Fuckers Destroy World; Friedman Laments

In what possible moral universe is it acceptable to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling?! Reducing dependence on foreign oil is good on the surface, but not only are dectractors saying that the oil, by simple geography, will benefit Asia primarily, but how about we reduce our dependce on oil, period? This shit makes steam come out of my ears. Bush can talk the talk all he wants about looking for alternative energy sources, but when this budget passes with language about drilling in ANWR, it just highlights what would have been different with a president whose name started with a K.

Also stunning, in a general sense, is the ease with which Republicans manage to cast their policies as good for Joe Worker:

"This project will keep our economy growing by creating jobs and ensuring that businesses can expand," Mr. Bush said, "and it will make America less dependent on foreign sources of energy."

Because we don't like them fer-ners.

What might create jobs, dear Bush, is not slashing the budget of the NSF -- as Friedman puts it in his column of today (linked above):

Finally, on competition policy, the Bush team and Congress cut the budget of the National Science Foundation for this fiscal year by $105 million. I could not put it better than Congressman Vern Ehlers, one of the few dissenting Republicans, who said: "This decision shows dangerous disregard for our nation's future ... at a time when other nations continue to surpass our students in math and science and consistently increase their funding of basic research. We cannot hope to fight jobs lost to international competition without a well-trained and educated work force."

I could just quote his whole column, but you should just go read it.