cautious optimism

I have been watching the appointments to the new regime's cabinet and so forth. I am optimistic that Obama is able to appoint able public servants who actually KNOW something about what they are tasked to oversee. In addition to former Clinton appointees, several of them are members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (as am I, so not necessarily a recommendation in and of itself, but at least they presumably read the journal). Meanwhile, Bush is reportedly "burrowing" people with no science credentials into federal science agencies, such as a 30-year old into NOAA who has a bachelor's degree in government and a guy with a degree in world politics to oversee grants in the Department of Energy's Office of Science. I sincerely hope all of this sabotage can be undone by the incoming administration. Unfortunately, there is so much work to be done, this all just makes it that much harder. The law needs to be changed to move the inauguration up to a month after the election.