No matter what a Bush loyalist, reading this blog, might have to say about my own personal feelings of American patriotism, to me, America’s glory and promise, no matter the present day’s political turmoil, is best summarized by the little 400 pound collection of human ingenuity now in a flurry of pre-roving robotic activity on a rock-strewn Martian equatorial plain.
America, thanks to intellectual freedom and the physical muscle that has powered a nation through more than 200 years of endless crisis, stands alone on the pinnacle that is Mars.
No analogue recording of terrorist braggadocio can sully this American accomplishment.
While the monocular vision of NASA’s sometimes deadly bureaucracy more accurately reflects the unchanging good old boy connectivity of the larger federal animal, average Americans can’t help but wonder what a bureaucracy that more resembled NASA’s wide scan and oftentimes bootstrapped science might look like.

Some of the unimportant trivia that occupies the incurious mind of the present administration is detailed in an opinion column from yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle tellingly adapted from an article in the December 15th issue of American Conservative.
James Brovard details the Bush administration’s efforts, through a perverted usage of the Secret Service, to crush the constitutionally protected free speech rights of average citizens.
As many of you might already know, federally employed protective agents, on the orders of the Bush administration, regularly instruct local police to remove protestors from our installed President’s highly sensitive field of vision through an Orwellian bit of rationalization:

Secret Service agent Brian Marr explained to National Public Radio, "These individuals may be so involved with trying to shout their support or nonsupport that inadvertently they may walk out into the motorcade route and be injured. And that is really the reason why we set these places up, so we can make sure that they have the right of free speech, but, two, we want to be sure that they are able to go home at the end of the evening and not be injured in any way."

Gee, how thoughtful of our government to forcefully remove peaceful protesters from a highly dangerous hotel or convention center sidewalk to the distant and safe confines of a cozy razor-wired enclosure.
Would Spirit be resting on a rusty Martian plain today if the mullahs of the Bush administration had been able to work their invidious magic upon NASA science as they have upon Treasury’s protective service?

Ever forward oh intrepid little Spirit rover, unless our President just doesn’t like the looks of that rock you are intending to drill.

Photos: NASA, San Francisco Chronicle
- posted by Sean @ 10:36 AM