Stupid Is as Stupid Does

Governor Palin gave her first policy address last Friday. Despite Senator McCain's promise to freeze all government spending, Governor Palin assured the people at her press conference that a McCain/Palin administration would indeed spend federal funds on families with children with disabilities ($45 million was the amount she mentioned). When someone asked her where the money would come from, she chuckled and said "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 only problem with her condescending attitude towards this project that she has no idea what that study funds. This study is funded to determine how to stop the destruction of crops by fruit flies; susceptible crops include citrus, coffee, eggplant, guava, loquat, mango, melon, papaya, passion fruit, peach, pepper, persimmon, plum, star fruit, tomato, and zucchini. Jobs and revenue lost from fruit fly infestation cost farmers and the United States hundreds of millions of dollars each year. A similar study of fruit flies in Hawaii is showing a 32% profit on the investment, so funding this program is important to a lot of citizens and it is cost effective too (the particular study she chose to highlight and poke fun at only cost $211,509).

Moreover, not only is this study good for farmers and the economy, one of the benefits of this research is that scientists are learning more about human disorders like autism. Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have shown 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. A protein called neurexin is required for these nerve cell connections to form and function correctly. This 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.

Governor Palin has proven once again why she is not qualified to be vice president. Her hypocritical stance on earmarks or pork-barrel spending, Alaska ranks number one among all states in earmark spending per capita and is over 150% higher than the runner-up, and her lack of understanding about the issues we face as a country is astounding.