10/23/2006
Towleroad Guide to the Tube #46
BARNEY FRANK on BILL MAHER: On outing gay Republican politicians. Frank nails it.
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE: Getting slapped in the face with somebody's meat.
MICHAEL J. FOX: Helps out Missouri candidate Claire McCaskill in her run for the Senate and discusses the need for stem cell research, but also reveals the devastating toll Parkinson's Disease has taken.
NANCY PELOSI on IMPEACHMENT: "Making them lame ducks is good enough for me."
Make sure to catch all our guides to the Tube here!
Posted 11:00 AM EST by Andy Towle in Advertising, Barney Frank, Justin Timberlake, News, Towleroad Guide to the Tube | Permalink
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Jesus, that was heartbreaking. I'll never understand the double-standards. IVF treatment is ok, but using those very cells that are often destroyed for IVF to try and help people is not?!
Posted by: Kevin | Oct 23, 2006 11:16:53 AM
Andy-- How'd the move go? Hope the new place is great!
Posted by: Christian | Oct 23, 2006 11:37:09 AM
Barney Frank was amazing on that episode of Bill Maher. He made a lot of great points about the Bush administration in general and pointed out all of the shady statistics the right-wing guy was reciting. Watch the whole ep if you get a chance!
Posted by: Anita Woodward | Oct 23, 2006 11:56:48 AM
Alas, if stem cells were a cure-all then private money would be pouring into research, but it isn't and so the money has to come from the Feds. A lot of research grants are self-fulfilling fantasies for those researchers who can't get funding any other way. They should be restricted to basic or fundamental research rather than practical research which is better left to private funding. That said, religious objections to stem-cell research only seems to target Federal money, which is odd. Why aren't they trying to ban private research in similar areas? Sounds like grandstanding to me.
Posted by: Anon | Oct 23, 2006 12:25:22 PM
Barney Frank is absolutely right, period...
Posted by: Robert In WeHo | Oct 23, 2006 12:36:27 PM
Oh shut it about bad-mouthing researchers. Do you know how many cures/treatments have been the by-products, unintentionally, of exploratory research in a completed unrelated area??! Research into everything is the best hope millions of people suffering from a variety of ailments have.
and yes, watching just 5 seconds of that video is rough for me. I feel like i've grown up with that guy, and to see what has happend to him, really in the past year, is devastating. then i think that some people think that;s just god's plan and research on emryos that would never be a child is against god's plan and i want to scream.
Posted by: chrisnyc | Oct 23, 2006 1:05:35 PM
I really only know about the American government's attitudes and policies towards gay people thanks to this blog (this is, by the way, a great site), but Barney Frank is the sort of policitian we in the UK are crying out for - someone who is passionate about justice, and has the logic and facts to shout down people who have neither. He was a pleasure to watch.
Posted by: Ren B. | Oct 23, 2006 1:14:13 PM
Frank is not my favorite person, but instead of celebrity rim jobs like "Visibility Awards," HRC should be giving a Frank Kameny Kick Ass Award and this Frank should be the first recipient. We essentially remain under the boots of the American Taliban because 99% of our spokespeople [when we are allowed to comment on our own lives on shows AT ALL] meow like wet kittens when faced with their propagandists.
Posted by: Leland | Oct 23, 2006 1:26:32 PM
DAMN!
Go Barney go!!
Posted by: Zeke | Oct 23, 2006 2:02:18 PM
DAMN!
Go Michael go!
Posted by: Zeke | Oct 23, 2006 2:03:50 PM
DAMN!
Go Nancy go!
Posted by: Zeke | Oct 23, 2006 2:04:35 PM
Please cite some cures developed from research over the past 40 years. I've seen studies of citation statistics indicating that upwards of 90% of all research papers go unread after publication. Colleges put pressure on non-tenured PhD's to bring in the $$$ from grants just as any business would pressure its sales staff to make sales.
BF always seems a bit too humorless for me.
Posted by: Anon | Oct 23, 2006 2:23:43 PM
90% of all research papers go unread?! HA! As a research scientist, I can tell you that's complete crap. Work only gets published if there's a market for it. And with the internet it's very easy to get access to a paper.
Posted by: Kevin | Oct 23, 2006 2:29:32 PM
Anon, since we're offering challenges, I have one to offer you. I challenge you to find one example of a disabled person who might benefit in any way from advancements in stem cell research who is against ANY form or source of funding.
I have a list of social conservatives who are VERY vocally in support of any and all funding. I'll start with Nancy Reagan.
As for Barney being "humorless"; few conservatives find him to be "funny" by the "humorous" definition of the word just as liberals generally don't find humor in O'Reilly's nightly comedy show.
