Congress: one step closer to good science

... and it's a BIG step. Bill Foster just won the seat for the House of Representatives! W00t! Foster is a scientist, a physicist who worked at Fermilab, and I mentioned him briefly in an earlier post. I just heard from Darksyde and Sean Carroll that Foster won the special election in IL-14 despite steep odds, and a concerted effort by the NRCC to stop him. This is fantastic news. The only thing that would be better would be if this were for a full term, but unfortunately it's only to replace Dennis Hastert in a special election (who resigned amidst a lot of controversy in his involvement with the Abramoff scandal and Tom Delay's shenanigans), so we'll have to do it again in November. Feh. In the meantime, though, I hope that Representative Foster can inject a much-needed dose of science advocacy into Congress. Congratulations, Representative!