As for me, I love socialism!

Print the pledge and ask all your teabagger/libertarian friends and family to sign it!

The Teabagger Socialist-Free Purity Pledge

I, ________________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:

I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.

I will complain about the destruction of my 2ndAmendment Rights in this country, while I am duly >being allowed to exercise my 2ndAmendment rights by legally but brazenly brandishing unconcealed firearms in public.

I will foreswear the time-honored principles of fairness, decency, and respect by screaming unintelligible platitudes regarding tyranny, Nazi-ism, and socialism at public town halls. Also.

I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life. I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:

  • Social Security

  • Medicare/Medicaid

  • State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)

  • Police, Fire, and Emergency Services

  • US Postal Service

  • Roads and Highways

  • Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)

  • The US Railway System

  • Public Subways and Metro Systems

  • Public Bus and Lightrail Systems

  • Rest Areas on Highways

  • Sidewalks

  • All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., see Iowa 2009federal senate appropriations–http://grassley.senate.gov/issues/upload/Master-Approps-73109.pdf)

  • Public Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)

  • Public and State Universities and Colleges

  • Public Primary and Secondary Schools

  • Sesame Street

  • Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children

  • Public Museums

  • Libraries

  • Public Parksand Beaches

  • State and National Parks

  • Public Zoos

  • Unemployment Insurance

  • Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services

  • Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, Stateor Federal Government (pretty much all of them)

  • Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government Grant or Research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)

  • Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)

  • Use of the Internets, email, and networked computers, as the DoD’s ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking

  • Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops That Were Grown With, Fed With, Raised With or That Contain Inputs From Crops Grown With Government Subsidies

  • Clothing Made from Crops (e.g. cotton) That Were Grown With or That Contain Inputs From Government Subsidies

  • If a veteran of the government-run socialist US military, I will forego my VA benefits and insist on paying for my own medical care

I will not tour socialist government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

I pledge to never take myself, my family, or my children on a tour of the following types of socialist

locations, including but not limited to:

  • Smithsonian Museums such as the Air and Space Museum or Museum of American History

  • The socialist Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments

  • The government-operated Statue of Liberty

  • The Grand Canyon

  • The socialist World War II and Vietnam Veterans Memorials

  • The government-run socialist-propaganda location known as Arlington National Cemetery

  • All other public-funded socialist sites, whether it be in my state or in Washington, DC

I will urge my Member of Congress and Senators to forego their government salary and government-provided healthcare.

I will oppose and condemn the government-funded and therefore socialist military of the United States of America.

I will boycott the products of socialist defense contractors such as GE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Humana, FedEx, General Motors, Honeywell, and hundreds of others that are paid by our socialist government to produce goods for our socialist army.

I will protest socialist security departments such as the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Department of Justice and their socialist employees.

Upon reaching eligible retirement age, I will tear up my socialist Social Security checks.

Upon reaching age 65, I will forego Medicare and pay for my own private health insurance until I die.

SWORN ON A BIBLE AND SIGNED THIS DAY OF ____________ IN THE YEAR ______________.

___________________________ ___________________________

Signed Printed Name/Town and State

If you don’t stop doing that, you’ll go extinct!

Those darned Christians are always ruining our fun. Now we’re getting preemptive finger-wagging: we have been warned that sex with robots is always wrong. The author is afraid we’re going to someday run out and buy life-like android sex slaves, and then humanity will go extinct…because of course we’d all prefer to have sex with a perfect Christian woman an obedient, unquestioning, subservient machine.

(Shhh. While he’s busy looking for androids to cluck over, don’t let him know that the sex machines are already here. They aren’t humanoid at all. They tend to have shapes that vary from simple cylinders to oddly bumpy-twisted things that get around some of the deficiencies of our natural forms, and they vibrate. They also don’t seem to be leading to the disappearance of the species.)

Weird science

I am shackled to my laptop, writing, writing, writing for a while as all of my body but brain, eyes, and fingers atrophy, so I’m going to have to send you off elsewhere to find your jollies. Gary Farber has compiled a fine collection of short, strange science links…well, some are only tangentially science, but they’re weird, anyway.

