It's worse than you think

[elfs]

Remember that bit about the Bush political officer editing NASA science releases? It's worse than you think. Another Bush political officer (yes, that is exactly the term to use, it's perjorative as hell, and it's wholly appropriate) at the Department of the Interior objected to a parks document that stated that the sage grouse had "numbered in the millions" prior to European Settlement in the 19th century, saying there was no evidence for the assertion, and she also question whether the grouse was dependent upon sage for its survival (biologists familiar with the bird say there is no doubt on that question).

Perhaps most egregious, The National Parks Service is under pressure to remove all references to "evolution" from their materials. The word "qualified" has been removed from all descriptions of park managers, as has mention of "scientific evidence gathering" as the basis of making management decisions for our national parks.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

The Russians have a word for the people that do this kind of editing of direction. Zampolit. They also have a word for what I think of at least the American variety of them. Nekulturny. Uncultured, but with a connotation that goes beyond "redneck" or "lout" into the deliberately rude. It's the same level of insulting as if you were questioning a German's sanity, or a Latino's parentage, or a Japanese person's honor. (The former will get you a slander lawsuit like a blitzkreig; the latter two are liable to get you a knife. Point first.) And, yes, I have that little respect for what these idiots are doing.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Pronounced Nyeh kulturrny (please to spit out the last bit), that is exactly the right word, T.S.

(Other Russian invective evoked by this post was kibinimat. With four part harmony and feeling.)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

kibinimat? Not familiar...

[shunra.livejournal.com]

M-F-er.

But you have to get the music right... ...and I happened to learn it in a culture where it frequently made its appearance amidst Arabic invective arranged in the faintly Germanic grammar of modern Herew, declaimed heavily onion-breathed, calloused handed company of the working class of the southern reaches of Tel-Aviv.

Walla, ya rabbak kibinimat ha-em-em-em-emmo shel hakibinamtim. In'al dinak, in'al... etc., etc., etc. (Poetry, I tell you, pure poetry.)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Heh. Kinda reminds me of Tommy Lee Jones giving Mikey what-for in Spanish at the beginning of MIB... you could tell he'd grown up speaking Latino to his neighbors, and didn't have to be coached for it. He had the music down pat.

[mo-hair.livejournal.com]

our next president is going to have to waste an entire term in office just undoing this insanity.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I don't consider time spent cleaning house wasted. I just hope he has the intestinal fortitude (and the political capital) to actually do it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

No, I daresay that this is the End of Science in the USA.

Seriously, what foreign national will want to come here to do research? And foreign nationals will soon be all there is in science in this country, considering how science-illiterate the natives are.