Pailin's French Fruit Flies Fracas or an insult to local French taxpayers

[tocqueville]

"Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? <…> You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not."

the video is available on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCXqKEs68Xk&eurl=http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/1028/1?rss=1


the background is here :

The French Fruit Fly Fracas

By Martin Enserink
ScienceNOW Daily News
28 October 2008
PARIS--Coming from Sarah Palin, it sounded like the ultimate folly: U.S. taxpayer money funding a study of fruit flies in Paris, France. But scientists jumped to the defense of the work that the Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate derided as wasteful on 24 October during a speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The studies, actually carried out at a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) laboratory near Montpellier, 750 kilometers south of Paris, may help protect California olive trees from a serious pest, scientists say.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/1028/1?rss=1

more here :
_________________________________________________________________________
Agency: Department of Agriculture
Bureau: Agricultural Research Service
Account: Salaries and Expenses (12-1400)
Certifying Official: Supervisory Budget Analyst
Contact Information: http://WWW.USDA.GOV 202-720-4623
Olive Fruit Fly, Montpelier, France
1 recipient will receive $304,000. This is a continuing earmark.

Year Enacted: 2005
Description: Restoration of prior year earmark proposed for termination in the FY 2005 President’s Budget for Olive Fruit Fly, Montpellier, France

Beneficiary/Recipient Amount ($K) Program Type Address
Agricultural Research Service
$304
Montpelier, France
Citation
Source: Appropriations Report Language - Conference
Reference: H.R. 108-792
Method: User entered excerpt
Citation Excerpt: H. R. 108-792 CONTINUING PROGRAMS The conference agreement continues the fiscal year 2004 level of funding for all research projects proposed to be terminated in the President’s budget as provided in House Report 108-584 and Senate Report 108-340 accompanying the fiscal year 2005 Agriculture Appropriations bills.

Citation Comment: In FY 2005, all ARS funding was reduced by Across the Board Rescission of .008.

Last Modified: 10-Jul-2007
http://earmarks.omb.gov/earmarks/earmark_210622.html

_____________________________________________

France-Based Lab Plays Key Role in U.S. Biocontrol Research
By Jan Suszkiw
April 17, 2001

Parasitic wasps, flies, fungi and bacteria abound at the Agricultural Research Service’s European Biological Control Laboratory (EBCL) in Montpellier, France. There, ARS and collaborating scientists are subjecting these organisms to a battery of tests aimed at pitting them against non-native insects and weeds that endanger U.S. agriculture.

Montpellier, on France’s Mediterranean coast, is a strategic locale: From this seaside city, EBCL scientists can hop flights to the pests’ points of origin in North Africa, the Middle East, Balkans and Asia, <where natural enemies can be found. Typically, they’ll explore sites where the crops, climate or habitat matches a particular U.S. region where a pest has become established and a biocontrol agent is needed.

Entomologists Kim Hoelmer and Dominique Coutinot, for example, are now rearing Hymenopterous wasps, collected last fall from Tunisia, that parasitize olive fruit flies. In California, the fly’s establishment threatens the state’s $33.9 million olive industry. Charles Pickett, a California Department of Food and Agriculture cooperator, is seeking fruit fly parasites that could be released into olive groves as part of an integrated approach to controlling the pest.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2001/010417.htm

but it's worse than that...

The research is largely financed by local French taxpayers too :

The European Biological Control Laboratory (EBCL) of the United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA/ARS) was established during 1991 in Montpellier. This new laboratory facility resulted from a fusion of the former European Parasite Laboratory, which began operating during 1919 in France, and a Biological Control of Weeds Laboratory, which started during 1958 in Rome. EBCL is now the leading overseas ARS biological control laboratory and is the first research facility to have been constructed beyond the borders of the United States by the USDA Agricultural Research Service.
.....

The USDA/ARS acknowledges and greatly appreciates the sponsorship and support from the town of Montferrier-sur-Lez in the purchase of 20,000 m2 of land, and from AGROPOLIS in helping to implement building of our new 1800 m2 laboratory. USDA/ARS is most grateful for subventions provided by the Region and the District in support of the building project. Within the international campus of AGROPOLIS at Montferrier-Baillarguet neighbors of EBCL, such as the CSIRO, INRA (CGBP) and CIRAD are immensely appreciated. This new USDA facility will help the United States considerably to join with international cooperators to solve acute agricultural and environmental problems.

http://www.ars-ebcl.org/PageUS/AboutEBCL.htm
http://www.ars-ebcl.org/PageUS/About.htm
__________________________________________________________________________

Palin’s statement gives the French expression “enculer des mouches” (”to sodomize dipters” in "scientific" language or to assfuck flies in vulgar one) - which is a colorful way to express "to nit-pick, to squibble, to split hairs" ........... a whole new meaning.

Obviously she was aiming at the earmark towards research about olive fruit flies near Montpellier, but I guess that with her background “fruit-flies” are suspicious in general due to their use in evolutionary studies, even if it was probably unconscious. The choice of Paris is because she cannot see Montpellier from her window, not even Montpelier, Vermont, and because her knowledge in geography places Paris as the only town she knows in France. Of course it’s better than Paris, Texas. Which is not too bad, given her background.

I did some research this afternoon about the USDA facility in France and even if I found no direct figures, there is a note from 2002 that the US earmark money has been partially cut back. Anyway the Languedoc Region has a budget of roughly 27 millions euros for local scientific research out of a total budget of 1 billion. The links I provided show that the Region basically built the whole new lab and surrounding facilities with local taxpayer money. Of course the French do that because it creates jobs and wealth locally. But they still do an effort with local money (Montferriez-sur-Lez is a little town and they could have invested their 20000 m2 in maybe more lucrative projects than ground research). Anyway French and US scientific investments are profitable for both Mediterranean and Californian agriculture.

So it makes Palin’s statement not only an insult to science but an insult to Languedoc and California in general. And to our local taxpayers, including me.

Fuck you Pailin

Tocqueville

PS the losses for the destruction of olive crops caused by the flies in California are estimated to several million dollars.

[DBoon]

1. California olive trees ?

Obviously not part of real America. Real Americans eat pickles, not olives.

And "fruit flys" sounds suspiciously homo-sexual, too

[tocqueville]

2. what about Martinis ? are they gay too ? n/t

[ContinentalOp]

3. Invented in the Bay Area so yes, they obviously are. -nt-

[DBoon]

4. not as gay as cosmopolitans, but close enough

What's wrong? Isn't Bud Lite good enough for you?