Search for Intelligent Life

2/9/06

I know a lot of people don’t much care about censorship, and in many cases it’s not really their fault; sometimes it just seems like too large or vague a problem to get your mind around. It’s rather like that opaque Tupperware container we all have at the back of our fridge that has been in there so long we can’t remember what’s in it, and be damned if we’re about to open it up to find out what new and interesting species of growth has taken up residence. It’s just there and we don’t notice it everyday but it slowly gets worse and worse until one day you come home to find that your fridge has exploded in a fermentation bomb of clumpy things that resemble organs afflicted by the Ebola virus. So…that’s like censorship. Uhm…

Oh yeah! I remember (I started drinking too early this morning…or not early enough.) At any rate it’s no secret that this administration (oh god; this again?!) doesn’t much care for dissenting opinions, especially ones that make it look bad. What’s almost funny about this is that the most embarrassing part of the whole matter is not the dissenting opinion itself, but the ludicrous, terrified manner in which they try to cover it up like a mildly simple child sweeping a broken plate under the dog. Namely, they prefer truthiness as opposed to actual truth.

On Tuesday Bush appointed public affairs official for NASA George C. Deutsch, resigned amid accusations that he pressured scientists of the agency to phrase the wording of their statements and reports in a more conservative-friendly tone. Chief among his targets was the use of the term “Big Bang,” of which he wrote in a memo was “not proven fact; it is opinion.” Deutsch ordered the word “theory” follow every utterance of the phrase, lest one give more credence the decades of scientific proof and facts that point to this as the only credible beginning of the universe over the idea that maybe some guy made it…somehow…maybe like with a big-ass oven or something.

He said,

“It is not NASA’s place, nor should it be, to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by creator…This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue.”

He went on to say that they should “downplay this whole ‘earth going around the sun’ thing” and the “shaky evidence concerning gravity.” Okay, I made that up, but you believed it for a second, didn’t you?

James E. Hansen, a top climate scientist (oh, I’m sorry, “student of God’s weather patterns”) said he was urged to tone down his reports on the threat of global warming. I like to think it went something like, “C’mon…C’mon. C’mon, Jimmy, everybody likes warm weather…C’moooooon!” (Deutsch holding out fist for “respect knuckles”)

Deutsch attempted to prevent James from giving an interview to NPR, accusing National Public Radio of being “the most liberal” media outlet in the country. Well, he’s got us there, I think the other day I heard Terry Gross call Dubya a “douche-bag.”

Oh, and I almost forgot: Deutsch, given a prestigious position as public affairs official in the country’s space agency didn’t have a degree. The twenty-four year old claimed to be a journalism graduate from Texas A&M right up until the point the university called a bullshit on it. But he wasn’t a greenhorn, either! Deutsch did work on President Bush’s reelection campaign.

Personally I find it shocking that an unqualified person would be put in a position of power simply by virtue of the fact that he was a friend of the Bush administration. Yes…shocking is definitely the word.

Man…fuck that guy.

On an up note, the following little touch of Dubya getting it from his own people might put a spring in your step. From The Age online comes this little tidbit:


The Administration was this week put under added pressure by the launch of the Evangelical Climate Initiative, in which 86 evangelical leaders endorsed an environmental action plan that calls for mandatory limits on fossil fuel emissions.

"This is God's world, and any damage that we do to God's world is an offence against God himself," the Christian leaders said in a public statement.

Sources: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/bush-man-quits-nasa-under-a-cloud/2006/02/09/1139465794018.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-nasa9feb09,0,5810060.story?coll=la-headlines-nation