Threat priorities

Okay, I usually try to keep politics out of this blog, seeing that there are avowed Republicans in my family that read it and I want to keep myself on their Christmas-present-buying list, but something in the paper this morning completely dumbfounded me. I mean, I was literally at a loss for words when I tried to complain to Margaret about it. On one page, there was an article about the White House cutting funding for a series of climate-monitoring satellites that were designed to further our understanding of global warming... okay, shocking enough. But the coup de grâce... three pages later, there was an article about President Bush promising to double the funding to create a missle-defense system in Europe! Pouring money into a questionable system that has never been able to do what it promised as a defense against the Russians?!? So the potential threat of those darned Russkies outweighs the threat of rising ocean levels damaging or destroying every single coastal city, not only in the US, but the entire PLANET!!! I just don't get it.