The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that it would push the doomsday clock back one minute, to six minutes to midnight, in recognition of President Obama’s efforts to combat nuclear proliferation and climate change. The clock was first introduced in 1947 by scientists concerned that the world was spiraling toward nuclear disaster. It has only been adjusted 18 times in the last 63 years and it is no doubt a useful device intended to indicate how close humanity is to annihilating itself. Reuters explains the Bulletin’s decision:

The group, which includes 19 Nobel laureates, said a key to the “new era of cooperation is a change in the U.S. government’s orientation toward international affairs brought about in part by the election of (U.S. President Barack) Obama.

Progress has definitely been made, but before we pat ourselves on the back it is worth noting that in 1947 the clock was set at 7 minutes to midnight, therefore, according to the clock, the times we live in now are more dangerous than they were 60 years ago. On the face of it this doesn’t make much sense. In 1947 nuclear weapons had been used just two years earlier, norms against their use did not exist, the Soviets were determined to develop nukes, the US was determined to build more, and tensions between the Soviet Union and the West were escalating. In other words, things were pretty scary.

While today there is no superpower arms race (in fact the US and Russia are on the cusp of further nuclear cuts), tensions between superpowers are minimal by comparison, and strong norms have developed against the use of nuclear weapons, the depressing reality is that a nuclear incident is perhaps more likely today. As President Obama explained in Prague last spring:

Today, the Cold War has disappeared but thousands of those weapons have not. In a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up.

Today we are confronted by new nuclear dangers, stemming from the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the dangers of illicit terrorist groups gaining access to nuclear materials. The congressionally mandated bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism concluded in a report published two years ago that a nuclear terror attack was likely within the next five years if nothing was done:

Unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.

Combating proliferation and nuclear terrorism is a real and serious problem and has been set at the top of the Obama foreign policy agenda, which is largely why the clock has been moved back. However, to move the clock back further the coming six months will be crucial.

The nuclear calendar is jam-packed and Obama will encounter test after test of his commitment to the nuclear agenda – starting with the effort to focus the the Nuclear Posture Review on terrorism. This will likely be followed by an effort to ratify a START follow-on treaty in the Senate. Meanwhile, there are two global nuclear conferences coming up. In April a global Nuclear Security Summit will be held in Washington with the goal of preventing the spread of nuclear materials. This will be followed in May by the NPT Review Conference, which is the treaty that underpins all international non-proliferation efforts. If all goes well, the Senate will take up the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, as well – a treaty that bans countries from testing nuclear weapons. Oh and then there are those easy cases of North Korea and Iran.

Make progress on all of these fronts and the atomic scientists might have to get a new clock.

The Washington Monthly has an interesting article on what happens when a state, in this case Texas, brings in a bunch of social conservatives with no relevant scholarly historical expertise to weigh in on the content of public school textbooks. In addition to the usual creationism intelligent design nonsense, you get stuff like this:

On the global front, [David] Barton and company [on the textbook advisory board] want textbooks to play up clashes with Islamic cultures, particularly where Muslims were the aggressors, and to paint them as part of an ongoing battle between the West and Muslim extremists. Barton argues, for instance, that the Barbary wars, a string of skirmishes over piracy that pitted America against Ottoman vassal states in the 1800s, were the “original war against Islamic Terrorism.”

Before you laugh at that, as you obviously should, understand that this is the exact argument offered by neoconservative historian and current Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren in his 2007 book Power, Faith, and Fantasy, which is probably where Barton picked it up. Here’s how Oren put it in an interview with journalist Michael Totten:

[M]any of the same issues that Americans are facing today in the Middle East were confronted by America’s founding fathers — Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington. For example, they had to confront the issue of state-sponsored terrorism in the Middle East. They had to face a threat to the United States, and decide whether to generate military power and then project that power thousands of miles from the United States. They had to decide whether to involve the United States in an open-ended and rather expensive bloody war in the Middle East. This was, of course, the Barbary War, America’s first overseas military engagement and America’s longest overseas military engagement. It lasted from 1783 to 1815. During the course of this engagement, as my book shows, the United States was confronting a jihadist state-sponsored terrorist network that was taking Americans hostage in the Middle East. It’s very similar to what is going on today.

See, the Barbary Pirates were Muslims. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Iran — also Muslims! Ergo, it’s all the same war and we must stand with Israel against the Barbary Pirates.

Unfortunately, this isn’t just a joke. As the article notes, “when it comes to textbooks, what happens in Texas rarely stays in Texas.”

The reasons for this are economic: Texas is the nation’s second-largest textbook market and one of the few biggies where the state picks what books schools can buy rather than leaving it up to the whims of local districts, which means publishers that get their books approved can count on millions of dollars in sales. As a result, the Lone Star State has outsized influence over the reading material used in classrooms nationwide, since publishers craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers. As one senior industry executive told me, “Publishers will do whatever it takes to get on the Texas list.”

It seems like a really bad idea to let the market determine the history we teach our children.

Yesterday, the anti-immigrant group Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) announced its endorsement of Massachusetts state Senator and GOP Senate candidate Scott Brown. ALIPAC commends Brown for opposing “amnesty” and for denying undocumented immigrants drivers licenses as a state legislator and his opposition to granting undocumented youth in-state tuition:

“Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee (ALIPAC) is endorsing Scott Brown for U.S. Senate today due to his campaign’s focus on the issue of the illegal immigration and his opponent Martha Coakley’s support for Amnesty for illegal aliens.

Scott Brown has publicly stated he opposes Amnesty for illegal aliens while Coakley has state she supports Amnesty,” said William Gheen, president of ALIPAC. “His vote in opposition to Amnesty will be needed in a few weeks as President Obama, with Democrats in the Senate and House, and a handful of misguided Republicans attempt to pass new Amnesty legislation.”

ALIPAC states that it is making a donation to Brown’s campaign and is urging its 30,000 members to donate, volunteer, and vote for him. Meanwhile, the Southern Poverty Law Center points out that the group “is supported by” the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a designated hate group. ALIPAC claims to only support “candidates who make illegal immigration reduction a top priority.”

Brown’s challenger, Martha Coakley, is attacked by the group for having “clearly stated she supports Comprehensive Immigration Reform Amnesty.” It’s true that Coakley has pledged to “reform our system to ensure illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.” Yet while amnesty is defined as an action that unconditionally pardons a group of people without imposing any penalties, a path to citizenship usually implies an earned process of legalization which would involve registering with the government, submitting to background checks, paying taxes, learning English, and paying a fine. Coakley and Brown are in a tight race for the Senate seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) — a champion of immigrant rights and a tireless advocate for comprehensive immigration reform.