Screw you, Ted Stevens!

Ted Stevens, you can kiss my Jewish Democratic rear end for screwing the environment. We need energy independence but not at the expense of wildlife!

The Senate, by a 51-49 vote, rejected an attempt by Democrats and GOP moderates to remove a refuge drilling provision from next year's budget, preventing opponents from using a filibuster — a tactic that has blocked repeated past attempts to open the Alaska refuge to oil companies.

The action, assuming Congress agrees on a budget, clears the way for approving drilling in the refuge later this year, drilling supporters said.

The oil industry has sought for more than two decades to get access to what is believed to be billions of barrels of oil beneath the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the northern eastern corner of Alaska.

Environmentalists have fought such development and argued that despite improve environmental controls a web of pipelines and drilling platforms would harm calving caribou, polar bears and millions of migratory birds that use the coastal plain.

Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) all voted in favor of this bill. It's not a good day to be named Daniel...