And don't forget McCain actually voted for the bear DNA testing bill.

Oh, this is just TOO juicy! Make it spread! Spread it around, folks! Drop it in the box at your local paper! Wheee!

I'm the last guy to defend Palin, but don't be too quick to dismiss the value of scientific research (pure and applied). Hell, getting money to study wildlife is the first thing I've seen connected to Palin that I like.

I find it interesting the seeking of money for science when science seems so far away from anything she cares about. Money is money do not give her credit for anything more than wanting the money.

Crab Mating Habits.... Wait a minute... what about abstinence?

This is the kind of government spending conservatives rail against. I can hear Palin's sneering voice listing the earmarks as grievous examples of Waste, if only her state didn't request them. She didn't say "no thank you".
Guess it's different if Republicans want it.

Bear DNA bad, seal DNA good.

@TheraP: Abstinence! Here, here!

Almost ALL of the earmarks Benefit the fishing industry. I think this is great, but since she and her husband are in the Fishing industry, these earmarks look severely unbalanced, suggesting that she disproportionally rewards her own industry.

This is making me hungry for seafood.

Also, it seems she should have earmarked more for drug and alcohol prevention if she was willing to ask so much more for the fishing industries.

Across the board (all ages) Alaska has one of the highest per capita alcohol consumption rates in the nation and the prevalence of alcohol dependence and alcohol abuse, at 14%, is twice the national average of 7%

http://www.hss.state.ak.us/DBH/prevention/programs/substanceabuse/default.htm

i can't wait for a reporter to ask mccain whether the seal DNA money was a criminal matter or paternity issue.

Are the FY2008 requests detailed somewhere? Couldn't seem to locate it on AK's website. Just a theory on my part but I'd think there'd be more for FY08 since the media attention on pork has been more critical over the past year than before.

Now that it's put in context, paying $150 for a pair of freshly killed wolf legs doesn't seem so bad, especially if you use airplanes instead of helicopters to shoot them from. It may increase the chances that the wolf will only be badly injured and suffer for weeks, but it does save on gas.

Maybe that's why Palin wants to take Polar Bears and Beluga Whales off the endangered list - to save federal taxpayers all that money trying to find out if we're priming them for extinction. Global warming's gonna kill them eventually, anyway. Why bother studying the effects of the oil industry on the Alaskan ecosystem when you can check out some crab humping?

Want an interesting Alaskan's view of Sarah Palin. This is from an educator who lives there:

From: Peter & Bonnie Hauschka

Good evening, lots of friends and relatives have been asking me (as
an Alaskan) what I think of Sarah Palin, our Governor, and new choice
for McCain as a VP candidate.

Here it goes:

This pick floored me. Sarah Palin is a nice person. I've met her,
I've even talked to her for a few minutes at a principal's conference
a couple of years ago. She has lots going for her superficially.
She speaks from the heart, like a spitfire mother; she can even be
sort of funny sometimes. She is quite beautiful; athletic, and has
that radiant glow of someone who actually spends time doing things
outside. Unlike many politicians, she has lived a 'real life' and
done things that few living and working in DC could ever do....like
dipnettin' fish, shootin' stuff and eating it out on the tundra, and
havin' 5 kids.

Personally, I'd never vote for her. She has an extremely simple view
of the world. I don't even think she has ever been abroad. As
governor she has repeatedly shown us that she is unable to grasp the
demands of leadership. She is very prone to cronyism of the worst
kind. Every cabinet level political appointment she has made she has
over-ridden suggestions of our state advisory boards, and instead
promoted those who had granted her direct political favors. Not that
other politicians don't do this, they do, but most of them are able
to balance their appointments to ensure that at least a few people
with real skill and experience are running big state agencies.

She also has been unable to pay attention to her Alaskan
constituency. Personally, I've written several of our previous gov's
and been asked to comment publicly on education policy. All the
previous gov's have always acknowledged that contribution, criticism
or comment; sometimes by direct reply, or at least by that of a staff
member. Palin's office has been a zone of silence. Not I, nor one
person I know commenting has ever gotten any sort of reply. Her
claim of running an open or transparent government is totally false;
the public simply has no role in her administration.

Her previous claim to fame was being mayor of Wasilla, a growing town
about 40 minutes from Anchorage of about 15,000 people. Wasilla is a
hellhole, even by Alaskan standards, where there are plenty of
hellhole towns and villages. Wasilla is an ugly place that shows a
complete absence of planning, design, or sense of public vision.
Gov't agencies and services are completely overrun in this town;
things are so bad that they can't even track their population or
build schools in the right place, because most parts of the town
don't require building permits, so the only clue about where people
are settling are utility receipts. Imagine trying to be an emergency
responder in this kind of place: Houses don't just catch on fire in
Wasilla, they burn to the ground, because by the time the fire
department has figured out which road to take (no signs) or whose
house it is (no directory), the place is done for. Palin was mayor
this town for at least 2 terms before being elected gov. a year and a
half ago.

