Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: “I could give a damn about Rush Limbaugh’s pity”

Video: “I could give a damn about Rush Limbaugh’s pity”

posted at 8:57 pm on October 26, 2006 by Allahpundit
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Limbaugh apologized this afternoon after Fox explained that, in fact, he was overmedicated for the McCaskill ad. He repeated that point to Couric, as you’ll see.

I included the bit where he knocked his lavalier off and she had to help him fix it. CBS would have cut something like that from any other interview. Not here.

Hard to say yet if the ad worked for McCaskill, but it sure did work for stem-cell research.

Meanwhile, somewhere in New York City… Click the image to watch.

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“How dare you object to your money being taken from you by force to pay for things you find morally repugnant?”

That is not the question.

Pablo on October 28, 2006 at 7:56 PM

I never said it was the question. I was only making a point about how you’re trying to frame the debate.

We, as a country, have taken a number of wrong turns. We took a wrong turn when we put down the Whiskey Rebellion. We took a wrong turn when we violently repressed the right of states to secede. We took a wrong turn when we decided that government should subsidize private business. We took a wrong turn when we handed government control of education. We took a wrong turn when we decided the income tax would be a good idea. We took a wrong turn when we decided it was government’s job to take care of everyone’s retirement needs. We took a wrong turn when we decided to help the poor by creating economic incentives to break up families. We took a wrong turn when we decided the 2nd Amendment doesn’t mean what it damn well says. We took a wrong turn when we decided it was proper to outlaw any number of peaceable, honest exchanges between consenting adults.

It doesn’t matter what the Constitution specifically authorizes funding for. It doesn’t specifically authorize highway funding either. Yet we do it.

“That’s the way we do it now” doesn’t cut it. Having a long, sordid, well-established history of pissing on the Constitution is no excuse. The saddest thing about the American experiment is how much of its history we’ve spent trying to convince each other that free enterprise isn’t enough, that free people are inadequate, that anything worth doing should be done by government.

We can’t turn back the clock and go the way we should have gone. There may be no way now to get ourselves out of the situatation we’ve created. But the very least we can and should do is resist any further temptation to take even more steps down that sorry path.

And to answer your question:

There never should have been an NIH.

p.v. cornelius on October 28, 2006 at 8:53 PM

I never said it was the question. I was only making a point about how you’re trying to frame the debate.

I’m asking a question that logically follows from the situation. You want to critique it nine ways to Friday but you won’t answer it. It isn’t a complicated question.

Refusing to answer is an answer, really. You just won’t voice it.

As for the rest, I’m with you on a certain level, being a libertarian at heart. But we don’t live in a society that embraces libertarian principles and we never will. And that argument has nothing to do with ESC’s either, except that it would also do away with breast cancer research and everything else the NIH does. That argument doesn’t treat ESC research differently. But it won’t float for two seconds in America, and that’s the system we have to work with.

Pablo on October 28, 2006 at 9:59 PM

Pablo, you have something to contribute to the discussion of ASC and ESC research, but the topic here is about misleading presentations and I think that readers ought to beware that your comments have been dodgey.

You objected to the following quote from the cited video:

“After 25 years of research with embryonic stem cells — mouse and human — there’s very little evidence that embryonic stem cells are effective in treating disease and repairing tissue”

You first objected by saying:

That’s a damned neat trick, given that researchers didn’t derive the first human embryonic stem cell line until 1998, 8 years ago. Meanwhile, we’ve been working with human ASC’s since 1963, 42 years ago.

You talked of deriving the first human embryonic stem cell line in 1998. You talked of working with adult stem cells in 1963.

And in keeping with your own remarks, I noted the first embryonic stem cells derived from mice in 1981, 25 years ago.

Below are three references in case readers have become confused by your nitpicking, which now appears to be intellectually dishonest, and which points a larger problem that goes to your claimed credibility on this topic.

25 years of Embryonic Stem Cells
Nature Reviews Genetics 7, 319-327 (April 2006)

Also look up the following 1981 article:
Establishment in culture of pluripotential cells from mouse embryos, Nature 292, 154 – 156 (09 July 1981)

And this 1981 article:
Martin, G.R. (1981). Isolation of a pluripotent cell line from early mouse embryos cultured in medium conditioned by teratocarcinoma stem cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 78, 7634–7638.

