so many soap boxes, so little time...or "the state of whose union?"

i'm torn today between writing about the state of the union address last night in all its inaneity and blunder, or my ststematic theology lecture today...which i agreed with perhaps less and which distressed me perhaps more because it's not just politics, it's religion! but i think i'll save the theology soap box for tomorrow because it might not be the best policy to write while still angry. plus my prof will post his lecture for us, so i can show you quotes.

so that leaves the president...

it's amazing how one can say so many words and really say so little. and it's amazing what people will clap for. and it's amazing how with the angle of the camera you can't always tell that only half the crowd is standing...hmm...interesting. (we don't have a tv so we watched a live web feed from the whitehouse.gov website. bailey's and hot chocolate made the event much more palatable--and we also had good company.)

where to begin? i think the energy crisis. ok, so he's right--our country is addicted to oil. (that and about one other comment, that our country needs to provide affordable healthcare for everyone, were about the only things i agreed with from his speech.) so our country's addicted to oil, so we're going to cut down our dependency on foreign oil by 2025 by 75% and beef up our domestic oil production. hmm...that doesn't sound like it will solve the problem of addiction to oil, but maybe i'm missing something? it sounds to me like a not-so-veiled attempt to give an excuse for further alaskan and gulf coast oil drilling. he says cars that can run on ethanol and bio-diesel, as well as hybrids, will be made marketable in 6 years (when he's safely out of office). if that happens, excellent.

but the other solution to the energy crisis, according to bush, is "nucular" energy. so that might solve the energy crisis, but what about the environment and soil, air and water contamination and everything? this he did not address. he only addressed his mispronunciation of nuclear with the adjectives "safe" and "clean," clearly indicating their may be some doubt in other's minds as to whether this would be safe and clean.

i thought we were done talking about the social security thing, but apparently he didn't get the message when congress vetoed it. amusing when all the democrats clapped at that, though! ha!

and then there's iraq...the beginning of the speech sounded more like a "state of iraq" address than a state of our union. he says he'll cut the budget deficit in half and keep from having to tax people in the next few years while he's in office, but i'm not sure how he'll do that when he's pleaded for over $80 billion dollars to be spent on the iraq war (or whatever it's technically called). i'm not mathematician but...how exactly is that going to work?

that was pretty much my question about most of his speech: ok, sounds like an interesting idea--how do you plan to do that? yes, we need better schools, we need to show compassion to the world, we need to create a place where freedom can exist for everyone. how are you going to go about doing that, gw?

i could go on and on, but i think that's enough ranting for one day.