Sorry for the absence, science has been hellish this week.

It is time to rehash the state of dysfunction of the union.

Children are being arrested for bringing powdered sugar to school in some kind of bizarre drug war overreaction.

Apparently, not all religious people are creationists.

Retarded Man can't ride moped again.

Fundamentalist Mormons are inbred and becoming retarded. They may also soon lose their moped priveleges. Also, always double check your fortune cookie order.

We are all infected with mind-altering parasites. The article doesn't mention it but in humans Toxoplasma infection is associated with increased friendliness in women, and hostility in men, but that might just be a study of trends in cat-people.

Even the WSJ now has an Op-Ed on the illegality of Bush's NSA spy program.

SF Gate states the obvious intelligence was cherry picked on WMD's.

In the incompetence file the White House knew of levee breaches earlier than they said previously, Brownie blames the White House terror obsession on his failures and congressional investigators seem to agree. No Child Left Behind continues to be a failure, the trade deficit has increased 17.5% since last year, a general complains the Iraqi army is unprepared due to incompetence in planning, soldiers aren't getting potentially life saving equipment due to Pentagon incompetence, and in related news Bush's approval ratings are their lowest ever and even his right-wing base is abandoning him.

Not only did Bush know of who the leaker was in his administration (who he said he would fire if he found out), but Libby was leaking on orders from his superiors in other words Cheney told him too. While they like to leak state secrets to the press, the administration apparently frowns upon scientists at NASA or NOAA telling the public about the results of their publicly-funded science.

In lighter news, Berlusconi has pulled a John Lennon and compared himself to Jesus. Probably not a smart move in a Catholic country.