A little off topic but does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the Department of Energy during the Carter Administration?

It was very simple, and at the time everybody thought it appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted August 4, 1977 TO LESSEN OUR
DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.

And now it's almost 2009, 32 years later and the budget for this necessary department is at $24.2 billion a year, they have 16,000 federal employees, and approximately 100,000 contract employees.

Ah yes, effective, efficient bureaucracy. And now we are going to turn the banking system and the auto industry over to them with billions of dollars of our tax money for a problem the government says they can fix.

Things that make you go hum...