Bush Adminstration Says, "Screw Science and Wiccan Soldiers":
Sometimes one's daily life in George W. Bush's America makes you feel like Sonny Corleone at the right tollbooth at the wrong damn time. You pick up yer morning newspaper or turn on yer NPR and it's like a troop of mobsters just appear out of nowhere and start strafing your sorry ass with machine gun fire, feeling the quick burn and drive of the bullets burrowing into your flesh and meat, the number of 'em coming at you so fast that the force of the bullets actually keeps your dead body upright, turning you into a scarlet Swiss cheese puppet, dancin' that macabre ballet until you finally just collapse into yourself and bleed out. And, like a good Sisyphus, like a damned Prometheus, the next day you gotta do it again.

But then there's also the times you dig around a little bit, like readin' Fark Politics or Think Progress, and on top of the daily hit job, while you're sittin' and waitin' for yer blood to pool in the gravel around you, it's like out of nowhere a dwarf walks up to you and starts kickin' you in the nuts. He's not a particularly strong dwarf, but he's kickin' hard enough to really hurt your balls, which sucks, since you're already full of lead, pissin' yourself, hopin' for the sweet kiss of death. You're not even strong enough to swat the creepy little fucker away. All you can think is, "C'mon, do you gotta kick me in the nuts while I'm already down?" But this is a moot question, for this is the era of the George W. Bush, and, down or not, your balls are fair game for dwarf-punting.

For instance, this week Secretary of Energy Samuel "I Could Not Look More Like an Avaricious CEO If I Tried" Bodman shitcanned the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board. The SEAB is an "independent" body set up in one form in 1978 and in its current form in 1990 "to provide advice, information, and recommendations to the Secretary of Energy on the Department's basic and applied research activities, economic and national security policy, educational issues, laboratory management, and activities and operations of the Department of Energy as the Secretary may direct." Its members "include two Nobel Laureates, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and senior representatives from academia, business, public and environmental groups, labor, and federal/state government." And, as such, is completely useless to the Bush Administration.

In fact, according to a brief mention in the New York Times, the board and its independent research and advice are unneeded since the President laid out an agenda in his State of the Union. Sighed Bodman's spokesperson, the Secretary "believes that we have a strong agenda moving forward with the American Competitiveness and Advanced Energy Initiatives put forth by the White House." 'Cause, you know, with 3 buck a gallon gas just around the corner and no real movement towards anything like an energy policy that doesn't involve getting fucked by the oil conglomerates who don't even offer Americans the good graces of a reacharound, who needs some tweedy board offering "reports" on "science" and "technology"?

Another scrotum bludgeoning is courtesy of the Department of Veteran's Affairs, which, in case you didn't know, has a list of approved religious markers for headstones for dead soldiers for its cemeteries and memorials. Christian, Muslim, Serbian Orthodox, Tenrikyo, you die for your country, and the symbol of your faith can be displayed for all eternity on your grave. Fuck, if you're an atheist, they got a symbol for that - looks like a nuclear atom, but, what the hell, you know. Except if you're a Wiccan.

Yep, if you're a nature-worshippin' pagan, motherfucker, doesn't matter if you left half your internal organs festering on the hillsides of Afghanistan. Your star in a circle ain't welcome on your memorial. So when Wiccan soldier Patrick Stewart of Nevada died when his Chinook helicopter was shot down by an RPG, his family wanted to emblazon his plaque on the memorial wall for Nevada vets with the Wiccan pentacle. Turns out, though, for Veterans Affairs, freedom of religion means the agency decides how you're free to worship. They were told, "Nope. Not on the approved list. Go fuck a tree."

Sure, sure, this'll all be solved soon when the right forms go through the right offices and the right stamps are placed on the right documents, but, still, and all, is this censorship really something the government oughta be involved in at any level?

No, no, it's not as big a deal as Scooter or the bio-labs or Iran or Italy or immigration or hundreds of other searing bullets that fly at us every day. But it's another kick in the nuts. A reminder of the ludicrous times in which we live, the slide into absurdity we are descending.

Correction: Yesterday, the Rude Pundit described Durham, NC as "mostly black." This is not correct. The Rude Pundit should have said "mostly non-white." Durham's only 44% black. according to the 2000 census. It is 48% white. Poin o' the day award to rude reader Alice fer the heads up.