Why being an engineer in the US now sucks

This is a rant related to an IEEE press release. If you look at the background of the current federal polititians, national policy is being made by managers and lawyers. Neither of these groups consider engineering to have any value except when it involves ownable intellectual property. IP is not a totally evil concept, although I do work with folks that think it is, but these polititians see no fundamental difference in the "IP" refered to by the MPAA/RIAA and the "IP" refered to by the IEEE/ACM. Obviously the former group would like to see Copyright eliminated and replaced with something like a 100 year Patent and they're well on their way. Of course with the advent of tele-medicine, maybe it should be pointed out to Dr. Frist that his profession can now safely be outsourced to the worldwide lowest bidders as well.