Monday, October 23, 2006
Ack!
Rush just got himself into trouble. Talking about Michael J. Fox's commercial for a Missouri senator, on the subject of stem cells.... Rush is saying that Fox is faking and exaggerating the effects of Parkinson's disease for the sake of dramatizing the commercial. Nope. Fox's hyperkinesia is not the result of Parkinson, but rather the result of the drugs that combat Parkinson. In fact the effect of Parkinson itself is rigidity and stiffness; the drugs (generically described as L-Dopa) cause lots of extraneous motion. This is variable and intermittent.
Every time Rush treads into the realms of science he makes a fool of himself, which is totally unnecessary. If you are trying to maintain credibility, you need to figure out which parts of life are outside your expertise.
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Later: Rush heard from his staff, and backed off.
Still, it's frustrating because his basic point here is important and valid: The political stem cell debate is false, and is doing nothing for the patients. Most of the progress, even in countries with entirely different politics, is in adult and umbilical cord cells. American scientists, who are largely leftists, would rather poke Christians in the eye than make progress in science.
I could sound equally silly if I tried to talk about Sport, an area of life that I know precisely nothing about. For instance, I could say "Bush is acting like an outfielder without his skates, trying to tackle a five-iron into an extra basket." Or "This election reminds me of the last time OSU lost the World Series in a halftime under-par goal." I'm pretty sure those are phenomenally absurd, but not entirely sure. For all I know, they might be excellent analogies. So I simply avoid the whole subject. ¶ 10:36 AM
Every time Rush treads into the realms of science he makes a fool of himself, which is totally unnecessary. If you are trying to maintain credibility, you need to figure out which parts of life are outside your expertise.
-----
Later: Rush heard from his staff, and backed off.
Still, it's frustrating because his basic point here is important and valid: The political stem cell debate is false, and is doing nothing for the patients. Most of the progress, even in countries with entirely different politics, is in adult and umbilical cord cells. American scientists, who are largely leftists, would rather poke Christians in the eye than make progress in science.
I could sound equally silly if I tried to talk about Sport, an area of life that I know precisely nothing about. For instance, I could say "Bush is acting like an outfielder without his skates, trying to tackle a five-iron into an extra basket." Or "This election reminds me of the last time OSU lost the World Series in a halftime under-par goal." I'm pretty sure those are phenomenally absurd, but not entirely sure. For all I know, they might be excellent analogies. So I simply avoid the whole subject. ¶ 10:36 AM
