Short posts: stem cell scandal, and Tom Bethell echoing lies

1. From Pharyngula, on the Korean stem cell scandal: "Big buckets of money and a government that wanted certain highly desirable results is a recipe for exploitation, and they seem to have found the man to take advantage of it all."

Sounds like a warning for California, with the billions planned for stem cell research here. We better do it right.

2. Came across this tidbit in The Conservative Book Club review of Tom Bethell's "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science": it includes an "open admission by a Sierra Club official that they want to keep the DDT ban in place because it reduces African populations." (NOTE: Next sentence is wrong; see the bottom of this post.) Presumably that's a reference to Charles Wurster of Environmental Defense (not Sierra Club), and it's a lie that gets told repeatedly in right-wing circles. Anyone (as in Bethell) doing basic research would find that out.

I hope to track down Bethell to challenge him over global warming, which he also denies.

UPDATE: Tim Lambert found a different right-winger attributing an alleged quote to a Sierra Club official, here. As Tim says, no original source is given. The quote is often combined with the fraudulent Wurster quote (see also here and here), so I'm suspicious. A Google search generally leads back to the unsourced, Frontpage magazine Tim mentioned. This could use some additional reseach...

UPDATE 2: Went to a bookstore and found the pages in Bethell's book so I wouldn't have to buy it (pages 83-84). It is a reference to Michael McCloskey, a Sierra Club official, and the source is J. Gordon Edwards' malaria article here. Still researching....