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There was a time when the world observed the United States from a great distance. Fathers and grandfathers remembered old soldiers from the New World they had once fought with against the Germans and the Japanese in two world wars; sons and daughters watched great Hollywood epics, or imported US sitcoms and variety shows, that shaped their view of that continent far away across the sea.

Ask anyone about America, and they’d respond with phrases like, “Statue of Liberty”, “John Wayne”, “Rogers and Hammerstein”, “Maxwell House coffee”, or maybe the occasional, much loved, president such as, “John F Kennedy”, “Eisenhower”, or “Trueman”.

In those days America was known as the home of the brave, the land of the free. It was far away across a wide ocean, yet everyone knew it had a Dream, even though their only knowledge of its people came from those films and TV programs, or the occasional article in a newspaper.

Times have changed; those days are no more. Now, thanks to technological inventions like computers and the internet, America is no longer distant. No more is it separated by a vast expanse of water. The United States and its people are as close – as this:

How degrading; how vile; how utterly embarrassing. Is this how Americans behave towards each other? If this is how they feel about themselves, it’s little wonder they’ve been so cruel and heartless to the Iraqis and Afghans. Those images from Abu Ghraib suddenly begin to make sense.

America is on display, in a way it’s never been before. No more can it hide behind screens of Hollywood celluloid, the “Dick Van Dyke Show”, or the warm fuzziness of, “Little House on the Prairie.” The world is learning what America is really like. Or, at least, the part of it that seems to matter most: the ignorant, the rude, the obscene, the disgustingly arrogant.

I wonder how many old US soldiers are turning in their graves at the behavior of their sons and daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as they file into their various political rallies today?

Filed under: What happened?

Here we have a fly. Its name is Drosophila melanogaster. It’s only a little fly; the female is about 2.5mm long, the male even smaller.

Drosophila melanogaster has one great asset for us human beings: around 75% of known human disease genes have a recognizable match in Drosophila’s genetic code, and scientists managed to sequence the fly’s genome almost a decade ago, making it possibly the most perfect living creature for research into the causes and treatments of numerous human diseases.

Among them are: Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s, spinocerebellar ataxia, autism, diabetes, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and even the process of aging.

Probably more medical research is carried out on Drosophila melanogaster, than on any other laboratory creature, even mice.

At the foot of this article is a link to an (incomplete) listing of the universities and research stations around the world using Drosophila melanogaster. It’s a very, very long list.^[1]

Few of us would recognize this creature by its Latin appellation. Most, however, would know it by its more recognizable title – the common fruit fly:

That was the Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, telling a group of parents with special needs children, (IDEA^[2]) how their tax dollars are being wasted on research utilizing Drosophila melanogaster.

She kids us not?

It’s likely, if you vote for John McCain, this woman could become the leader of the free world.

I kid you not.

Is there any more frightening prospect?

^{[1] “Drosophila Research Labs on the Web”}

^{[2] “Building the Legacy: IDEA 2004}

Filed under: No flies on Palin

“The [UK] Food Standards Agency has today issued a food alert about novelty food products from China, including chocolate-flavoured ‘willy spread’, containing melamine.

Melamine is an industrial chemical that should not be present in food. Milk products containing melamine have been at the centre of a major food incident in China.

An Agency spokesperson said: ‘This is a first. We’ve never had to put out an alert before on “willy spread” – chocolate-flavoured or otherwise…….”

Read more HERE.

Filed under Organ pollution

NOTE: For those innocent North American ladies who read this blog, “willy” is British for a male sex organ. (From the comments, that innocence is more widespread than anticipated).