Posted by: Zeke | Oct 23, 2006 2:45:43 PM
"Unread" may have to be changed to "uncited" to make sense I guess, though from a sheer practical point of view it makes sense either way. Kevin: how many papers do you publish annually? How many get cited by other papers?
Zeke: your question is framed with only one possible answer (assuming the disabled want to be cured): no one who would benefit from stem cell research would be against funding such research. However, this leaves open the question of whether stem cell research would do any good.
To put the problem in a different light: Let's say a research scientist proposed that Parkinson's can be treated by direct electrical stimulation of the brain, but that he needed $1 billion to pursue this. Now, on what basis do we decide that this is reasonable? Should this displace stem cell research? Would not each side fight for those scarce dollars? What gets thrown out with the bathwater? There are opportunity costs. This has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative.
Conservatives find BF to be obscene, not just humorless. Don't put me in their camp.
Posted by: Anon | Oct 23, 2006 3:52:08 PM
There is a treatment for Parkinson's disease involving "direct electrical stimulation" of the brain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_brain_stimulation
Maybe you knew that but it's besides the point anyway...
Anyway, uncited makes more sense but I find 90% to still be incredible (maybe that figure takes into account EVERY article published - history etc - and not specifically medical research papers of the type we're concerned with here). Regardless just because an article isn't cited doesn't mean that's it's not relevant. If only because someone else's work can give you ideas about your own.
As for me, ask me again in a year. I'm still waiting on my former supervisor to read them.
Posted by: Kevin | Oct 23, 2006 4:17:31 PM
Actually, it's a shame that we have to choose between which promising study to fund, simply due to a lack of funds.
We ALL know where a few extra billion dollars are being wasted that could be used to actually save lives instead of destroy them.
"Conservatives find BF to be obscene, not just humorless. Don't put me in their camp."
TOUCHE my friend. :)
Posted by: Zeke | Oct 23, 2006 4:18:50 PM
As for whether stem cell research will do any good, we'll never know unless people study it. I believe it will but it will be a good few years down the road. My basic problem with the arguments for and against human embryonic stem cell research is the hypocrisy, as I mentioned above. IVF good, stem cells bad. It's stupid but rarely does anyone come out against IVF treatment because nobody wants to be seen as denying a woman the right to reproduce.
Posted by: Kevin | Oct 23, 2006 4:21:25 PM
Ok, Anon, I've done a few google searches and, while the page I found was in French, the pie chart seems to show that about 60% of papers have not been cited, and about 30% have only been cited between 1 and 5 times. However, I also found that on average it takes 3 years for a paper to be cited which would skew the results slightly, especially as more and more papers are published each year. Regardless, one citation is enough in my opinion. I was so close there to conceding...
Pie chart:
http://www.crsc.uqam.ca/lab/chawki/pc.GIF
Page:
http://www.crsc.uqam.ca/lab/chawki/
classement_citations.htm
Stat on average citation time:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/
articlerender.fcgi?artid=27352
Posted by: Kevin | Oct 23, 2006 4:46:21 PM
I agree with Kevin on this. It’s the hypocrisy of the religious right, and their minions in Washington, that pisses me off most about this debate. It seems so hypocritical that the people who seem most concerned about saving clumps of cells (scheduled to be discarded anyway) and those who complain most about the billions of dollars that would be spent to fund the research are the VERY SAME people who have no problem with spending billions to fund the bloodbath of real live humans in Iraq.
The "Party of Life" indeed.
Posted by: Zeke | Oct 23, 2006 4:53:24 PM
So close! I wonder if they included authors that cite themselves...
Posted by: Anon | Oct 23, 2006 5:03:59 PM
Ha. I wonder too (now that you've mentioned it).
Posted by: Kevin | Oct 23, 2006 5:40:12 PM
I adore Michael J Fox. What a powerful ad.
Posted by: Blair | Oct 23, 2006 7:38:58 PM
Rush Slimeball has declared that Michael J. Fox either faked his symptoms or intentionally went off of his meds for a period of time in order to make his symptoms worse just so he could make a commercial that is critical of our immaculate leader's stem cell research policy.
There you have it folks. Rush Limpballs, a man with impeccable journalistic credentials and a spotless record of ethics and morality has determined that this ad is nothing more than the product of a Bush hating actor "acting" like he unable to control himself.
Is there no level to which this hateful bastard won't stoop?
Posted by: Zeke | Oct 23, 2006 9:17:23 PM
There are those who say that the big R is gay...
Posted by: Anon | Oct 23, 2006 9:20:38 PM