Incoming EPA Head Pledges to Mine Earth's Precious Core

ichael O. Leavitt, the president's pick for head of the Environmental Protection Agency celebrated his first day on the job Thursday, with the promise to "eliminate the environment by 2010, and completely mine the Earth's precious core."

When questioned by reporters if eliminating the environment should be the aim of the EPA, Leavitt shrugged and said, "I gotta do something. I wasn't put here to sit on my butt."

Leavitt was a controversial choice for the four remaining liberals in the U.S., with a history of "fuck the environment" environmental policy in his former position as governor of Utah. Accusers point out Leavitt's passing of laws preventing lawsuits against agricultural polluters and his opening of Utah wilderness to build government roads through. Leavitt, contrastly, points to large sections of forest in California and makes bets on how fast they'll go up in flames if ignited.

The EPA's new leader arrived the day after the agency announced they were dropping 70 investigations of coal-burning power plants for disobeying local or national ordinances for output of pollutants. Leavitt confirmed Thursday it was part of the EPA's new policy, "I didn't see it. Did you see it?"

"The enviro-nuts out there can complain all they want," said Leavitt, munching on a California condor egg salad sandwich, "but tell me this: Did you see anything? I didn't see it. I wasn't there when they supposedly dumped all this smoke into the air. Who's to say it even happened?"

"Mmm," added Leavitt, "it's endangered-licious."

Critics accuse the White House of putting crony Leavitt in charge of the EPA in an effort to pussify the agency, part of an ever-growing trend by the Bush administration to save money and gain political favor with polluting companies by relaxing environmental laws. Leavitt has been denounced by environmental advocates before for his various outrageous plans to increase government income at the expense of the ecology. Some of his plans include lighting the Statue of Liberty's torch with real fire and allowing companies to blot out the sunlight so Americans can pay a surcharge to get it back.

Among Leavitt's most outspoken plans is to drill for fire in the Earth's core, a plan which he says could increase national income grossly and create exciting new areas of energy industry, and which opponents say will cause the Earth to collapse on itself and annihilate the human species.

"Where do we get heat from?" questioned Leavitt when he spoke at an alternative energy resources conference last month. "From coal, from gas, from the sun. We're almost out of the two and the other one is so far away we can't reach it. Coal comes from the Earth, right? Well, I'll bet you anything it's even hotter deeper in the Earth. We can take liquid magma, hot Earth core, and it can probably heat your home for a good two or three years."

When dissenters claimed the process of gutting the planet's innards would destroy all living things, Leavitt disagreed. "I say it's cheap energy. You say it's the apocalypse. The fair thing to do is let me try it and we'll see who's right."

"It's high time somebody did something about the environment," Leavitt said Thursday, at his inaugural conference. "We've been around for years and it just keeps getting worse. Everyone else may be tip-toeing around the obvious, but it's high time we destroyed it. And I'll be the one to do it, mark my words."

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Let us not tarry, gentle readers, 'cause I knew a guy who tarried once in Vietnam and it got him killed.

In my younger days, for a brief time, I followed the Dead—the rock band, not a group of actual living corpses. Though they did come close in their latter days. Eventually, I gave up that childishness. Now I follow Cheap Trick. Which is hard, because they don't tour as frequently anymore and that drummer is a crafty driver. But I haven't been dissuaded yet.

Have you seen the latest Star Wars movie? I highly doubt it, since I made it myself in my garage only a few days ago. Finally we all get all those questions about Yoda's sex life answered.

What's the deal with napkins? Is anybody actually using these things?

I tried reading a book the other day and, frankly, I wasn't all that impressed. I'm not saying everyone is wrong with all this "books, books, books" praise, but I don't see it myself.

If you are going to shoot the Creature from the Black Lagoon, do you need a hunting license or a fishing license? This assumes, of course, you're doing it by yourself and not part of some angry mob. However, this is the kind of predicament that keeps me up at night. It probably worries the Creature, too.

I am finally finished selling my antique condom collection. I thought I'd never be rid of those things. A bad area to invest your money, let's just say that.

I would never, under any circumstances, hit a woman. Go ahead—tempt me. Give me a free punch, promise me her back will be turned. Have her burn down my house and I still won't do it. I want to point out, of course, using a baseball bat is not counted as hitting by most judges. It's more of a bludgeoning.

