The Personal Blog of Stephen Sekula

Politics makes me tired

It’s unbelievable. I had my popcorn, a nice cold beer, and a stats sheet. I was all fired up to watch the unfolding grudge match of the Iraq War Supplemental. Now, I’m just tired of it. Who can keep track of it all? Democrats bypass the appropriators in the House. Republicans revolt, against that and the $90 billion in additional non-war spending in the bill. Blue-god Democrats revolted. The vote was postponed a week. The bill was broken into three votes, one on the war spending, one on the troop withdrawal, and one on the domestic spending. The latter two passed, the first failed. The House sent it to the Senate in this unfinished state, and the Senate appropriators have already done their work.

Who can keep track of all this? I haven’t even been able to keep track of whether or not the proposed science spending made it into the domestic portion, and to be honest I don’t even care anymore. This process could, for all I know or care, be considered a masterpiece of politics. To me, it’s just a confusing mess. Not only that, but the partisan stain impolitely marking this affair makes me want to have nothing to do with any science money that results from it.

What a mess, mess, mess. Like I said, it just makes me sleepy.