Astrophysics, Fact or fantasy?

Recent work in astrophysics has become stranger to read than the most fanciful science fiction.  Everything from string theory, m-branes, p-branes (or pea-brains), dark energy, dark matter, alternate universes have no basis in fact, no experiments to prove or disprove, and most importantly does not improve the quality of life except for physicists  getting tax-dollar funding.  These theories are simple mathematical tricks to support certain astrophysical theories that are not holding up to scrutiny with new data captured by our newest telescopes, stars moving at greater than light speed, the size of the universe is lager than can be explained by its age.  

If these physicists are so clever, let them look at the world around us and fix the problems that plague our earth (energy and the green-house effect among others). Cut the funding for these charlatans.

High Temperature Fusion

Since 1952, the U.S has spent 1 billion dollars a year for hot fusion (56 Billion dollars.  In todays dollars, that would be between 150-200 billion dollars. What do we have to show for it? Hot fusion will most probably never work.  It is a engineering nightmare.  If that money was diverted to alternative energy programs, we would see a drastic improvement in our environment and a significant decrease in our dependence on foreign oil.