“Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not“

-Sarah Palin, October 24

Damn it. I had placed a voluntary moratorium  on political posts here at A Free Man. My vote is in. My guy is well ahead. I was happy to get on with my life here on the other side of the world and ignore the nonsense of the last few weeks of this campaign. But this is just ridiculous. Sarah Palin is probably not going to be the Vice President. But she is a dangerous idiot. And in the Republican party, dangerous idiots are a little like bad pennies.

Here’s the background on what’s inspired this particular rant. Basically, Palin was talking about funding for autism research and in her inimitable sarcastic/moronic style dismissed both basic and collaborative research in a single breath of hot air.

Governor Palin, basic research drives innovation in the life sciences. Most of the advances in medicine over the last century have been initiated in labs that were working on what seems, to an outsider (or a dangerous idiot), as pointless research. Because of the ethics that scientists live by, most genetic research has to be undertaken in model organisms. These are critters like yeast, roundworms, mice and fruit flies. These are organisms that are amenable to genetic manipulation. Because we understand their evolutionary relationship (I know, evolution, scary and evil) to man we can make assumptions, for example, about what’s happening in your brain based on things that happen in a mouse’s brain. Probably not much of a leap there.

As for the France bit, scientists – unlike politicians – work best in a collaborative manner. Most major advances are done by groups of scientists from different universities who work toward the common goal of gaining knowledge about a particular topic. Sometimes, those collaborations cross national borders. Now, I know you were trying to drum up the hatred of France that worked so well for the Republicans back in the ‘02 midterms, but come on. If I can speak personally, it would have taken me another couple of years to finish my Ph.D. without a collaboration with a group that was working on a similar problem in Germany. I’m not particularly fond of Germans, but I put that personal prejudice aside and just got on with it – for mutual benefit.  This is how science works. Maybe, Governor Palin, you could try a similar approach to governing.

Governor Palin, just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it is not for the “public good”. Don’t you have some Russians to look out for up in Alaska?

With apologies to Dr. Seuss and Art Buchwald:

Sarah L. Palin will you please go now!
The time has come.
The time has come.
The time is now.
Just go.
Go.
Go!
I don’t care how.
You can go by foot.
You can go by cow.
Sarah L. Palin will you please go now!
You can go on skates.
You can go on skis.
You can go in a hat.
But
Please go. Now.

UPDATE

Check out NATUI’s “My fruit flies are smarter than Palin” shirts. The t-shirt every Drosophila geneticist needs.

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I’m all about the Treepeople covers this week, but this Carly Simon cover just seemed perfect. Treepeople were an Idaho band that used to tear up the Seattle clubs back during my time there. They were led by Doug Martsch, who subsequently went on to form the outstanding Built To Spill. If you like what you hear you can buy Treepeople’s records from C/Z Records.

 
icon for podpress  Treepeople - "Flies In My Coffee" [3:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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