Government sponsored research into alternative energy and greater fuel efficiency might just pay off in every way imaginable, even if the climate change worries are totally off the mark! Does it make sense to allow our entire economic fate to be held in the ruthless palm of the House of Saud and the bin Laden family, protecting their profits and keeping a tenuous hold on dwindling, finite supplies of oil half a world away with the blood of our youth and the treasure of our nation? Or might it make sense to lead the world in new technology and create jobs at home using a proven fusion of science, business, and policy? The former means preserving the status quo---along with permanent bases in Iraq and elsewhere for the next fifty years. More of the grim tragedy, never-ending expense, and unpredictable chaos we've seen far too much of for the last three years. The latter approach took us from Explorer 1 to the Sea of Tranquility in a decade.

The United States is, if anything, a science and technology nation. We can lick climate change and solve a bunch of other problems, if we make it a priority. And, if the party in power throws their arms up in the air whining "we can't", then maybe it's time for We the People to elect some leaders who can.

That's exactly right. Somewhere in the American character, suppressed and ignored, lurks the "Can Do" attitude that's gotten us through so many crises in the past, and the party that taps into that and convinces the people that the right approach is not to ignore problems, or try to define them away through ideological sleight-of-hand, or to go at them like a bull in a china shop with no sense of what the problem is and what a properly measured solution to it would be, that party is going to prevail in the long run, and that party has a chance to actually save us from the worst excesses of our worst citizens.