Obama's Inaugural Speech - a response by Peter

I stayed up too late last night so that I could listen to Obama's inaugural speech, which began at about ten past midnight Thai time. It was worth going to bed about two hours later than my usual bedtime.
The thing that struck me most was Obama's forceful statements about science and technology. He wants, once again, to give high priority and respect to both science and technology. I think that is good sign. Science and technology are essential to progress, and not just progress, but to making it possible to greatly improve the lives of all people. In my opinion, the US has for too long neglected and cut back on science and technology. Major scientific projects were cut back or cancelled, and scientists were not given the respect and admiration they deserve; worse, much worse, Bush's administration was opposed to much science and research for appallingly bad reasons based on ignorance, fear and idiot superstition. That had real consequences for America's scientific and technical pre-eminence. Bush also had a habit of lying or suppressing scientific findings that he did not like. He was, for example, very loath to allow the Surgeon General to report research that clearly established links between passive smoking and cancer.