Meanwhile, back in Iraq

As anti-science as the Bush Administration and its followers are, it could always be worse:

Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms kidnapped up to 150 staff members from a government research institute in downtown Baghdad on Tuesday, the head of the parliamentary education committee said.

Alaa Makki interrupted a parliamentary session to say between 100 and 150 people, both Shiites and Sunnis, had been abducted in the 9:30 a.m. raid. He urged the prime minister and ministers of interior and defense to rapidly respond to what he called a ''national catastrophe.''

Makki said the gunmen had a list of names of those to be taken and claimed to be on a mission from the government's anti-corruption body.

Those kidnapped included the institute's deputy general directors, employees, and visitors, he said.

[snip]

The abductions appeared to be the boldest in a series of killings and other attacks on Iraqi academics that are robbing Iraq of its brain trust and prompting thousands of professors and researchers to flee to neighboring countries.

Recent weeks have seen a university dean and prominent Sunni geologist murdered, bringing the death toll among educators to at least 155 since the war began. The academics apparently were singled out for their relatively high public stature, vulnerability and known views on controversial issues in a climate of deepening Islamic fundamentalism.

Meanwhile, the president's adolescent rebellion against his father, with the lives of a generation of American kids as his weapons, continues:

President Bush spent more than an hour on Monday with the independent panel examining strategic options for Iraq, and cautioned afterward that while he was open to new ideas, it was important for “people making suggestions to recognize that the best military options depend upon conditions on the ground.”

[snip]

Addressing reporters in the Oval Office, Mr. Bush shed little light on the substance of his hour-and-15-minute session with members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, led by James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, and Lee H. Hamilton, the former congressman. The president said that they had “a good discussion,” and that he was “looking forward to interesting ideas.”