The US just elected 8 new scientists to Congress...

[babylonsister]

The US just elected 8 new scientists to Congress, including an ocean expert, a nurse, and a biochemist. Here's the full list.
Hilary Brueck and Peter Kotecki
20m


The faces of Capitol Hill are changing.

When the 116th Congress heads to Washington in January, there will be a record number of women in the ranks — at least 123, according to the news website Axios, including the first Muslim women, the first Somali-American, and the first Native American women.

There will be more scientists too.

On Tuesday, at least eight new science-credentialed candidates were elected: one senator and seven members of the House. Full results are not yet available in Washington state, where a pediatrician is likely to be elected to the House.

The members of the 115th Congress include one physicist, one microbiologist, and one chemist, as well as eight engineers and one mathematician. The medical professions are slightly better represented, with three nurses and 15 doctors.

The new winners will bolster those science ranks. The Democratic candidates who won all ran successful campaigns with the support of a nonprofit political-action committee called 314 Action, which started in 2016 and is dedicated to recruiting, training, and funding scientists and healthcare workers who want to run for political office. (One Republican engineer-turned-businessman won a race in Oklahoma, without support from the PAC.)

"Scientists are essentially problem-solvers," Shaughnessy Naughton, the president of 314 Action, told Business Insider before the election results came in.

Since Congress often wrestles with complex issues like climate change, cybersecurity, and how to provide fairer, cheaper healthcare, Naughton said she thought the US should put more scientists into the decision-making body.

"Who better to be tackling these issues than scientists?" she said.

more...

https://www.businessinsider.com/2018-midterms-8-new-scientists-elected-to-house-senate-2018-11?fbclid=IwAR3hjltuKTLk9iwKiZWmA36ZMILsaXHdolMUtTraFRBv05iFAmH95sYNF6U

[lame54]

1. Get 'em started on Space Force One to send Trump to the moon

[hunter]

5. There's no way in hell Trump would ever qualify to wear the purple hair.

Hell, you wouldn't want Trump pumping out your toilets when you return to base.

[DBoon]

2. Science!

[Comatose Sphagetti]

3. I will never forget the absurdity of Congressman Paul Broun,

Member of the House Science Committee, saying evolution and embryology are 'lies straight from the pit of hell'.

AND the guy's an MD!!!!

[babylonsister]

4. How about Inhofe and his snowball?

February 26, 2015 is a day that will live in Internet infamy for a few reasons. It gave us the great dress debate and the runaway llamas. But in the annals of science, let’s not forget it also gave us the snowball on the floor of the Senate.

On this day, three years ago, Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, appeared with a snowball on the Senate floor to demonstrate, once and for all, that climate change is a hoax.

“You know what this is?'” asked Inhofe, the author of The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. “It’s a snowball, from outside here. So it’s very, very cold out. Very unseasonable.” Then he tossed it to a congressional page.

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/02/3-years-ago-we-all-laughed-at-james-inhofes-snowball-the-joke-was-on-us/