The quote from the video was 100% accurate.

But now you quibble by moving the goalposts:

We have NOT been doing medical researc with ESC’s for 25 years.

Instead of talking of the year that stem cells were first derived, you now shift to slightly more defensible ground with the phrase, “doing medical research”.

You may wish to define that term so that you can communicate more clearly your previous objections to a quotation that referred to embryonic stem cell research.

* * *

Pablo, you said that “ASC vs ESC is a false dichotomy and a lousy argument.”

And you have yet to put forth a reasonable argument for whatever it is you are advocating here.

* * *

I said:

Destroying a human being (or harming or risking the harm of a human being) as the forseeable consequence of one’s argument for research funding is an important distinction.

Pablo said:

You’ll find a large amount of disagreement on your characterization, particularly among the 64 United Styates Senators that voted to expand funding.

I think you’d find that most of them see the distinction as relevant when weighing how to vote on funding.

But what do you think about incinerating embryos intact? How is that more ethical than trying to help sick people with them?

I’m for helping sick people with morally and ethically sound treatments, but what precisely do you mean by “with them“? Who, precisely?

What do you mean by “incinerating embryos intact“?

Is the human embryo is a human being?

I ask not out of ignorance of the issues involved but because of your history of hyperbolic nitpicking and goalpost-moving in this discussion.

* * *

Why should money not be spent on things you morally disagree with, where it’s ok to spend it on things other people disagree just as strongly with?

What is the relevance of your question? Debates about selectively funding research will usually include disagreement.

Peer review of grant applications in a competetive process works pretty well. Having participated in many such peer review groups, can I cite myself?

You have self-cited all along. I asked about the criteria, not the process. So you might respond to that.

And, as you emphasized process (i.e. peer-review), are such reviewers only technical experts? Such as the 64 senators?

Again, you should be more clear and cutback on the superiority attitude hich is just getting in the way of your argument.

F. Rottles on October 29, 2006 at 2:42 AM

And in keeping with your own remarks, I noted the first embryonic stem cells derived from mice in 1981, 25 years ago.

Discovered not derived. They are not the same thing. Let me repeat myself: Knowing that a thing exists does not mean you’re conducting medical research with it.

Below are three references in case readers have become confused by your nitpicking, which now appears to be intellectually dishonest, and which points a larger problem that goes to your claimed credibility on this topic.

25 years of Embryonic Stem Cells
Nature Reviews Genetics 7, 319-327 (April 2006)

The first para of that, in it’s entirety:

This year marks the 25th anniversary of two papers reporting the first isolation of mouse ES cells. The first impact of the mouse ES papers was enabling targeted gene knock outs in mice, a technology which has revolutionized mouse genetics and developmental biology. It took seventeen more years for Jamie Thomson to isolate ES cells from human embryos, one of the great milestones in human biomedical research.

Thank you for confirming what I’ve been saying all along. Do you know why that was a great milestone in human biomedical research? Scroll up to where I told you about it and you will find the answer. As for the other two cites, I’ll bold this again: mouse cells. A mouse is not a human and you cannot create a human cure with mouse cells. But, as far as what we’ve done with mice and their ESC’s, we know that “The first impact of the mouse ES papers was enabling targeted gene knock outs in mice, a technology which has revolutionized mouse genetics and developmental biology.” Revolutionized. How about that?

Instead of talking of the year that stem cells were first derived, you now shift to slightly more defensible ground with the phrase, “doing medical research”.

The year mouse ESC’s were discovered, not derived. They are not the same. If you can’t keep the terms straight, I can’t help you. But in fact, I don’t think you’re trying to. I think you hope to confuse the issue. It ain’t gonna work, my friend.

And you have yet to put forth a reasonable argument for whatever it is you are advocating here.

Perhaps you’ve missed the ongoing discussion. See here, here, here and here.

I think you’d find that most of them see the distinction as relevant when weighing how to vote on funding.

And they voted yes on it by a 2-1 margin.

I’m for helping sick people with morally and ethically sound treatments, but what precisely do you mean by “with them“? Who, precisely?

Not who, but what. The embryos, of course.

