Reader Bruce Anderson sent us [WSJ Best of the Web] this response to an item yesterday on a column by the New York Times's Thomas Friedman, which Anderson takes more personally than we did:

Have you noticed that the people shouting loudest to make developing oil fields impossible, to tax gasoline to astronomical levels, and to have government subsidized "Manhattan Projects" to create the breakthroughs in solar, wind, waves, bio-mass, etc., are the same people who did not take the math, science and engineering courses in college? Despite their profound ignorance in these subjects, they are sure that creating enough pain will cause those of us who did grind away in these fields for all these years to suddenly have that amazing insight which will let us repeal the third law of thermodynamics. Their core belief is that genius comes forth when misery is piled sufficiently high. Why don't we announce the oil industry is going to build offshore "tire inflation" platforms and put some "auto tune-up centers" in ANWR for good measure, and just go about our business, with these airheads never the wiser?