Republicans Vs. Science....
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Republicans Vs. Science....
| Sat, 10-25-2008 - 2:05pm |
...and common sense....and reality....
Oy. Did you happen to catch Sarah Palin's "policy speech" yesterday? It was billed as Governor Mooseburger's first big speech of that kind (one that doesn't involve playing to crowds and talking about lipstick). Naturally, the media gathered, and the cameras were turned on. That's where the trouble started. You can watch Volume I of this speech here, and Volume II here (if you're the sort of person who enjoys repeatedly banging your noggin against large, heavy, hard objects).
But for me, the fun began when Palin, despite her running mate's repeated insistence that he would immediately institute an "across the board spending freeze," promised full funding for special needs kids. You may be aware that Palin and her husband's youngest child was born with Downs Syndrome, so it's no surprise either that the subject is near and dear to Palin's heart, nor that the McCain/Palin campaign would try to make political hay out of it. However, you'd expect that they would at least stay within the bounds of things they'd already proposed or disavowed, when trying to make said hay.
You would, of course, be wrong....but still, you might think that. I know I did.
So imagine how curious I was to discover how Palin intends to fully fund special needs programs in the face of an "across the board spending freeze?" Well, as it turns out, the answer is apparently by returning once again to that vast, inexhaustible wealth of Republican money-which-is-frivolously-wasted, "earmarks." She's going to get the money by being a maverick-y, fiscally conservative, waste-cutting budget hawk (and never mind that shiny new $150,000 wardrobe, LOL). If we just get rid of some of the bloat and waste, why, those poor special-needs children can get all the funding they need, and the sky will rain ponies and all the water fountains in public parks will yield lemonade.
Here's the relevant bit of the speech, if you don't want to slog through the whole thing (and who could blame you for that, LOL).
Palin is correct when she says that in a trillion-dollar budget, those earmarks - in total - amount to $18 billion - out of $1,000 billion (or, as it's more commonly known, one trillion). Not a huge amount, percentage-wise. Still, eighteen billion dollars is a lot of money. As Palin says, more than enough to fully fund IDEA. But which wasteful projects does Palin list as being things that she'd cut in order to accomplish this feat? Well - hilariously - the first one she touches on is "bridges." I was certain that by how Steve Schmidt or Rick Davis would have told her never to mention the word "bridge" again, but apparently not. Leaving aside the irony of Palin's own involvement with the Bridge To Nowhere™ (the ultimate pork project), there's the inconvenient fact that, as we saw last year in Minneapolis, our nation's infrastructure is crumbling...and the nation's bridges are among the worst-maintained items, and among the most desperately in need of funds. I doubt Palin intended to set the funding imperatives of special needs children against that of our nation's commuters, but nevertheless, that's how it came out: bridges or special needs.
But that wasn't the best part. After essentially describing our nations bridge infrastructure needs as frivolous, she went after fruit fly research. On the surface, the bit about fruit flies seems pretty juicy, pretty zinger-y. Palin, with her background in broadcast journalism and sports and weather reporting, knows when to put the sarcastic tone in her voice, as she says "I kid you not" to the assembled reporters. You can even hear a few laughs in the background. But here's what struck me about that portion of the speech, and the way in which Palin delivered it: although the "you may have already heard about the bridges" might have been ad-libbed (can't say), I feel certain that the item about the fruit flies was not. Why? Because it's a truly obscure bit of "pork," and something I'd not necessarily expect a candidate to have committed to memory. Also, since this was a prepared policy address, Palin was speaking off a prepared set of remarks, much like she was at her acceptance speech at the Republican convention. So it's a near-certainty that Palin's sarcastic reference to "fruit fly research in Paris, France" wasn't just her own on-the-spot example of the waste and inefficiency of government, but instead a carefully vetted, targeted-for-maximum-effect line in a speech written and prepared for Palin by the "brain trust" of the McCain campaign.
