This Ought To Piss Off the Religious Right

Godless Bureaucracy Debases Christmas

It appears that the U.S. Geological Survey, a government agency in the Department of the Interior, has used your tax money, dollars that you earned, at a job, to post the following:

"The plant's common name - mistletoe - is derived from early observations that mistletoe would often appear in places where birds had left their droppings. 'Mistel' in the Anglo-Saxon word for 'dung,' and 'tan' is the word for 'Twig.' Thus, mistletoe means 'dung-on-a-twig.'"

Now what does this have to do with geology? Absolutely nothing! Yet the U.S.G.S. is using your tax money, dollars that you earned, at a job, to call Christmas mistletoe "shit on a stick."

It's obviously part of a vast left-wing government conspiracy to rob Christians of their constitutional right to celebrate Christmas. Never mind that Christmas wasn't even declared a federal holiday until the 1880s - the founding fathers still intended every living American to have Christmas rammed down his throat until he can't breathe anymore.

"Mistletoe is toxic to people," the U.S.G.S. goes on. "Many commercial foresters consider the mistletoe as a disease that reduces the growth rates of commercially important conifer species, such as the ponderosa pine."

It seems that the grinch-ologists, not content with insisting on evolution over Intelligent Design, are launching a new attack to turn us away from Christmas by attacking the cherished mistletoe.

Never mind that mistletoe has been nicknamed the "vampire plant" because it can probe beneath tree bark to drain water and minerals, enabling it to survive during a drought.

Never mind that mistletoe figured prominently in Norse mythology and that the modern Western custom of kissing under bunches of it hung as holiday decorations began as pagan rituals.

Never mind that the god Baldur was killed with a weapon made of mistletoe.

Never mind that in Celtic mythology and in Druid rituals, it was considered an antidote to poison, and that contact with its berries produces a rash similar to poison ivy.

Just remember, you paid for this. With your tax dollars, money that you earned, at a job.