I think we can all already see the defense the right wing is throwing up to rationalize Sarah Palin’s inane remarks about “fruit fly research in Paris, France”: she wasn’t disparaging all research into fruit flies, but only one specific earmark for studying agricultural pests.

Baloney.

The context of that comment was that she was claiming research had “little or nothing to do with the public good”, and she brought up these seemingly trivial little animals and a place the right wing despises as dogwhistles to her hoople-headed fans. Claiming now that she was making an informed criticism of a specific study is a feeble attempt to distract with a lie.

Remember, this is the crank governor of Alaska who denies evolution and global warming, the backup candidate to a man who mocks research into bear DNA and calls a multimillion dollar educational tool an “overhead projector”, from a party that ridicules people with Parkinson’s because they want more stem cell research, and idiots want to claim that she isn’t really anti-science because in this one case she was actually targeting an instance of applied research that directly benefits agricultural interests?

That’s insane. You have to be a purblind slavering zombie of the Rethuglican party to swallow that.

It goes deeper than just trying to belittle science, too — we are a technological society that is entirely dependent on the advancements science has brought to us, that is facing a new series of challenges that will require new science to overcome. The Assemblies of God churches are not going to come up with anything to help with global warming, alternative energy, new medicine, new reproductive technologies, new discoveries, new ideas. Science is our tool to help people, yet the Republican party only sees it as a kind of armament factory to help them kill strangers in foreign lands. As John Cole put it, “why is it that the people who claim to adhere to the culture of life are so filled with hate for…people?”

I just got this in the mail, and smug elitist that I am, I thought it was worth passing along.

Dear friends, In these times, with extremely serious, complicated crisises confronting us both economically and internationally, we need to have intelligent, educated people as president & vice president:

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University – B.A.
Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard – Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware – B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy – Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University – 1 semester
North Idaho College – 2 semesters – general study
University of Idaho – 2 semesters – journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College – 1 semester
University of Idaho – 3 semesters – B.A. in Journalism

California’s Proposition 8 is a ballot measure that aims to ban same-sex marriage — it is a regressive proposal that aims to strip equality from a minority population. It is revealing to see who is supporting each side of the contest.

The organizations trying to oppose Proposition 8 include Apple Computer, Sergey Brin of Google, the California Teachers Association, and the state Democratic party — anyone supportive of civil rights, progressive causes, or (to be honest) finding a profit in not discriminating against well-educated people in a technological workforce for irrelevant reasons, like what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms.

Who is supporting it? Yahoos and churches. Once again, on a basic civil rights issue, religion comes out fighting for the wrong side. For a great example of narrow-minded wretched biblical rationalizations, listen to Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church. He comes out strongly for Prop. 8, calling it a “moral issue” (which it is — too bad he’s fighting on the side of evil), and trying to argue why his sheep should vote for it…and the only reason he’s got is “because its always been this way”. Seriously — he repeats himself multiple times, and that’s the only reason he offers, again and again. Apparently, the “traditional, historical, universal” definition of marriage has always been “one man, one woman”. I don’t think he’s been reading his bible very carefully.

So, Californians, whose side are you on? 21^st century America, or the imaginary repressed Puritan America of the theocrats?

This is too much. Sarah Palin gave a policy speech today in which she claimed that she wanted more support for children with disabilities, more tools to test for disorders, and while also decrying the expense of scientific research.

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.

I am appalled.

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.

Yes, scientists work on fruit flies. Some of the most powerful tools in genetics and molecular biology are available in fruit flies, and these are animals that are particularly amenable to experimentation. Molecular genetics has revealed that humans share key molecules, the basic developmental toolkit, with all other animals, thanks to our shared evolutionary heritage (something else the wackaloon from Wasilla denies), and that we can use these other organisms to probe the fundamental mechanisms that underlie core processes in the formation of the nervous system — precisely the phenomena Palin claims are so important.

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 21^st century rationalism and Dark Age inanity. It ought to be an easy choice.