Well, the stem cell research ban is lifted, as long as Barack Obama is President, and we're about to see changes in the tax code that have the oil companies up in arms. For those of you who regard this solely as another non-issue, bear with me a little while. There's an epidemic of obesity in the US. Jay Leno's "how fat are we" gig got old a while ago, but I wonder if the comedian himself has been warned about weight and/or diabetes. I don't think it's all a matter of willpower; I do think the starch-and-sugar loads foisted on the American consumer by corporate agriculture (disguised as the USDA in some instances) must be identified as complicit. So must fast food. So when I read this story about potential progress in the search for a cure for type I diabetes, I was thrilled.
I found other news I thought was good, some of which I'll share over the jump.

Making its first U.S. stop after screening in Toronto and Berlin, is Magnolia Pictures’ “Food Inc.,” directed by Robert Kenner. The film takes to task the power and seemingly non-accountability of agri-business, a topic that was sure to be of interest in an agricultural state in the middle of America. And it apparently won the crowd over, with the film receiving a standing ovation at the 1200 seat Missouri Theater in Columbia following one of its screenings.

“We’re very far removed from where our food comes from,” said Kenner at a post-screening Q&A. “I’m not a vegetarian [but still] don’t eat meat much, but I don’t like that meat comes from these industrial factories,” continued Kenner who repeatedly advocated for the audience to buy “locally grown food” from farmers. He also blasted unchecked power of corporate agriculture. “I think it’s scary how much power these companies have, and to actually have the power to say, ‘we can police ourselves.’ I wouldn’t want Mother Theresa to have that kind of power, let alone [agricultural giant] Monsanto.”

Food takes center stage in Participant production (which also produced “Food Inc.”) “Pressure Cooker” by Mark Becker and Jennifer Grausman, which debuted at LAFF last year. The feature profiles a culinary class, which serves as a surrogate family for a group of economically challenged students under the sharp eye of Wilma Stephenson, a hard-driving and tough instructor who nevertheless is devoted to the success of her students. Three students at the heart of this film already carry substantial responsibilities on their young shoulders, according to a T/F description. Erica looks after her blind sister, Tyree juggles football, cooking and the expectations of his single mom, and Mali-born Fatoumata cares for a controlling father. While the students pursue the culinary craft, they’re also vying for a dream to break out of their disadvantaged past.

To me the big news here is that Michael Moore is no longer alone in his campaign to point out the flaws of the system.
It isn't just the stem cells issue that I took heart from reading about, though. The new President has openly called for going back to good science (not politically "sound science") in defiance of the Bush43 "signing statements" and executive orders that allowed corporate interests to gut the EPA and OSHA since the advent of Ronald Reagan.

Sadly, the very NYT story that set up my joyful mood puts limits on the influence of science and scientists:

Mr. Obama delighted many scientists and patients by formally announcing that he was overturning the Bush administration’s limits on embryonic stem cell research. But the president also went one step further, issuing a memorandum that sets forth broad parameters for how his administration would choose expert advisers and use scientific data.

The document orders Mr. Obama’s top science adviser to help draft guidelines that will apply to every federal agency. Agencies will be expected to pick science advisers based on expertise, not political ideology, the memorandum said, and will offer whistle-blower protections to employees who expose the misuse or suppression of scientific information.

The idea, the president said in remarks before an audience of lawmakers, scientists, patients advocates and patients in the East Room, is to ensure that “we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology”: a line that drew more applause than any other. Irv Weissman, who directs an institute at Stanford University devoted to studying stem cells, called the declaration “of even greater importance” than the stem cell announcement itself.

It was also another in a long string of rebukes by Mr. Obama toward his predecessor, President George W. Bush. Mr. Bush was often accused of trying to shade or even suppress the findings of government scientists on climate change, sex education, contraceptives and other issues, as well as stem cells. But Mr. Obama’s announcement does not elevate science to some new and exalted place in his administration.

“Scientists should have no illusions about whether they make policy — they don’t,” said Harold Varmus, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and co-chairman of a panel that advises Mr. Obama on science matters.

I was one of the people yelling about PEER's efforts to expose George W. Bush, when he was Governor of Texas, as a train wreck for our natural resources. Things are not better under Mr. Bush's successor, Gov. Rick Perry. That is largely because both bow before the Republican might of money (lots of it is oil money), and the party's domination of the Texas lege.

But I do believe the days of that hegemony are numbered; I think Texas will rise up and throw off the chains of deliberate misinformation. I hope I live to see it. But I don't know that I will, because I do believe the nation -- and the state -- will first need to replace oil and natural gas not just as engines of the economy but as the mother's milk of transportation and domestic and industrial energy.

That's a complex issue, and it's not going to resolve in six weeks, or six months; probably not even in six years, as entrenched as the obscenely rich oil industry has become since the days the Standard Oil barons influenced Prohibition to stop Henry Ford's new affordable automobiles from running on ethanol generated from the farm waste he hoped his buyers would see as cheap, available fuel.