What do you mean by “incinerating embryos intact“?

I mean what they do to them when they’re not going to be implanted in a mother and have the opportunity to realise whatever potential they have and they will not be donated to research. They are treated as medical waste which is often incinerated.

I ask not out of ignorance of the issues involved but because of your history of hyperbolic nitpicking and goalpost-moving in this discussion.

Um…yeah. Right.

What is the relevance of your question?

Hypocrisy. You’re soaking in it. That’s why you refuse to answer the question.

And, as you emphasized process (i.e. peer-review), are such reviewers only technical experts?

The majority are. There are also budget and administrative specialists, and patient advocates.
The criterion is that the project be good science. Sound design, quality investigators, compelling research questions, institutional support, etc.

Again, you should be more clear and cutback on the superiority attitude hich is just getting in the way of your argument.

Right is superior to wrong. I can’t help that.

I’m going to drop this in here again, in it’s original form, just in case anyone decides they’d like to take a crack at it.

Are those of you who think that ESC research violates the sanctity of human life also against military intervention that violates human life of the most incontrovertible sort, i.e. living breathing human beings?

If not, how do you reconcile the two?

Pablo on October 29, 2006 at 6:31 AM

Discovered not derived. They are not the same thing

Actually, I first said that the embryonic stem cells were “first isolated in mice in 1981″, see F. Rottles on October 27, 2006 at 8:55 PM. I was mistaken to slip into playing with your moved goalposts.

If isolating ESC in mice for the first time doesn’t count as embryonic stem cell research, then, I guess you can shift your mobile goalposts wherever you wish them to be.

The past 25 years, as per the source I cited (and you can go back and watch the video), ecompasses the years in which human embryonic stem cell research has been conducted. You have misread the quote and are determined to spin it your way.

You win — I believe that you believe that you are right about this nitpick.

Revolutionized. How about that?

Do you morally equate the destruction of mouse embryos with the destruction of human beings for the sake of research?

Not who, but what. The embryos, of course.

Yes, revolutionary indeed.

The criterion is that the project be good science.

Sure, based on embryos being the “what” rather than who. Do you support creating human beings to destroy for research? Do make any moral distinctions or are all human embryos (or all human beings) candidates for the research mill?

Right is superior to wrong. I can’t help that.

No, I guess you can’t. That is why your attitude of superiority discredits you as much as the intellectual dishonesty exhibited here.

F. Rottles on October 29, 2006 at 4:58 PM

If isolating ESC in mice for the first time doesn’t count as embryonic stem cell research, then, I guess you can shift your mobile goalposts wherever you wish them to be.

In terms of producing a human therapy, which is your entire point in playing with the timeline, no it does not count as it is not human ESC research. You can move the goalposts to Venus if you like. ASC vs. ESC will still be a false dichotomy and a lousy argument.

The past 25 years, as per the source I cited (and you can go back and watch the video), ecompasses the years in which human embryonic stem cell research has been conducted.

1981 = MICE, not humans. This statement is false. Read your own freaking posts. Then go read your link again, where it says:

It took seventeen more years [from 1981 until 1998 - Ed] for Jamie Thomson to isolate ES cells from human embryos, one of the great milestones in human biomedical research.

I do hope that I don’t need to explain the difference between a human and a mouse to you. You really should read the things you link to. The first time we were able to derive, and therefore experiment with, human ESC’s was 1998, period.

Do you morally equate the destruction of mouse embryos with the destruction of human beings for the sake of research?

No, but who is destroying human beings for research? And shouldn’t you be saying “destroying mice” if you think an embryo is in fact what it might possibly one day become? Isn’t an acorn really an oak tree?

Do you support creating human beings to destroy for research?

No, that’s murder.

Do make any moral distinctions or are all human embryos (or all human beings) candidates for the research mill?

No, I firmly believe in leaving alone the ones which are developing into humans in the only place where that is possible. I’ve said that here repeatedly.

That is why your attitude of superiority discredits you as much as the intellectual dishonesty exhibited here.

Says the guy who continues to refuse to answer a perfectly straightforward question. If you’re so confident in the morality of your position, why won’t you answer the question?

Willful ignorance is NOT intellectual honesty.

Pablo on October 29, 2006 at 6:41 PM

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