It’s the story of a man, P. Leonardo Mascheroni, who has had a life-long obsession with developing the laser technology, sending plans and hundred-page-long letters to lawmakers and experts in hopes of finding a supporter. But support never came, and Mascheroni’s obsession, the FBI alleges, took a dark turn when he accepted money from an undercover agent posing as a Venezuelan official who promised him to help develop the technology.

It’s definitely worth a read.

An excerpt:

Dr. Mascheroni, 75, is a nuclear scientist who has spent the 22 years since he left the Los Alamos National Laboratory trying to sell Congress, the scientific community, journalists — anyone who would listen, really, including this reporter — on his plan to build a giant laser for the achievement of nuclear fusion.

His plan earned respect and high-level endorsements, but the government chose a different path. Rather than give up, Dr. Mascheroni redoubled his campaign, sending out lengthy technical documents from his home in New Mexico to try to coax Washington to finance his laser.

“You’d get these fat FedEx packages,” said Steven Aftergood, a security expert at the Federation of American Scientists.

As he was snubbed by Congress and federal experts, Dr. Mascheroni, a naturalized citizen who was born in Argentina, grew increasingly frustrated and bitter. He became known in Washington for veiled threats to take his atomic expertise abroad unless the government backed his laser plan. He seemed to think that he could bully the federal establishment into big spending, according to people on the receiving end of his missives.

Florida Republican Connie Mack is circulating a congressional resolution that effectively supports the coup. So far, the Congressional Coup Caucus includes Dan Burton (Republican from Indiana), Jeff Fortenberry (Republican from Nebraska) and Dana Rohrabacher (Republican from California).

The resolution is kind of what you’d expect from the Venezuela-obsessed Mack: “Whereas since his removal, Mr. Zelaya has been flown around the hemisphere by Hugo Chavez’s private jets.”

Via Aravosis.

President George W. Bush announced today that he will release oil from the country’s emergency reserves in the wake of Hurricane Gustav. The reason? Because an oil company asked, of course.

From Reuters:

“Last night we got a request from a company doing business here in Louisiana and we met that request,” Bush told reporters, referring to a request by Citgo Petroleum Corp, which is owned by the Venezuelan state oil company.

“Oil was released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and we will continue to do that upon request by companies,” Bush said after being briefed on recovery efforts in Louisiana.

For months, House Democrats have been calling (to no avail) on the Bush administration to tap part of the petroleum reserves to ease fuel prices at the pump. Following Wednesday’s announcement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had some choice words for a president more receptive to oil companies than to Congress:

By ignoring the needs of consumers but responding to the request of oil companies, it is clear that the Bush-Cheney-McCain energy decisions are made with only one thing in mind — Big Oil.

Not that Pelosi’s plan to use the U.S. emergency cache is anything but a band-aid on a larger problem. But GOP criticism that the resource should be saved for emergencies only rings hollow considering that scores of Republican have spent the last month in Washington screaming from the rafters about the dire need to address the issue with an offshore drilling vote.

What do you call a debate in which neither side has a leg to stand on?