Are you KIDDING me?

12/03/09

John McCain. Ooooooh, John McCain.

Look, I’m not big into telling the US how to run its own domestic affairs. I feel I have a stake in how America handles its foreign relations because that’s pretty much the whole world, but internal stuff is for Americans to manage. This present financial apocalypse is probably an exception, though, because it turns out the system is so badly broken that the US can’t sort it out without cooperation with other countries.

But seriously.

John McCain: quit disrespecting the honey bee.

I’m serious, man. Quit it.

McCain objects to the inclusion in the latest round of stimulus money of $1.7m for a honey bee lab.

Dude, honestly? $1.7m is a problem for you? Because it seems to me that you’re, ohh, three trillion dollars in the hole. Which is a number so big I don’t know how to write it. What’s the abbreviation for “trillion”?

And more than that: bees are dying and they’re important.

(In fact, they’re really, really important. Three quarters of food production (76%) is dependent on bees and 84% of vegetables grown in Europe depend on pollination. [link][2])

From Wikipedia:

Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) is a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or Western honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture, the term Colony Collapse Disorder was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of disappearances of Western honey bee colonies in North America in late 2006.

(Photo: Honey bees entering a beehive by Björn Appel. Click for license info.)

European beekeepers observed similar phenomena in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, and initial reports have also come in from Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a lesser degree. Possible cases of CCD have also been reported in Taiwan since April 2007.

So given all that, and that we still have no idea what CCD actually is or how to stop it – and this is our food supply we’re talking about here – it just seems to me that this is a pretty pressing issue, and putting it on your list of top ten pork moments is a really irritating and irresponsible thing to do. Because I will wager that the reason it’s there is not that you don’t think this is the right lab at the right price, or whatever. It’s because it’s an easy political score to take the mickey out of a bee lab. Because the words are funny.

Honey bee lab.

Ho ho ho.

Try: collapse of global food source.

Still funny?

2 Comments to “Are you KIDDING me?”

Celia Bredenbeck said on March 12th, 2009:

This is but one example of how these short-sighted pinheads have run our country into the ground — financially, ecologically, in terms of foreign policy — you name it.

Now they’re after the bees. The BEES. And the point you make, Nick, is 100% THE point — WORLD FOOD SUPPLY. Holy mother of “Duh!”

Armed with one or two half-assed “facts” and an array of slick “talking points”, They have sought to dismantle everything from civil rights to fair trade to breastfeeding. They’re nonproductive leeches on society themselves, and a hallmark of this is that any time funding is sought for anything but to feed their corruption machine, they scream like scalded cats.

And of course, any bold soul who has the stones to assert that our country’s people shouldn’t be left sick or hungry because of financial difficulties is branded a “socialist” or worse. And God forbid we should spend any money on scientific research. In fact, half of these cretins will be only too happy to tell you that God does indeed specifically forbid it.

They’ve forgotten a minor point — their bilious ilk, with their spittle-flecked outrage and whining tirades, is not in charge any more. If we wanted your opinion, Mr. McCain, we would have asked for it — last November.

Okay, I’ll stop now…blood pressure rising….
Lynne Blundell said on March 17th, 2009:

Did God forbid scientific research??? Chhrrrist!

I am moved by the threat to bees and initially I pondered that perhaps they don’t have the same problem in America, until I remembered reading about the considerable lack of pollination through a gardening forum I subscribe to!

Nope there is no excuse…can’t think of any… Perspectives are indeed rather skewed!