I appreciate research as well as the next person. In fact, you’ll be pleased to know that I have participated in moldy bread experiments on a variety of occasions (in fact, as recently as last month). As for treadmilling shrimp, jell-o wrestling or robot hoedown research being the one bit of research that saves us all from the falling sky, I’m not banking on it. Here’s the thing. These are my tax dollars at work, here. As a nation, our debt is spiraling out of control with every minute that ticks by. And we’ve got people researching such craziness on my dime? They’re acting as if taxpayer money is free money – accountability within many of these entities is all but non-existent. And I’ve had enough.

As for dissenting opinions, if you’ve read our posts regularly, you would recognize that we welcome dissent. This is still America – at least for now.

Why do you? What are you afraid of?

Ignorance is not a justification for remaining ignorant. Some politician complained about fruit fly research last year, how did that turn out? Well, it just so happened that industries in his own state needed the fruit fly information and he wound up looking like even more of a fool.

This particular senate report is from Tom Coburn, an anti-science baptist preacher. He doesn’t want tobacco regulated despite the obvious health issues.

Knowing this, do you really expect his compaints to have merit? The man is a creationist nutjob who tries to stymie science at every turn in order to spread his religious agenda. He sterilized a woman against her will. He tried to hush up sexual misbehavior by fellow republicans. Do you trust this man? Why?

If people like that were in charge of scientific research we would still be in the dark ages.

Some of this research may have value one day. It all gets approved and regulated by people who actually know what they are doing, unlike Tom Coburn.