Obama reversed the brain-dead science-phobic Bush policy against federal funding of embryonic stem cell research today. Okay, I was a little happy about that. But what struck me was a statement he made when signing the executive order.

“Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources, it is also about protecting free and open inquiry. It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”

Eight years ago, a politician making a statement like that would have just washed over my ears as yet another eloquent statement of the obvious intended to pander to the audience. Blah, blah, blah… yada, yada, yada. But upon hearing Obama, my thought was that this was brilliant. Reflecting a bit more now, I think I’m just relieved to have an educated adult in the White House.

Not to take anything away from Obama, but it strikes me that his popularity has to be significantly bolterered by how low G.W. had pushed the bar prior to his departure.

A few weeks ago I wrote about my inability to get a grip on the Facebook experience. But now I’m thinking that judgment may have been premature. I am beginning to find aspects of it to be fun.

Apparently, my high school class is having a 30th reunion (to remind us all just how flippin’ old we are) and someone set up a Facebook group for us. Now I haven’t really spoken to anyone from high school since I left. And I’ve never really had much of an interest in attending a reunion before. But over the last couple weeks I’ve been trading messages and catching up with a few people from the class, and it’s been kind of interesting. Much to my own surprise, I’m now entertaining trekking the 7 miles back to my hometown to see some of them this summer.

There’s still a lot of inanity on there, but I’m learning to filter it better. There are also a new set of tools coming in the new home page design which allow even greater control over what content you see. And I’m opening up my settings a bit more, recognizing that the whole communication model is set up around stuff being pushed to your home page.

However, I still think I agonize too much over things like status changes (pretty much equivalent to a Tweet). I think the content should be interesting or at least a little entertaining and apply broadly to anyone who might read it. I still can’t seem to grok the notion that I regularly breeze past others’ notices that aren’t targeted at me, so why don’t I expect others will do that to mine? Maybe it’s a clutter thing. I’m just too OCD to risk cluttering up somebody else’s home page. Although, clearly I have no trouble cluttering up my own blog with whatever blather happens to be pouring over my synapses.

Well, as of last week, these posts are being pushed on Facebook as well. They are now cluttering everyone else’s life. We’ll see who complains. Likely no one. It’s too easy to just ignore stuff.