I like croutons, but hate salad. What is the answer, my friends?

Johnny Cash was always known as the Man in Black, and probably always will be. It doesn't matter how black you dress, it's just a title that's impossible to wrestle away from him. I tried wearing purple for a year, but I suppose Prince had that all sewn up. I don't know who got fellated to preserve these titles, but I want my own and I'll wear anything, suck anything to get it. The Man in Chartreuse? The Man in Off-White? Let me know, people.

The guitar has reigned for years as the most popular instrument in the world. I say it's high time that tyranny came to an end.

For those who don't know my writing process, I carry a little brown book with me, all the time, in my coat pocket. When the muse strikes, the real muse, not just some bitch hitting me for no reason, I take out my book and scribble a thought down. Of course, getting a pen in here is a lot more difficult than hiding a little brown book. But I'm resourceful.

A reminder, folks: Never volunteer to suck a cock to get something. I make exceptions at times, of course, but it's always a good rule. And for God's sake, if you do, at least get what you were promised before you do it. Fool me once, as they say…

I am no longer welcome back at Cracker Barrel. I can do nothing more than continue to profess my innocence.

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I really should consider changing the titles of these columns. The cEC (commune Enthusiasts Club, for all of you acronym-watchers!) has had way more than six meetings as of the time of this writing. About 125, according to my notes. Of course, only about half of those were attended by someone other than myself, usually my friend and cEC Torch-Bearer Sandy. Around five have had more than ourselves present, including our latest members. So that's roundabout right then… six meetings. I'll just keep the chronology in order. All of my friends know how anal I am. Which has nothing to do with being gay, so don't send emails.

We had a disastrous time with the Easter parade float, don't even ask. Let's just say we won't be contributing to anymore community affairs for a while, by order of the Shanesly city council. I probably deserve all the blame, it was my idea to watch Animal House at the meeting before the parade. Some of the more inventive members may have taken it as some sort of secret message on what I expected from the parade. In fact, that's what they told me. But we did fish the Toyota out of Lake Murty and we've seen Sandy's brother driving it around town, so the damage couldn't have been as bad as he claimed. Heh… listen to me! I make it sound like we're a couple of Omar Bricks in the club. Nothing so dramatic, really. We've only wrecked one… maybe two cars, but that's a high count.

It did get us some free attention, on the front page of the Shanesly Observer, and you know what they say about bad press. Well, Sandy says it's ruined all chances of her (and me, but mostly her) having a normal life, but she was soaking wet with lake water, so you have to give her some room for a lousy mood. I think we'll get a few new members out of it. We've already got one, if you can count the deputy who's been sitting in on our meetings ever since. He says he's there out of genuine curiosity, while Sandy (Little Miss Negativity) says he's there because he thinks we're communist insurgents.

"Where would he get that idea?" I asked her when she said that.

"Duh," she said, which is about her favorite response.

It's true, we're called the commune Enthusiasts Club, and we've made up emblems and everything and stated our club name proudly when we entered the parade. But I don't know where you get communism out of the name commune Enthusiasts Club. That's just ignorance. I told Sandy that, and she said I can tell the cops how ignorant they are while they're beating the hell out of me with rubber hoses in the back room of their "Special Terrorist Interrogation Room." Little Miss Negativity indeed.

So that's a new member. I suppose, though, if I'm going to count him I should also count Ray's parole officer. So it's either two new members or we're still at the same number. Ray, Vera, Lucas, Homeless Gary, and Sandy, who asked again not to be counted. I'm an optimist, so I say two new members! That puts us at 8, and I think once the city ban on public activity is forgotten, we'll probably double that with all the shy commune enthusiasts coming out of the woodwork.

Boy, here I am prattling on about club business and I haven't even heaped any praise on the commune yet. I wanted to commend the editors and reporters for keeping their head together on all this "Pope's dead" business. I suspected even before I read the commune's coverage that it was all a sophisticated ruse to pump up the stagnant media and hide the world-weary Pope from the public, and I was proven right, as usual. The nice thing about being a commune fan is, sooner or later, you're always proven right.

See you all next time, commune Enthusiasts!

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