Happy days are here again

Yeah, we had a little management turnover this morning.

How does it feel? Weird. I have a president who won by a landslide even though he's a liberal Democrat, an egghead former college professor, and--oh, yeah, is black and has the middle name Hussein. President Barack Hussein Obama. Also, I used to live in his neighborhood, which is a little like Berkeley, except colder.

What's it mean to me? More than anything, this is a guy who believes in science.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act—not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

I don't consider this promise to be pie-in-the-sky demogoguery, or a sop to the reality-based community or to environmentalists. Obama's not your run-of-the-mill politician--he was, after all, a law professor at the University of Chicago and is surprisingly intimate with the scientific community. Which is partly why he picked this guy to head the Department of Energy. In fact, there are now three or four physicists in major posts in his administration. Pinch me, I must be dreaming!