap."

Biery's opinion, titled "The Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Bikini Top Vs. The (More) Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Pastie," said his job was to answer "the age old question, now with constitutional implications: 'Does size matter?'"

Although Biery ruled that San Antonio's strip clubs did not prove their need for an injunction to block a 2012 law requiring exotic dancers to cover their breasts "from the top of the areola" down, he also cast doubt on the city's claim that such regulations would cut down on violent crime, drug dealing and prostitution:

DailyKos 4/30/13

Look, this isn't even funny at this point. We need an intervention. Somebody help this man:


No, I mean it. Is there a number we should be calling? Can someone check for a medical alert bracelet? Because this poor man is seeing invisible Muslims everywhere, and in every federal department: