Ah, the State of the Union.

Article II, section 3 of the Constitution reads, "[The president] shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient..." Washington gave a speech, John Adams gave a speech, but Thomas Jefferson did it in writing, and so it remained a written document, the President's "Annual Message," for 112 years. Woodrow Wilson revivified the speech in 1913, and it wasn't until 1935 that FDR actually called the speech the "State of the Union." (source)

Last night, King George II rained down the hellfire and brimstone of his State of the Union address. I was happy to see that he didn't introduce every single person sitting in the balcony with the First Lady like Clinton always did. I always thought that was cloying.

Nonetheless, last night's speech was, to say the least, scary and confusing.

For the record, my prediction was correct -- not once did the President utter the word "oil." He did mention "foreign sources of energy" in the biggest surprise of the evening -- $1.2 billion dollars to fund research in hydrogen-powered cars. In theory, that's fantastic, but without legislation requiring them, the research will go nowhere because there will be no demand for the vehicle. It sounds like lip service to me, the President deflecting the arguments that he's only after Iraq's oil. If he really wanted the hydrogen-powered engine, he'd earmark $1.2 billion dollars for hydrogen-powered tanks, airplanes, and other military vehicles. Then, the techology would trickle down into regional transportation, like buses and trains, and finally personal vehicles. And besides, I'm not sure if it's such a good idea driving little Hindenburgs at 65mph.

Ford already has a hydrogen-powered prototype that is proving to be very promising. $1.2 billion dollars sounds not only like lip service, but a kickback.

Then there's the $15 billion over the next five years to fight AIDS in Africa. Huh. Y'know, Bill Clinton had some programs that gave money to AIDS that were broad and covered people in the United States and Africa. Yet Bush's AIDS policies have been very narrow, with their budget's slashed, often focusing on such Christian-friendly topics as infected unborn children, which avoids discussing condoms or sex. And now $15 billion for AIDS in Africa? He specifically said, "treat at least two million people with life-extending drugs." Considering a big fundraiser for Bush is GlaxoSmithKline, chances are that the $15 billion is for barrels of Epivir.

What freaked me out the most in the entire speech was this statement:

All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Put it this way... they are no longer a problem for the United States and our friends and allies.

Am I the only person who finds that statement little creepy? He might as well have said outright that he's trigger-happy.

Or how about the closing remarks:

   Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.
   We Americans have faith in ourselves - but not in ourselves alone. We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.
   May He guide us now, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.

He had already mentioned funding faith-based programs in the speech, why not go totally zealot on our ass? These words have the same amount of fundamentalist vitriol as an Osama bin Laden speech -- imagine these words with "God" replaced by "Allah".