My friend Darksyde over at Daily Kos has just announced the panel he has put together for Netroots Nation 2008 (formerly YearlyKos), an annual gathering of the progressive blogging community that will take place in Austin, Texas, this July. The tentative title of the panel is “Restructuring U.S. Science Policy,” and I am thrilled and honored to have been invited to participate. In fact, the whole convention looks exciting to me, so I’m planning to be there the whole time. In this, hopefully, course-changing election year, this vibrant grassroots flowering may help tilt the balance in this country back toward true democracy again. Worth a try anyway. Lots of good creative energy down there. Check out the video on the home page, and I think you’ll agree.

Speaking of democracy, on June 1, Jim Hansen and I will be appearing together at an event sponsored by the Lexington Global Warming Action Coalition in none other than Lexington, Massachusetts, a few hundred yards from the spot where the first shot of the Revolutionary War was fired. I suspect democracy may be a theme there as well …

(I try to keep an up-to-date list of appearances by Jim and myself in the “appearances” category of this blog, which you will find in the column to the right, or here.)