Republican senators version of a great idea: "Hey, all those whiners out there are complaining about high gas prices. Let's wave a hundred dollars in their greedy fat faces and they'll start drooling like Pavlov's dogs. Then we can make all our oil company benefactors happy by putting the opening of the Alaskan Wildlife Reserve to drilling on the same bill. Those people out there are so self-centered, they'll forget that the majority of Americans don't want to defile the Alaskan Wilderness, they'll just want their money money money."

Aren't the conservatives and Republicans out there tired of being manipulated yet? Aren't they tired of being treated like a means to an end rather than the people who are being represented?

Oh, and wasn't it just TWO days ago that Bushie was telling us that the problem wasn't the amount of oil available, but that we didn't have enough refineries to make gasoline? That's why he reduced environmental standards, so the few refineries that we have can make gasoline faster out of the adequate amount of oil we have? So, why exactly do we need to open the Alaskan wilderness? Don't we need to open more refineries?

Oh, yes, I know, someone is going to trot out the "dependence on foreign oil" defense. How about this? How about finding economical alternatives that don't leave us dependent on any non-renewable substance, foreign or national?