Why I’m not voting for McCain
And why you shouldn’t either.
I’m going to disregard the fact that he’s miserable on women’s reproductive rights. I’m going to dismiss, out of hand, the fact that he has a brutally awful record on environmental issues. I will ignore the fact that he’s said that he doesn’t know jack shit about the economy and that his educational policies are great howling voids of nothingness.
Instead, I’m going to quote an article in the Washington Post:
WEST GLACIER, Mont. — If you’ve heard Sen. John McCain‘s stump speech, you’ve surely heard him talk about grizzly bears. The federal government, he declares with horror and astonishment, has spent $3 million to study grizzly bear DNA. “I don’t know if it was a paternity issue or criminal,” he jokes, “but it was a waste of money.”
A McCain campaign commercial also tweaks the bear research: “Three million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Unbelievable.”
He’s against basic scientific research? He is so small-minded and viciously stupid that he doesn’t get why it is vitally important to understand as much as we can about an apex predator? More importantly, this politician and past soldier thinks he’s more qualified than scientists to figure out what scientific research needs to be done? He can’t squash his ego long enough to listen to people who know more about the subject than he does?
Or — and I think this is really the most likely — he’s pandering to the anti-intellectual streak that seems to dominate a lot of the Right.
No mother should be willing to elect a man who thinks that being smart is bad. No parents should be willing to vote for a man who uses his campaign to mock people who are dedicating their lives to saving the ecosystem and expanding the base of knowledge. (Okay, I guess this is about education and environment.) Frankly, the man shouldn’t scoff at his betters.
Cosmic Variance has some thoughts on this. He (she?) is the one who brought the quote to my attention. They are much more expansive than I have time for right now (dinner needs to be on the table in ten minutes). But please think about it.
Because that’s exactly what he doesn’t want you to do. Think.
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Dark side of the mom 
So why is it important to study Bear DNA?
And again, it is a true question not a slap.
From The Scientific American on this topic: In 2002 Kendall assembled a scientific panel with representatives from the USGS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and FWP, along with other scientific and environmental organizations to determine the best way to measure the remaining grizzly population of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem. It recommended setting up barbed wire hair-snagging stations to painlessly pluck fur from passing bears that would be used for DNA fingerprinting, a technique employed to distinguish individuals of the same species by the differences in their genetic material. This is the only way to accurately estimate population in such heavily forested terrain, where bears are difficult to spot, says Chris Servheen, a grizzly expert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Basically it’s because Grizzly Bears are on the endangered species list and we want them to be around for a long long time.
P.S. I hope the html code works in this comment, I don’t have any idea if it will or not.
It would depend on what position Clinton and Obama take on the Grizzly DNA issue.