Jed - >>Jindal's comments are an example of the lingering anti-technology, >>anti-science attitude of the Bush administration and the Republican >>Party. Unfortunately, there is a lot of this attitude in the rest of
A demagogue takes things out of context and twists them, weaving truthful content into a lie. It's intellectually dishonest and wrong. You don't know how much it personally saddens me that such a vigorous advocate of real scientific progress on our important energy issues such as yourself chooses to take that route. I've followed your writings since the Compuserve days, and this really does bother me. Jindal was correctly pointing out that volcano monitoring, worthy as it may be, is just an example of the far-fetched things that should NOT be in an emergency economic recovery plan. Volcano monitoring money should be spent, IMO, and everybody, including I would say statistically all Republicans including Jindal, understand that. Pass an environmental monitoring bill or something. But first, handle the HUGE economic emergency facing us with appropriate action. This is just a giant government deficit spending bill that has nothing to do with economic recovery. It's a disastrous piece of legislation, perhaps the most disastrous ever. Jindal was pointing that out in the hope that people like you would understand exactly what he was saying and in the correct context. But instead you, others here and the left now falsely call Jindal antiscience and equate all Republicans with it. This is beyond partisan disagreement, it is a simple lie. It is a lie that is going to hurt us all for years to come should it persist in preventing rational action to take place in our government response to the economy, and it stands a very good chance of destroying us for good. We're blowing what is probably our last chance on this nonsense, and it leaves us too vulnerable. Try look at it this way: say the other shoe drops. Some big secondary economic shock, natural disaster, or devastating terror attack or war. How about a volcano blow that takes out two or three global growing seasons. We won't need $140m on volcano monitoring equipment if something like that down in Indo pops, the 1000 ft wave will be our first clue that the US and the world is out of recovery options. - Rick
