The Tide is Turning!!

2 incredible things happened today:

1. The Senate voted 94 - 2 to revoke Bush's ability to fire US Attorneys without going through the Senate.

AND THEN.....

2. Elias Zerhouni, Bush-appointed Director of the NIH and a religious FREAK conservative, testified before Tom Harkin's HHS Committee and here was the exchange:

HARKIN: Would scientists have a better chance of finding these new cures, new interventions for diseases if the current restrictions on embryonic stem cell research were lifted?

ZERHOUNI: I think the answer is yes. My experience has been this. In 2001, I think the policy that was put in place was the first one to fund embryonic stem cell research. I think NIH has done a great job in the first three years of that, in establishing infrastructure, funding new scientists which weren’t fundable before. Since 2004, I think it’s very clear, from the point of view of science, and what I have overseen, that these cell lines won’t be sufficient to do all the research we need to do. For the reasons that you mentioned, but the most important one is that these cell lines have exhibited instability from the genetic standpoint, and it’s not possible for me to see how we can continue the momentum of science in stem cell research with the cell lines that we have currently at NIH that can be funded.

So from my standpoint, it is clear today, that American science will be better served — and the nation will be better served — if we let our scientists have access to more cell lines that they can study with the different methods that have emerged since 2001, the different strategies that we now understand, which underlie the fundamental issue, which is nuclear programming, or DNA programming, or reprogramming. So the answer is yes.

This is unbelievable - just simply unbelievable. I don't know what's in the water in DC these days, but Republicans are growing some serious balls. Amazing.