Huntsville Times | Science Friction

“Michael Williams, a Republican candidate for the 5th Congressional District seat, has a novel plan to fully fund NASA: Tax science fiction. Williams proposes a 1 percent “NASA tax” on science fiction books, science fiction comic books, space sciences books and any other space-related literature.”

This is real. This isn’t from The Onion.

I don’t even know where to begin pointing out the sheer stupidity of this proposal.

Science Fiction predicts the future. In many ways, writers in the genre define the future. If anything, NASA should be paying Ray Bradbury (for instance) royalties . . . not the other way around.

What’s next? Taxing sales of George Orwell’s 1984 to fund the GOP 2004 election?