House Republican GOP to turn special interest research and hearsay into "the best available science."

Remember when tobacco executives said smoking didn't cause cancer? It was based on their own research...science. Or that climate change is fake, based on corporate research they call "science." 

Well, Republicans want to make the stuff churned out by think tanks and corporations into policy making "science." 

And they're hoping slip this stuff by the public, who probably won't notice the play on words. Who are they? Roll Call:

ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT HURDLES: The House passed a Republican-drafted bill (HR 4315) requiring the Department of the Interior to publish online the scientific basis of all new “endangered species” and “threatened species” designations under the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA). The bill also requires the department to treat data from state, local and tribal governments as “best available science and commercial data” in making decisions on species protection.

What data? Hearsay science? Special interest “science.” Republicans want what could be called “data” from the state, local and tribal governments. They also want it treated as “the best available science,” even if it might not exactly be science. That’s like the state asking people to report seeing deer and treating it as an official “count.” Oh, they’re already doing that.

My Head Explodes: I don’t understand how small government Republicans who believe in the free market can write laws that limit private attorney fees in lawsuits. I’m stumped. Here’s another instance written into this bill:

In addition, the bill puts a $125-per-hour cap on government payments of “prevailing attorney fees” in litigation challenging endangered-species designations.

Hey, let’s cap government payments to those attorney’s representing politicians in John Doe probes. I’m all for it now.

Voting yes to turn special interest research into “the best available science” and meddling in private sector attorney’s fees: Ryan, Sensenbrenner, Petri, Duffy, and Ribble.

And when Democrats tried to fine tune and define what was scientific: 

Republicans  refused to strip HR 4315 (above) the “best available scientific and commercial data,” even if it has not been subjected to peer review. In the scientific community, peer review is a discipline in which new research is not accepted as valid until it is evaluated by other experts in the same field.

Voting against the revision and making it perfectly clear actual science was not what they were looking for: Ryan, Sensenbrenner, Petri, Duffy, and Ribble

Some meat eaters luckier than others.

I  don't focus on science as much as I should, but I thought this interesting study might make a lot of us look into our meat eating habits. I don't eat that much of it myself, can't afford it, but the following study just might help a few of us understand howand why meat is harming our arteries.

Doctors have long assumed that saturated fat and cholesterol in red meat are what raise the risk of heart disease. But a study in the journal Nature Medicine fingers another culprit: carnitine, a compound abundant in red meat

Carnitine typically helps the body transport fatty acids into cells to be used as energy … certain bacteria in the digestive tract convert carnitine to another metabolite, called TMAO, that promotes atherosclerosis, or a thickening of the arteries.

The researchers tested the carnitine and TMAO levels of omnivores, vegans and vegetarians, and examined records of 2,595 patients undergoing cardiac evaluations. In patients with high TMAO levels, the more carnitine in their blood, the more likely they were to develop cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, stroke and death … may help explain the underlying risk of eating red meat, which some researchers have long thought was higher than the saturated fat and cholesterol content alone could explain.

Dr. Hazen speculated that carnitine could be compounding the danger. “Cholesterol is still needed to clog the arteries, but TMAO changes how cholesterol is metabolized—like the dimmer on a light switch,” he said. “It may explain why two people can have the same LDL level [a measure of one type of cholesterol], but one develops cardiovascular disease and the other doesn’t.”

One surprising finding, Dr. Hazen said, was how a long-term diet that includes meat affected the amount of TMAO-producing bacteria in the gut and thus magnified the risk. In the study, when longtime meat-eaters consumed an eight-ounce steak and a carnitine supplement, their bacteria and TMAO levels rose considerably. But when a vegan ate the same combination, he showed no increase in TMAO or bacterial change.

“Vegans basically lose their ability to digest carnitine,” said Dr. Hazen.

The study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, didn’t assess how little red meat people could consume and still have elevated TMAO. Nor did it look at how long someone had to abstain from red meat to end the process. “We know it will be longer than one week, but shorter than one year,” Dr. Hazen said.

He and his colleagues have been exploring how altering gut bacteria might influence the risk of heart disease. “In the future, maybe there will be a heart-healthy yogurt, or a drug to block the formation of TMAO,” he said.

"The dark disk of Venus cutting its path across the sun."

