Short sharp shock.

I have little time so will have to just cut and paste my way through this. At times people say things that are so spot on that there is nothing that can be added to them.

Sarah Palin gave a policy speech yesterday which had a section which went something like:

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.

The entire thing can be found here - as a disclaimer I have not watched it in it's entirety.

Mr. PZ Myers ( a somewhat well known Atheist and professor of Biology ) made this comment which I shall print in it's entirety. The post can be found here at his most excellent blog.

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.

Thank you Dr. Myers. Perhaps one day I will have the pleasure of meeting you in person. That will kinda blow this whole pseudo-anonymity thing though...