Geoff, I heard/read your goggle story previously. Sorry Geoff, I think the strategy is bogus. At first read, your conclusion seems reasonable. However, you didn't run any 'control' experiments. If you google the words below and then add crisis, you get the following percentages of the original hits.

Mental Health 53% Iraq 24% Poverty 22% Defense 14% School 13% Education 10% Research 10% Religion 9% Budgetary 7% Housing 3%

Words that are at the top of the list are understandable since mental health in our country is in a true crisis situation - and the Iraq mess is commonly referred to as the Iraq crisis. However, school, education, research, and religion are in the middle of the list with lesser association values. Housing - which for a family whose home was devastated by Katrina has to be a real crisis - is at the bottom of this list. So what does this tell us about the 'google-crisis-approach' to science funding? Likely, it simply reflects current attitudes in our US culture. Attitudes which are fundamentally alarmist and extreme in nature - and we're afraid of everything (the Bush administration has propagate the belief that we need to be afraid). Listen/read the news –everything is blown out of proportion - and we are in a state of crisis or excitement about the most trivial of things. Your second topic stated "I think this is going to get pretty ugly." Sorry again to disagree, but I think it has already gotten ugly! Over the past 3 years, I'm 'batting' 0/8 grant applications/resubmissions for 3 different projects to three different federal agencies. The 'ugliness' I've experienced is more related to the review process and panels than to policies of the agencies themselves. I believe the funding agencies need to get more assertive in directing 'the panel' review process if the Matthew effect (aka Robert K. Merton) in research funding is be avoided.