Her moral sense is simplistic and not inclusive. She is the sort of
person who is used to using their 'faith' to divide and isolate
minority groups of human beings instead of uniting them. To her
credit as Gov. she has kept out of this arena pretty well, but when
in comfortable company (i.e the Matanuska Valley Republican Women's
Club), she lets her moral cat out of the bag.

I will do what I can to ensure her defeat and that of her running
mate as well. :) Please share this information with those who can
use it well.

Cheers, Pete Hauschk

Page 3.

$650,000 for prevention, controlling and reducing the consequences of obesity in Alaska...

McCannibal publishes a list of earmarks that he finds excessive every year and has for years. While Sarah was mayor, Wasilla made the list three times! She was also involved with a 527 to defend Ted Stevens the allegedly corrupt Senator under indictment.

From:

Head of State

http://tinyurl.com/6lbfdv

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Palinism: Politics as The Content-Free Violation of Expectation

What is Palinism?

What is it about?

What policies?

What ideas?

What positions?

Even in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, while no doubt many were motivated by regional partisanship, local prejudices, and "the measure" of the candidate, one suspects that at least a rough rendering of the issues--secession vs. Union, free vs. enslaved--was carried in and animated the crowds.

Now, it is pure reaction to pattern. To one impulse expectation violated by the provocation of another impulse, that feels--good.

We have reached the content-free phase of American politics.

A form, an image--glasses, hair, a voice, what it suggests--is enough. She could be speaking the words to the airport timetable, the swearing-in speech of Ferdinand Marcos, the ingredients of a box of Sizzlean-- the image, the sound, and the gathering impulse, the bare stirring from dull lack of novelty--is sufficient to awaken the crowds to angry perturbence at...the stimulus to be perturbed, and the bare sense of actual directed action and purpose that comes with doing so.

Palin herself wears a glazed, slightly confused look in her eyes--what is it that has unleashed this roar, this approbation. Being used to herself, and having been among those who are well used to her, she is unaware of the novelty that her mere form releases in the dazed electorate, yearning for a pretext for expression. Soon, she'll believe it herself.

And, after all, isn't that what democracy is all about? The ability to choose to decide without knowledge? Better yet, to choose your knowledge, irrespective of fact, in correspondence with the liberating, confirmation-free impulse?

This is what today's moment stands for.

These are our satisfactions and securities in this golden age.

Cite:

Head of State

http://tinyurl.com/6lbfdv

This is ridiculous to attack her about.

It is all fine and well to point out that she and other republicans like her asked for funding for public programs, and that this goes against their rhetoric of less government and their whooping and hollering about the market controlling itself. But funding for the research that allows us to keep track of our affects on the species we are targeting or incidentally affecting in the fishing industry is exactly the kind of thing we liberals generally push for. It is responsible use of funds to attempt to make an environmentally sensitive industry more sustainable.

This money went to NOAA (a federal agency) to allow them to fulfill their responsibilities under the Magnusen-Stevens Act (regulating our fisheries). I'm guessing that if you look at any coastal state with significant fisheries, you will find similar requests. This is part of a federal mandate, not some whim of hers.

(full disclosure: I am a marine biologist who works for NOAA)

Alaskans are double dippers to the extreme. They have no state sales tax or income tax. Most taxes come from the oil and gas industries who then write off these taxes on their federal income taxes. Instead of taking those taxes and paying for their own infrastructure projects, Alaska refunds the money to its citizens and then requests federal earmarks for the projects. So we the taxpayers of the other 49 states pay for both their tax refunds to Alaskan citizens but also their state projects. Nice little scam.

Maybe we should be pointing out that the bear research was MONEY WELL SPENT. And that it saved money down the road.

I get the gotcha politics here, and at this point I am almost in the "hey whatever works" camp.

But Science research is vital, important and something I believe strong in (I am an educator in a large science center) so it just doesn't sit well with me.

The Dems should be running in defense and for science, not against it.

Research I am in favor of, even research you cannot grasp the importance of, like seal DNA research, even research with absolutely no practical purpose evident. The key advance in controlling polio by vaccination was an obscure way to grow viruses in egg yolks, and lasers were developed without practical purpose, and now they are in every DVD player. You just cannot predict which research the advances will come from, but as surely as the sun comes up, research pays off.

