Last month I blogged about NSCAM — pardon me, NCCAM — the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, at which your tax dollars are used to research stuff like whether it is a good idea to try to heal your colon cancer with aromatherapy or various forms of crystal-fondling (hint: no).

Now, Via PZ Myers at Pharyngula — who really really hates religion, but not nearly as much as he would if he had to moderate a deacon meeting with me — I see that Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is all upset because NCCAM is getting icky science all over his hope and belief. First, Harkin is mad because the system is so strongly biased in favor of shots and xrays and science and stuff and against feeling good about crystals:

Clearly, the time has come to “think anew” and to “disenthrall ourselves” from the dogmas and biases that have made our current health care system – based overwhelmingly on conventional medicine – in so many ways wasteful and dysfunctional.

“It is time to end the discrimination against alternative health care practices.

Most importantly, though, Harkin is mad because the folks at NCCAM just don't understand what being the beneficiary of an earmark is all about. If some helpful Democratic Senator from Iowa gets you and all your pals employed at a nice shiny center to study the impact of moonbeams and warm kum-bah-yahs on heart disease, then by God, you'd better find some beneficial effects on the fucking heart disease, capiche? Because if you don't validate your purpose — if you don't show your loyalty to your patron by validating the money he brought home to you — why, you're just throwing it all away:

One of the purposes of this center was to investigate and validate alternative approaches. Quite frankly, I must say publicly that it has fallen short. It think quite frankly that in this center and in the office previously before it, most of its focus has been on disproving things rather than seeking out and approving.

Damn scientists and their scientific method. What's the deal? It's like you're sawing a hole in the bottom of the trough, dudes.

Last 5 posts by Ken

• Marc Stephens Threatens Me Some More - February 3rd, 2012
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