So what? Well....dunno if you know anything about drosophila, but fruit fly research has resulted in some of the most significant advances in human understanding of various fields (from genetics to disease spread and prevention to other things). Fruit flies have a very short life-span, and a large brood size. Also, according to Reiter et al (2001) Genome Research: 11(6):1114-25, 75% of known human disease genes have a recognizable match in the genetic code of fruit flies, and 50% of fly protein sequences have mammalian analogues. In other words, they are an epidemiologist's dream, and the study of their populations over time can provide a sort of fast-forwarded dash through several generations which would be impossible with virtually any other species, especially humans. What are the benefits to humanity which the study of drosophila melanogaster provides humanity? Well, according to the Wikipedia entry on Governor Palin's objects of derision, drosophila melanogaster are being used as a genetic model for several human diseases including the neurodegenerative disorders Parkinson's, Huntington's, spinocerebellar ataxia and Alzheimer's disease. The fly is also being used to study mechanisms underlying aging and oxidative stress, immunity, diabetes, and cancer, as well as drug abuse.
And that's not all. What Palin and her speechwriters should have - and could have, if they'd taken a moment to discover it - is that a University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill study showed last year that....well....given the train wreck of rake-stepping that has been the McCain campaign to date, I think you can already see where this is going:
Oy. Just oy.
As the great PZ Myers, biology professor and proprietor of the blog Pharyngula, put it, in the wake of Palin's atrocious comments:
Yes, Dr. Myers. Too right. It ought to be. Let us hope that it will be. Let us hope that in ten days, the people of America will collectively and convincingly vote to allow America to rejoin in practice as well as in name the community of first-world nations who believe in the light of science over the darkness of intentional, celebrated ignorance.
Oy. Did you happen to catch Sarah Palin's "policy speech" yesterday? It was billed as Governor Mooseburger's first big speech of that kind (one that doesn't involve playing to crowds and talking about lipstick). Naturally, the media gathered, and the cameras were turned on. That's where the trouble started. You can watch Volume I of this speech here, and Volume II here (if you're the sort of person who enjoys repeatedly banging your noggin against large, heavy, hard objects).
But for me, the fun began when Palin, despite her running mate's repeated insistence that he would immediately institute an "across the board spending freeze," promised full funding for special needs kids. You may be aware that Palin and her husband's youngest child was born with Downs Syndrome, so it's no surprise either that the subject is near and dear to Palin's heart, nor that the McCain/Palin campaign would try to make political hay out of it. However, you'd expect that they would at least stay within the bounds of things they'd already proposed or disavowed, when trying to make said hay.
You would, of course, be wrong....but still, you might think that. I know I did.
So imagine how curious I was to discover how Palin intends to fully fund special needs programs in the face of an "across the board spending freeze?" Well, as it turns out, the answer is apparently by returning once again to that vast, inexhaustible wealth of Republican money-which-is-frivolously-wasted, "earmarks." She's going to get the money by being a maverick-y, fiscally conservative, waste-cutting budget hawk (and never mind that shiny new $150,000 wardrobe, LOL). If we just get rid of some of the bloat and waste, why, those poor special-needs children can get all the funding they need, and the sky will rain ponies and all the water fountains in public parks will yield lemonade.
Here's the relevant bit of the speech, if you don't want to slog through the whole thing (and who could blame you for that, LOL).
Palin is correct when she says that in a trillion-dollar budget, those earmarks - in total - amount to $18 billion - out of $1,000 billion (or, as it's more commonly known, one trillion). Not a huge amount, percentage-wise. Still, eighteen billion dollars is a lot of money. As Palin says, more than enough to fully fund IDEA. But which wasteful projects does Palin list as being things that she'd cut in order to accomplish this feat? Well - hilariously - the first one she touches on is "bridges." I was certain that by how Steve Schmidt or Rick Davis would have told her never to mention the word "bridge" again, but apparently not. Leaving aside the irony of Palin's own involvement with the Bridge To Nowhere™ (the ultimate pork project), there's the inconvenient fact that, as we saw last year in Minneapolis, our nation's infrastructure is crumbling...and the nation's bridges are among the worst-maintained items, and among the most desperately in need of funds. I doubt Palin intended to set the funding imperatives of special needs children against that of our nation's commuters, but nevertheless, that's how it came out: bridges or special needs.