So she supports Seal DNA studies, but no stem cell reseach for human beings? Is this what being pro-life means?

As a scientist, I would like to caution you all about ridiculing research projects that sound silly on their face. It is perfectly reasonable to push back on the process hear (non-peer reviewed awards) but it is dangerous and presumptuous for non technical individuals to try to evaluate the merits of a research project based on its name and a one line summary. The push should be FOR proper peer review, and AGAINST earmarks, not for ridiuling scientists who are pursuing research projects they beleive have merit.

The late William Proxmire was known for his Golden Fleece awards, a tradition that is catchy and snarky in the same way that the republican vice presidential candidate is: it is easy to apply reductionist labels to things, and then, out of context make them seem absurd. The battle cry is "you scientists have no common sense" and that "deep study produces flaky people and/or flaky studies, we can just pass judgement on these issue on their face (is this sounding a little familiar?).
If you open your mind a bit, and research the background of these kinds of projects, they are generally done for a good reason. Studying the invertebrates can be extremely valuable for monitoring the health of an eco-system, or determining the environmental impact of a new environmental factor on a crab population. Moreover, any governor with an Ocean border or large lake would be interested in monitoring both commercial and recreational fishing stocks in their state.

Can you imagine if the same amount of peer review that goes into public funding of scientific research (NSF etc) actually went into determining which pork barrel bridge/overpass/ferry/fighter plane/war merited funding? Can you imagine if the same success rate applied (

Hey - Don't forget all those earmarks for coast guard housing and training facilities for their military bases! (Though for some reason they don't appear on the state-provided link, but I don't really know its context and they do appear on mine)

Since they don't take comments on the mainsite, I have to assume that this is an acceptable way to address Josh's most recent post.

If it is politically possible to increase the budget for NIH, NSF, USFWS, NOAA or any of the other agencies for this research, then that might be the preferred way to go, but it's not been done by previous administrations and the current one distrusts science.

IOW: In the current political environment, obviously an earmark is just another method to providing the funding. I mean, it's not like Ted Stevens had a brainstorm and decided to study seal DNA. Obviously a group of researchers were seeking funding for a project and because it wasn't in their agency's budget, either their supervisor suggested the earmark or it was added to the agency's wishlist.

(Though, I also have to say that as someone who has had significant dealings with a couple of the agencies listed above, I don't really know that leaving all decisions in their hands would be the best way to go, anyway)

Magister:

You're essentially saying the same thing that I said: it doesn't matter if the research is worth doing -- that is, whether it's more important than all the other potentially useful things an agency might do with the same amount in unrestricted funds -- what matters is whether someone has the political connections to get the money directed to them.

Earmarks are graft. Some of that graft does useful/important/necessary things, but that doesn't mean it's not graft. Back in my home town, it was well known that there was a street where nobody ever got broken into, because some capo's elderly relative lived there. That doesn't mean outsourcing neighborhood policing to the mob is a good idea.

since we can't comment directly on John's post, I'll take issue here:

"As a related matter, most of Palin's 'science' earmarks requested for last year are actually sops to the fishing industry in her state to which she is closely tied."

Why the scare quotes around science? And why suggest that funding to the regulatory agency overseeing the fishing industry are just "sops" for the industry? Looking elsewhere, I am sure there are issues you can find with laws affecting the fishing industry, like loopholes to allow foreign control of fishing companies or price fixing by processing companies, but don't attack funding just because of its source or assume that simply because it has to do with the fishing industry that it is a favor for the fishing industry. I'll happily argue that, yes, research into industry impact and life histories of the species we are targeting and affecting DOES benefit the fishing industry in the long run in making it more likely to remain viable in the long run, but that benefit is in all our interests not just something that pads the pockets of a few cronies.

since we can't comment directly on John's post, I'll take issue here:

"As a related matter, most of Palin's 'science' earmarks requested for last year are actually sops to the fishing industry in her state to which she is closely tied."

Why the scare quotes around science? And why suggest that funding to the regulatory agency overseeing the fishing industry are just "sops" for the industry? Looking elsewhere, I am sure there are issues you can find with laws affecting the fishing industry, like loopholes to allow foreign control of fishing companies or price fixing by processing companies, but don't attack funding just because of its source or assume that simply because it has to do with the fishing industry that it is a favor for the fishing industry. I'll happily argue that, yes, research into industry impact and life histories of the species we are targeting and affecting DOES benefit the fishing industry in the long run in making it more likely to remain viable in the long run, but that benefit is in all our interests not just something that pads the pockets of a few cronies.