TO: Michael Chertoff, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
FROM: Dr. Ignatius Mushroomcloud, Evil Overlord of North America (Acting), The Union of Concerned Mad Scientists
DATE: 1/23/2006
SUBJECT: A Call for Cooperation


Mr. Chertoff,

I write to you today to convey a request from the members of the Union of Concerned Mad Scientists. As you are aware, global events of the last several years have brought international terrorism to the forefront of governmental agendas throughout the world. While this is of course understandable and neccessary and resulted most notably in the creation of your own current place of employment, this increased focus on security has brought much hardship to those of us plying our trades in the Extreme Sciences.

Of most concern to us is the new and crippling scarcity of easily obtainable fissionable materials. The Extreme Sciences -- our preferred collective term for what laymen call "mad" science -- depend heavily upon nuclear energy in almost every aspect of our work. Whether one is building a mutation machine to transform the inhabitants of Los Angeles into three-eyed, six-fingered, super-powered forces of doom or boiling giant vats of hydrochloric acid to flood the streets of Peoria, nuclear power in all its uses and forms is a foundation requirement. Nuclear rocketry, radioactive toxic waste, electromagnetic pulse weapons, these are just a few of the uses for which the members of the Union need readily available nuclear materials. Our minions are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain these materials, due in no small part to the efforts of your Department and similar governmental organizations throughout the world. We are currently developing cold fusion and zero-point technologies to fill this lack, but until we have perfected these methods conventional fissionable materials are our mainstay.

Science marches ever forward, and since the very beginnings of the Extreme Sciences it has done so on the backs of mutants, giant lizards and robots powered by the sundered atom. True innovation can never come from the staid, conservative halls of academia, it can only come from a wild-haired eccentric in a lab coat with an obsession for high voltage and caustic chemicals. It was an early government-sponsored Extreme Science project that gave the world nuclear power to begin with -- many of those in the Manhattan Project we are proud to consider founding and posthumous members of our Union. If we had not the United States would never have had a Cold War, and thus there would never have been decades of gainful employment for thousands of spies and intelligence analysts on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Therefore, we of the Union request that your Department desist in obstructing our minions as they seek out and obtain this vital resource for our work. To assist in this endeavor, we of the Union have all agreed to a standard registration practice for our minions and they will all be instructed to identify themselves as such when detained by any governmental body. The Extreme Sciences are not given to subtlety -- when we want to get your attention you'll know it as by and large we are all intensely egotistical, megalomaniacal and fond of dramatic entrances.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Dr. Ignatius Mushroomcloud
Evil Overlord of North America (Acting)
Union of Concerned Mad Scientists