Beaches? We don't need no stinking beaches!

Congress jump-starts energy bill for Bush

Here it comes. The earth dramatically shifted to the right last November, and this is the first aftershock. A wave crashing onto the shoreline that preludes the tsunami to come.

Last year, Republicans tried to push through an energy bill that included the go-ahead to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a cutback on government spending on coastal restoration after catastrophic oil spills, boosting domestic oil and natural gas supplies, and shielding producers of MTBEs (methyl tertiary-butyl ether) from lawsuits arising from contamination of drinking water supplies in numerous communities.

The bill was defeated, but that was before the shift to a Republican dominated Congress. Now the House is storming the beaches with a vengeance, and the Senate will no doubt follow their lead.

No mention yet of their promises to focus on alternative energy solutions that were so prominent just before the last election, and nary a sound from the "conservation" candidates who pledged to protect the environment in their caimpaign rhetoric.

So grab your surfboards, y'all, and hit the beaches while you can, before they become overrun with tar and dead critters. And buy stock in bottled water, 'cause we're gonna need it once the natural sources are all polluted.

And hang on, 'cause it's gonna be a wild ride!