The most amazing and beautiful video images of Venus crossing the Sun.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught amazing images of the dark disk of Venus cutting its path across the sun. The SDO is NASA’s most technologically advanced tool for studying the sun. The ship is equipped with specialized cameras that provide images with eight times better resolution than hi-def TV. The video below condenses the almost seven hour event into about three minutes.

According to the Goddard Space Flight Center:

The videos and images displayed here are constructed from several wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light and a portion of the visible spectrum. The red colored sun is the 304 angstrom ultraviolet, the golden colored sun is 171 angstrom, the magenta sun is 1700 angstrom, and the orange sun is filtered visible light. 304 and 171 show the atmosphere of the sun, which does not appear in the visible part of the spectrum.

Tennessee now allows free discussion of creationism, non-scientific and other ideas in the classroom.

Since the massive Republican takeover of the U.S. House and state legislatures in 2010, it will be easy to mark that year as the start of the decline of education in America. Funding cuts, privatization on the cheap, skewed history textbooks and the introduction of fuzzy science has started the ball rolling downhill.

In a few years, when scores slowdown and eventually start declining, Republicans will once again blame liberal course work and the remaining public schools. When Wall Street crashed, conservatives blamed the few remaining regulations for weakening the free market. The same ploy will be used for schools.

Nothing Republicans ever do can be blamed for anything, since what they do flows from the purity of faith and ideology. And the reasons for failure, those messy details, they just get in the way.

Again, burn it into your memory; 2010 was the beginning of the end of the American educational system.  Here's just one story of many:  

Ed Week: Tennessee's Republican governor said Tuesday he will let a bill become law that protects teachers who allow students in their classrooms to criticize evolution and other scientific theories, such as global warming … Tennessee was the state where the nation's first big legal battle over evolution was fought nearly 90 years ago.

Critics derided the legislation as the "monkey bill" … Some contend the measure could open the door for religious teaching in the classroom … backers said it would encourage critical thinking by protecting teachers from discipline if they help students critique "scientific weaknesses."

Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, said terms such as "strengths and weaknesses," and even "critical thinking," are used by those seeking to introduce non-scientific ideas—such as creationism and intelligent design—into the science curriculum. Tennessee Education Association lobbyist Jerry Winters said "And with all the emphasis on science, technology and engineering and math, it just seems to be moving totally in the wrong direction." 

Wisconsin gets F grade for state science standards. After all the funding cuts, there’s nowhere to go but down for Walker.

Lost in the rush to pass out vouchers like dollar store gift cards, is the knowledge that parents can shop anywhere for anything that calls itself a “school.” 

In countries that provide a nationwide vouchers, there is also a nationwide curriculum and test.

Almost all of the states that are privatizing education via the deep pockets of cash strapped taxpayers, allow parents to go out and buy anything that calls itself a “school.” This is the same public we see buying wrist magnets, abs machines and Eggies (I’m guilty of the latter).

That’s where we’re taking education? As Wisconsin Republicans trash one of the better systems in the country, they will also give themselves more ammunition as to why public education should be dismantled. A new report just piles on what is already happening now under Scott Walker:

Education Week: A new review offers a "bleak picture" of the state of state science standards across the nation, with just over half earning a grade of D or F. Only California and the District of Columbia were given a solid A. The Fordham report, issued last week, focuses on two main areas: "content and rigor," and "clarity and specificity."

The study comes as a major effort is under way to develop a set of common, "next generation" science standards. Twenty-six states are playing a lead role in crafting the new standards.

In explaining the F grade handed to Wisconsin, one of 10 states to receive failing marks, the Fordham report describes the standards as "simply worthless," saying "no real content exists to evaluate."

Patrick J. Gasper, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, said that his state's standards were "considered exemplary" when released in 1998, but that they are not grade-specific. "…providing too much specificity ran counter to our system, where local control is important," he said.

Is Gasper saying “simply worthless” is good, and the excuse to do nothing via “local control” is better? And 14 years of curriculum research, evaluation and “innovation” doesn’t count?

Remember, voucher and charter schools are promoted by the right wing as outside the box “innovators,” and are in many ways critical to the effort to improve education and create competition.

So it’s not surprising that the Republican administration under Walker, the purveyors of bad government, would also contradict their position on local control:

Wisconsin officials are "anxiously awaiting" the completion of the common science standards, Gasper said.

But are they using the top standards template already set up in California and D.C.? Who knows:

Fordham report's Ms. Porter-Magee said "Those standards in both cases were very comprehensive, really outlined all of the important science content that students need to learn across all the disciplines and all the grades.