But that wasn't the best part. After essentially describing our nations bridge infrastructure needs as frivolous, she went after fruit fly research. On the surface, the bit about fruit flies seems pretty juicy, pretty zinger-y. Palin, with her background in broadcast journalism and sports and weather reporting, knows when to put the sarcastic tone in her voice, as she says "I kid you not" to the assembled reporters. You can even hear a few laughs in the background. But here's what struck me about that portion of the speech, and the way in which Palin delivered it: although the "you may have already heard about the bridges" might have been ad-libbed (can't say), I feel certain that the item about the fruit flies was not. Why? Because it's a truly obscure bit of "pork," and something I'd not necessarily expect a candidate to have committed to memory. Also, since this was a prepared policy address, Palin was speaking off a prepared set of remarks, much like she was at her acceptance speech at the Republican convention. So it's a near-certainty that Palin's sarcastic reference to "fruit fly research in Paris, France" wasn't just her own on-the-spot example of the waste and inefficiency of government, but instead a carefully vetted, targeted-for-maximum-effect line in a speech written and prepared for Palin by the "brain trust" of the McCain campaign.
So what? Well....dunno if you know anything about drosophila, but fruit fly research has resulted in some of the most significant advances in human understanding of various fields (from genetics to disease spread and prevention to other things). Fruit flies have a very short life-span, and a large brood size. Also, according to Reiter et al (2001) Genome Research: 11(6):1114-25, 75% of known human disease genes have a recognizable match in the genetic code of fruit flies, and 50% of fly protein sequences have mammalian analogues. In other words, they are an epidemiologist's dream, and the study of their populations over time can provide a sort of fast-forwarded dash through several generations which would be impossible with virtually any other species, especially humans. What are the benefits to humanity which the study of drosophila melanogaster provides humanity? Well, according to the Wikipedia entry on Governor Palin's objects of derision, drosophila melanogaster are being used as a genetic model for several human diseases including the neurodegenerative disorders Parkinson's, Huntington's, spinocerebellar ataxia and Alzheimer's disease. The fly is also being used to study mechanisms underlying aging and oxidative stress, immunity, diabetes, and cancer, as well as drug abuse.
And that's not all. What Palin and her speechwriters should have - and could have, if they'd taken a moment to discover it - is that a University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill study showed last year that....well....given the train wreck of rake-stepping that has been the McCain campaign to date, I think you can already see where this is going:
UNC Protein Discovery Could Boost Autism Research
By UNC News Service
Posted: Sep 13, 2007
Chapel Hill — Neurons, or nerve cells, communicate with each other through contact points called synapses. When these connections are damaged, communication breaks down, causing the messages that would normally help our feet push our bike pedals or our mind locate our car keys to fall short.
Now scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have shown that a protein called neurexin is required for these nerve cell connections to form and function correctly.
The discovery, made in Drosophila fruit flies may lead to advances in understanding autism spectrum disorders, as recently, human neurexins have been identified as a genetic risk factor for autism.
Oy. Just oy.
As the great PZ Myers, biology professor and proprietor of the blog Pharyngula, put it, in the wake of Palin's atrocious comments:
This idiot woman, this blind, shortsighted ignoramus, this pretentious clod, mocks basic research and the international research community. You damn well better believe that there is research going on in animal models — what does she expect, that scientists should mutagenize human mothers and chop up baby brains for this work? — and countries like France and Germany and England and Canada and China and India and others are all respected participants in these efforts....
This is where the Republican party has ended up: supporting an ignorant buffoon who believes in the End Times and speaking in tongues while deriding some of the best and most successful strategies for scientific research. In this next election, we've got to choose between the 21st century rationalism and Dark Age inanity. It ought to be an easy choice.
Yes, Dr. Myers. Too right. It ought to be. Let us hope that it will be. Let us hope that in ten days, the people of America will collectively and convincingly vote to allow America to rejoin in practice as well as in name the community of first-world nations who believe in the light of science over the darkness of intentional, celebrated ignorance.


This is where the Republican party has ended up: supporting an ignorant buffoon who believes in the End Times and speaking in tongues while deriding some of the best and most successful strategies for scientific research. In this next election, we've got to choose between the 21st century rationalism and Dark Age inanity. It ought to be an easy choice.
Fortunately not all Republicans support this "ignorant buffoon."
*shaking my head* (and laughing at the same time)
Yes, it is really sad how some politicians have absolutely no clue when it comes to science, what kind of research is being conducted, the rationale behind the research, etc., etc., etc.
From Countdown last evening:
http://crooksandliars.com/media/play/wmv/6657/23635
or
http://crooksandliars.com/media/play/qt/6657/23635
Sopal
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