Someday, when my work is done, I must make the pilgrimage to Darwin, Minnesota, to see the world’s largest ball of twine.

Update on Dennis Markuze

I got many excellent and informed suggestions on how to handle the death threats a certain deranged spammer has been making here, and I’ve acted on them. I gathered together all of the crazy posts he made over the course of one evening, and printed them out in very small print — it made for a small 61 page book, which would be impressive if it weren’t so repetitive and vapid. I took it down to the local police station, along with what little we know about Markuze’s addresses, IP numbers, email, and phone numbers, and plopped it down in front of a police officer.

He was amazed. He said they occasionally get to handle internet threats, but it’s usually a few rude remarks texted via cell phone by an angry teenager. The sustained lunacy of Markuze has set a new standard for crazy in Morris, Minnesota. So Dennis has accomplished something in his life at last.

It is now entirely in the hands of law enforcement, and all further complaints will wend their ponderous way through official channels. Our local police will talk to the Montreal police and alert them to the loon on a hair trigger in their midst, and will also alert national law agencies; I hope Mr Markuze has no plans to travel to the US at any time in the near future, because he may have some difficulties at the border.

But we’re all done. Please go back to ignoring his ravings, and I’ll go back to quietly deleting them.

Throw the teachers in jail…a poll

Greg Laden is entirely correct the case in question reference by this poll is about some teachers who are being tried for contempt of court, and this particular court case is not about separation of church and state. However, the poll is asking a more general question:

Should educators be fined or jailed for offering prayer in public schools?

Yes (12.6%)
No (87.4%)

I say yes: teachers who organize sectarian prayer in their classroom are betraying their trust and are in violation of the principle of separation of church and state. Imagine the outcry if a teacher were a Satanist and tried to lead the class in a demonic invocation — as stupid and ineffective as such a ritual would be, parents would be rightly irate that their kids were being indoctrinated into a religion, and compelled by pressure from an authority figure to participate in a rite they find odious. The classroom must remain secular, and although I might quibble with the details of the punishment (they ought to be fired for violations, not necessarily jailed or fined), there has to be a way to sanction such actions.

That also goes for teachers who push atheism in the public schools.

Foil the depraved designs of a dastardly duo!

Back in June, I reported on this new sleazy tactic by Ray Comfort: he produced an abridged edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, and then had the gall to tag on a preface that he had written himself, full of the standard creationist misconceptions. Comfort is astoundingly ignorant of basic biology; the best analogy to what he’s doing here would be if I were to give a chimpanzee a few blank sheets of paper and a convenient pile of his own feces and ask him to write a theological exegesis of the book of Genesis.

Oh, wait. On second thought, the chimpanzee would probably do a smarter job of his task than Comfort did of his.

Anyway, Ray and his polyp, Kirk Cameron, have a grand plan. They are going to give away their mangled edition of the Origin on 50 college campuses on 19 November, with the intent of allowing students to see the ‘alternative’ view. As if no one has heard of creationism, or as if it was a valid alternative to science.

There is a strategy to address this obscenity. They’re giving the books away for free: just get one or a few. Take them away and put them on a bookshelf, or rip out the introduction and donate the rest of the book to charity (which is a little impractical, I fear: these books will be very cheaply bound, and will not survive the mutilation). But anyway, let the intelligent, rational community sop up these sad mutilations of a great book and tuck them away from the gullible.

Alternatively, send copies to your favorite opponent of creationism on your campus. I know I keep a bookshelf full of creationist literature, and a Cameron/Comfort-edited version of the Origin would be a hilarious joke to have on hand. I doubt that the University of Minnesota Morris will be ‘lucky’ enough to get a team of these evangelical idjits on campus, though…so maybe one of you readers can get a copy for me? Get two, I’ll sign one and send it back to you so that you have an extra special version. Be sure to tell the people handing it out that you want an extra copy for an evil atheist!