Both Obama and McCain attended the Saddleback faith forum because, some say, it was an honor to be associated with Pastor Rick Warren among the mainstream grassroots faith communities. Who could moderate a presidential science debate?

Six Missouri republicans - "the stupefy me six", let's call them - are hard at work trying to make Missouri kids stupid.

It is shocking that US Senators actually have to rise to defend science. But two defenders of reason and liberty did a great job of it.

The last time this happened, it was under Bush administration FDA commissioner Lester Crawford, and it was a major scandal. It should be this time too, and here's why.

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) budget by a whopping 32 percent. The cuts "will have real consequences on OSTP's operations," said spokesperson Rick Weiss.

America didn't keep the world safe for democracy by pandering to ideological dark agers - we got ahead by using hard-headed science. It's time we get back to it, and start putting America first again.

I'm really thrilled to announce they've given my new book Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America not just a passing grade, but a "starred review" which they say "indicates a book of outstanding quality."

Last week the big science news was a new study saying cell phones don't increase cancer risk in kids. It was promptly called into question on HuffPost and elsewhere. Several reporters referenced the May 31 release by the World Health Organization about a "possible" link between brain cancer and cell phone use, which classed it in the same risk category as eating pickled vegetables and drinking coffee. In a related move, last week San Francisco passed a regulation requiring retailers to post radiation exposure warnings on every phone and hand every customer educational material counseling them on the possible risks to their health.

Today the party that most stands for freedom, openness, tolerance, caution, and science is the Democratic Party, which may explain why fifty-five percent of scientists polled in 2009 said they were Democrats, while only six percent said they were Republicans, compared to thirty-five and twenty-three percent of the general public, respectively. Early in the twentieth century this situation was almost reversed. Republican Abraham Lincoln had created the National Academy of Sciences in 1863. Republican William McKinley, who is admired by Karl Rove, won two presidential elections, in 1896 and 1900, over the anti-evolution Democrat William Jennings Bryan.

Tim Pawlenty has based his presidential campaign on truth-telling and toughness, and likes to talk about his pro-life credentials. But there are some problems with that. I've known Pawlenty since he was a young republican state representative from Eagan, Minnesota. We had some of the same friends and used to golf together once in a while. His campaign treasurer was my accountant. And Pawlenty told me then that "personally," he was pro-choice.

Democrats and many members of the environmental movement are too quick to appease industry voices and have lost their focus, says a leading attorney forcing the climate change debate in the United States. Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity says she is "disappointed" with the Obama administration's approach to environmental issues. "Perhaps the president himself just doesn’t get it," she told me. "He certainly doesn’t have a background in environmental matters."

Siegel forced the Bush administration to list the polar bear as a threatened species, raising the ire of energy industry lobbyists, climate change denialists and antiscience radio commentators and prompting oil industry-funded pseudoscience papers arguing the bears were doing fine, like this one, partially paid for by the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the American Petroleum Institute, and Exxon-Mobil Corporation.

Anthony Weiner has admitted his virtual affairs. What makes powerful men (and I say men because it seems so far to be predominantly a male trend, but as more women enter public office that may be revealed not to be the case) - what makes powerful men risk it all? On the surface of it, it seems crazy. But there are reasons from neuroscience. Let's start by looking at a short list of recent political sex scandals. More after the fold.