Sarah Palin is a pathetic, mush-for-brains dolt. I used to think she was monumentally dumb and incurious, but had political instincts that could compensate enough for her to succeed in her corrupt career path for the foreseeable future (like George W. Bush did). She does have a special talent, all right, and is hereby awarded first prize in the contest to be the 21st Century icon of proud Republican know-nothings.
This is Sarah Palin, from a speech supposedly made to demonstrate “Commitment To Children With Special Needs”
This is a matter of how we prioritize the money that we spend. We’ve got a three trillion dollar budget, and Congress spends some 18 billion dollars a year on earmarks for political pet projects. That’s more than the shortfall to fully fund the IDEA. And where does a lot of that earmark money end up? It goes to projects having little or nothing to do with the public good — things like fruit fly research…
As any half-functional high-schooler knows, much of what we know about the causes and treatment of genetic disorders (like Down Syndrome, which Palin’s youngest child has) is grounded in research on fruit flies.
If this is the path Christianity is on, and it certainly seems to be (with apologies to my intellectual Christian friends who are sadly in the minority of their faith), then, thanks to the principles of evolution, it will be extinct in a couple of generations. Good riddance. That level of stupid simply cannot sustain itself.
A science blog, BiochemicalSoul, said this:
To decry research in [condescending and amazed tone] “the fruit fly” is a testament to the true idiocy of this woman and to the failure of our public education system. In fact, her own father, Chuck Heath, was a biology teacher – obviously a complete failure of a biology teacher.
(Well Palin herself has been a failure in passing on her values — abstinence outside of marriage — to her children, so there you go: epic FAIL.)
But I liked what Newsweek’s Richard Wolfe said: “This is the most mindless, ignorant, uninformed comment that we have seen from Governor Palin so far, and there’s been a lot of competition for that prize.”
So, yeah, Sarah’s a winner of many prizes. Now go back to Wasilla with your crown and STFU.
Update:
Mithras looks ahead to Palin’s designs on 2012, in a very fun, snarky read:
All this just goes to prove one thing: John McCain used to be a maverick, but isn’t any longer. Sarah Palin is the true maverick. She’s so mavericky, she realized McCain was no longer a maverick a millisecond after the convention, long before anyone else. She’s the ultimate maverick, immune to coercion, restraint, prudence, education, facts, intelligence and common sense. She goes her own way. That’s just what the country is hungering for: A combination of early-Alzheimer’s Reagan and George W. Bush circa Katrina.
And found at Crooks & Liars:
In fact, irony of all ironies, fruit fly research has actually aided in understanding a genetic component or predisposition towards autism.
You are operating under a false assumption — that Palin believes in evolutionl She doesn’t. See http://archives.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/01/28/fruit.flies.enn/
No, I know she doesn’t. I do, however, expect my readers, who are primarily in the reality-based community, to “believe in” it. I was just reveling in the irony of how evolution works against its deniers.
No, I know she doesn’t. I do, however, expect my readers, who are primarily in the reality-based community, to “believe in” it. I was just reveling in the irony of how evolution works against its deniers.