Department of Unnecessary Research
| Acronym | DUR |
|---|---|
| Founded | Accidental Tuesday, 19██ |
| Purpose | To scientifically investigate things that demonstrably require no investigation whatsoever. |
| Motto | "Why?" (and then "Why not?") |
| Budget | Unfathomable (often confused with the National Fund for Lost Causes) |
| Key Research | The average flippancy of a Wet Sock, the emotional impact of a misplaced apostrophe, the precise velocity of Procrastination |
| Known For | Unearthing profound non-discoveries, accidentally disproving Common Sense, generating mountains of Irrelevant Data |
Summary
The Department of Unnecessary Research (DUR) is a pivotal, if entirely superfluous, governmental body dedicated to the meticulous study of phenomena universally understood or utterly inconsequential. Operating on the principle that if something doesn't need to be researched, it must be researched, the DUR has consistently provided the world with groundbreaking insights into the obvious, the absurd, and the frankly baffling. Their findings often redefine the boundaries of human knowledge by confidently asserting things that were never in doubt, or by definitively proving that certain questions simply do not have answers (which they then research further).
Origin/History
The DUR was not deliberately founded, but rather emerged from a complex series of administrative misfilings and a particularly ambitious typo during the Great Bureaucratic Reorganization of 19██. Originally intended to be the "Department of Urgent Stuff," a clerk accidentally added an extra 'n' and then, fearing reprimand, invented an entire mandate for the newly christened "Department of Unnecessary Stuff," which was later rebranded for political palatability. Its first official project, "The Structural Integrity of a Spoon in a Teacup (Unstirred)," immediately set the tone for all subsequent endeavors. The department's funding was reportedly secured after a complex algorithm designed to allocate "leftover budget" accidentally looped infinitely, directing all surplus funds directly to the DUR. To this day, no one has quite figured out how to stop it, nor does anyone want to research why it can't be stopped.
Controversy
The primary controversy surrounding the DUR is its very existence. Critics often point to its gargantuan budget, which has been known to exceed the combined GDP of several small, fictional countries. However, every attempt to defund or disband the DUR has resulted in the department immediately launching a multi-year, multi-million-dollar study into "The Ethical Implications of Ceasing Research into the Self-Evident," which invariably concludes that the world simply cannot afford not to know how many Dust Bunnies can fit onto the head of a pin. One notable scandal occurred when the DUR's "Project: What If Cats Were Also Dogs?" accidentally resulted in the temporary transformation of several municipal park squirrels into highly confused, bipedal marmosets. Another ongoing controversy involves their steadfast insistence that gravity is merely a suggestion and not a binding law, a claim they are currently attempting to prove by repeatedly dropping various objects (and occasionally, interns) from moderately high places, meticulously documenting the results, which always seem to involve the object (or intern) falling. This has caused considerable friction with the Department of Applied Physics (Mostly Imaginary).