Chris Clarke in the Twin Cities???

That was my first thought when I read this entry, but then I noticed that the clotted, precious style didn’t quite fit. My next though was a horrific one: Lileks is guest posting on Creek Running North? Say it isn’t so! It’s bad enough that he’s there every time I open the Star Tribune!

Ah, but no, fortunately it’s just a pitch-perfect satire.

If you don’t like Lileks’ cutesie dribblings, you must read this.

For those wondering who the heck Lileks is, he’s a columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, famous for two qualities: 1) he’s one of those pissed-pants conservatives who totally lost it after 9/11, and 2) he’s very twee.

Who will clean the litter box after you’ve been raptured?

This has got to be a spoof site, but then I would have had to think Rapture Ready was a joke, too. Anyway, when the Rapture comes and you are ascended into heaven, you need to make sure your beloved pets are cared for, so the JesusPets service is recruiting non-Christians to take care of pets during the Tribulation or whatever.

It’s a bit bizarre. One thing they have to make sure of is that the godless atheist isn’t signing up just so he can get his hands on Mr Tinkles to rape and eat, so we have to sign a promise that we aren’t just scheming to ravish everyone’s abandoned pets.

Make hard CA$H from home while the world is in flames!

Are you an animal lover; and also an atheist, agnostic, jew, muslim, or other non-Christian? If so, you might qualify for the JesusPets Partner Program!

JesusPets will pay YOU to take care of dogs, cats, and other pets. To qualify, you must agree with this statement:

The JesusPets Partner Program Statement

  • I love animals, and am willing to care for pets after the Christian Rapture.
  • I am not, and never have been a born-again Christian.
  • I believe it is immoral to have sex with animals, and have no desire to do so.
  • I believe it is immoral to consume common domesticated pets (note: this includes goldfish!), and have no desire to do so.

If you agree with, then please contact JesusPets to join our international community of JesusPets Partners!

Hmmm. If I were a cat-raper, I don’t think I’d be too troubled about breaking an electronic pledge.

Link to me, or the Bible gets it!

i-ccbc028bf567ec6e49f3b515a2c4c149-old_pharyngula.gif

i-3b2bf8c770d6dbb86eea5f30773d8cc8-bible_hostage.jpg

Alright, people, I’m gonna get tough. You know what I want, and you’d better give it to me.

I’ve got a bible here, and a 44oz. Diet Coke…lots of liquid containing a diuretic, to boot. In about an hour, I figure my bladder is going to be pretty full. You know what could happen.

I don’t need information from you, and I sure don’t want your money. This is a weblog, and the currency here in these parts is the link, the trackback, the comment. Fork ’em over, or I’m taking this Bible down the hall. You know I’d do it. I’m a godless atheist—I don’t think your Bible means doodley-squat.

Intimidated yet?

I’ve also got some razor blades here. I don’t have to do it all at once—I could slice out bits piecemeal and prolong the agony. I don’t care for Genesis in particular, and Revelation is just crazy. Maybe I’ll start with those.

But hey, maybe it’ll hurt you more if I soak Psalms or the Sermon on the Mount with my heretical urine. Decisions, decisions. Shall I surprise you?

Come to think of it, I feel the need to go right now. Maybe I’ll take this book with me to the bathroom to read. Yeah, that’s it. I sure hope I don’t have an “accident” in there!

I’m going to check back in an hour. There better be some good linkage goin’ on here, or I might just let a drop fall on “Jesus wept.” You heard me. Get going. Type.

Update: I don’t think you people care enough. A few comments, a few trackbacks, and I don’t think most of the people doing it are particularly devout. I’m going to hold off a little longer, but I’m going to stash the Bible in the bathroom in case the whim strikes me in the middle of the night.

And I had another thought…if my sacrilegious urine is not scary enough, there’s a cat box downstairs. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.

It’s Day 2 of the Bible Hostage Watch. It’s the Sabbath, and I’ve just put a big pot of coffee on.

I want you all to know I’ve got the Bible sandwiched between a copy of Jacoby’s Freethinkers and Darwin’s Origin. I’m waiting for the Stockholm Effect to kick in.

Before there James Frey made the news, there was me. The article above was posted on June 4, and by June 7 I was a broken man, my charade exposed. My confession is duplicated below.

I have a terrible confession to make. I lied. This whole thing was just a desperate plea for attention. Here’s the truth:

  • It was a 16oz bottle of diet Cherry Coke.
  • I made no effort to build up a good volume of urine; when I felt the urge, I’d just walk down the hall to the bathroom and go.
  • While I have no particular reverence for the Bible, I’m an academic—I love books. I get the heebie-jeebies at the thought of defacing any book.
  • I don’t respect the Bible, the Koran, Dianetics, the Torah, or the Book of Mormon as holy texts, but I’d get pee-shy about destroying any of them just because they are books. Even if they are worthless piles of pulp.
  • The really big lie: there was no Bible. I don’t own one. I was getting worried there when commenters started pressing me for details on what edition I had, because I didn’t have a clue what to say.

I know what this confession puts me at risk for: I expect I’m going to have to fight off all the movie deals, and those Big City Newspapers are going to be pestering me with job offers. The hassle will be worth it, though, if only it will get rid of those Army recruiters. They keep pounding on my door, telling me I’ve got the complete lack of scruples they need for some jobs in exotic foreign lands, and they promise I’d never have to confront anyone who might fight back—just frightened men and women and kids and old people in chains. They’re making me so nauseous that I’m willing to admit to being a big fat lying liar who lies in order to get them to go away.

By the way, since I made that post two people have sent me Bibles, so now I do have copies to deface…if I could.

David Barton was a piker compared to Gonzales

I couldn’t believe it myself when Gonzales said Washington and Lincoln had authorized electronic surveillance, but now we have a corroborative account that shows that Washington did authorize grand electrical schemes. Remember, he had the assistance of Franklin, so it isn’t that implausible, is it?

Washington got his warrantless electic surveilance. And though the resulting confligration left 233 people dead, and the Barbary pirates avoided detection, a vital precedent was set. Nobody could tell the President to do diddly squat. He was the President, after all. This would come in handly four score and seven years later, when Lincoln was using electricity to shock the genitals of Southern prisoners—a new kind of electric surveilance, to be sure, but another great chapter in the history of freedom.

Chickens, roads, crossing thereof

If you can only read one thing today, make it Skeptico’s answers to Why did the chicken cross the road?

It’s dead-on funny—read the hypothetical answers from all the skeptics and loons like John Edward and O’Reilly and Icke and many others, which are just perfect—I’m stealing Behe’s answer!

A chicken crossing a road has:

eyes

legs

a road

the other side

If any one of those irreducibly complex parts is missing the chicken will be unable to cross the road, so if it looks, walks (across roads) and clucks like a chicken, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, it’s an intelligently designed chicken. Its legs are molecular machines, literally outboard motors. Look at Mount Rushmore…

And then he takes it up a notch and starts poking fun at his fellow skeptical bloggers. Fantastic!