Peggy, with unerring instinct, guessed it right: I am "on the road." But, happily, the nation's leading newspaper accompanies me.She also resolved my dilemma regarding which of two homilies in today's Times I should post. Since she chose my man Joe, let me choose her man Peter.In a fine column about the stem cell debate and the need to attend to issues of ethics, he concludes:

Two days after Mr. Obamas announcement, The Times ran three science-related articles. One was about stem cell researchers worried that any new federal financing might prove insufficient. It also ran an article about a prolific medical researcher who admitted fabricating research that just happened to support the products of the pharmaceutical company underwriting the research. Both were reminders of how much science is affected by big money.And the paper ran a Page 1 article about European nations debating whether surgical or chemical castration is an effective, humane and legitimate treatment to rehabilitate violent sex offenders. No one can read that article and imagine that this is simply a scientific question, to be resolved by medical scientists on their own terms, rather than one that is profoundly moral and political.Is that any less true when it comes to not only human embryonic stem cell research but also a host of other ethically fraught, knotty scientific questions now challenging Americans?

Update:Would that the editorial writers for the Times would read and ponder their "Beliefs" columnist! From this morning's (Monday) lead editorial:

When the N.I.H. sets the rules for federally financed research, the main criterion should be whether a proposal has high scientific merit.