Dear Red States ...

I would give appropriate credit if I could, but apparently the author is unknown. I will credit Gale, who ran this first on her own blog. It's a keeper!

Dear Red States,

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to our two new nations, and especially to the people of New California. We will welcome your ambassador with open arms to our capitol, the Big Apple, New York City.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the former slave states. We get Waikiki. You get Galveston Bay. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel, Apple, and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss. We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Sweet Home Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, and you can completely do away with all those horrible taxes you hate so much.

Since our aggregate blue state divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get more happy families. You get more single moms, but you can ban abortion once and for all. That's a fair trade, don't you think?

Please be aware that our Blue Nation will be pro-choice and anti-war, so we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq and Afghanistan. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home.

We do wish you success in all of your wars, but we are going to take a "time-out" for our country and concentrate on rebuilding our infrastructure, developing our own energy sources and promoting diplomacy with other nations. BTW: You do get Alaska and Texas, so "Drill, Baby, Drill"! We know you'll have fun with that.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve Texas wines at state dinners, we hear they are wonderful), 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

Please note that you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you. We know you hate and despise Hollywood anyway, so any downside you face should wash with finally getting rid of those liberal elites.

Please note we will be teaching evolution and hard science in our schools and rerouting much of our military budget into advanced education for all our citizens. We know that 38 percent of you in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws or collateral damage in foreign wars, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties. Now is your chance to Christianize your schools and get away from all of us horrible, godless, socialist, palling-around-with-terrorist, heathen sub-humans.

We encourage you to follow your own path and build the country of your dreams!

It's been a real slice of heaven. Good luck in all your future endeavors!

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Peace out,
Blue States