Fruit Flies in Paris, France (re: Palin)

It appears Palin wants to halt US funding for Fruit Flies in Paris, France. Fortunately there doesn't seem to be any. I kid you not.

OMG research in Paris, France. Tax-payers hard-earned money. Fruit flies. It has to stop.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-seitzman/the-lyin-the-witch-and-th_b_137028.html

cethklein said:

Is it wrong that I'm not even shocked right now? I'm sure Sarah Palin is a very smart woman. I think that's what makes this that much worse.

Click to expand...

Hmmm...sometimes even the smart need to act smart. Apparently the closest US -funded fruit fly research is in Montpellier, 400 miles from Paris, France...I kid you not. The Scientist asked fruit fly scientists and learned:


Recently, California Representative Mike Thompson (D) secured a $211,000 earmark for a USDA research in France that studies control of the olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae, which has plagued Mediterranean olive groves for decades and more recently has infected California's. It appears that the money likely went to a USDA biological control lab near Montpellier, France, more than 400 miles south of Paris, with other USDA funds going to California-based collaborators studying how to control the pest on this side of the Atlantic.

"[Palin's comment] does kind of bother me," University of California, Davis entomologist Frank Zalom, told The Scientist. "Clearly there's no understanding about the problem of the pest or the methods being studied to control them." Zalom, who is not funded by the USDA, said that in 2003 he became one of the first US entomologists to study the olive fruit fly, which was first detected in California olive groves in 1999.

Kent Daane, a University of California, Berkeley, entomologist, also studies Bactrocera oleae and said he probably receives funding - indirectly from a subgrant through the California Department of Food and Agriculture - from the USDA earmark secured by Thompson. Daane said that his research focuses on identifying effective natural parasites of the olive fruit fly, which is likely native to Africa, and studying their potential to control California populations of the pest. "I doubt [Palin] has any idea what the funds were being used for," Daane told The Scientist. "Almost any politician would not understand the complexity of any project that they just gloss over in a one-line joke like that."

Christine N. said:

:headdesk:

I don't know what's worse - the improper geographical reference (which would be a simple mistake) or that the research she's so opposed to plays such a huge role in helping the very people she was giving the policy speech on, as well as to learn about a pest that could have an impact on US agriculture.

Click to expand...

You should check the power setting on your ideological rhetorical decoding equipment. You may have inadvertently left it on a low hummm level. Let's try the other ways one might have referred to where
the research is being done:

"In France" "Funding fruit flies in France" even Giovanni Plumbio might think that sounded too good to be true. Oh you know the proto-proverbial funding fruit flies in France.

In Montpellier, France....Well she would have to "sound French" to make that intelligible so...no way that could ever happen.

BUT "in Paris, France" Paris...in France, which is close enough for any ideological statement and Paris has that titillatingly bad sound that we know attracts liberals like flies. It had to be "Paris, France" for so many reasons of ideological logic that it is pretty much off the scale of ideological possibilites that once some fruit fly research was identified as evil and in France it had to be in "Paris, France. I kid you not." Yes "I kid you not." And I do kid you not. Paris it had to be, even though it was Montpellier, I kid you not. It's the "I kid you not." that gives it all away.
"Paris, France" not too good to be true...and too perfect ideologically not to be the location, I kid you not...even though it is in Montpellier.