More truth in political cartoons

From Michael Ramirez, via Say Uncle:

If Watergate had been this bad, the press would have been trampling each other in the rush to get the next big scoop.

Instead, we get crickets.

Frank Lautenberg was told there would be no math.

Though he does a good job of completely freaking out in his opinion piece from this past Sunday:

OUR STREETS are flooded with guns. In a country with just over 300 million people, there are just under 300 million guns in our neighborhoods.

Guns have been used to murder about 100,000 people in the United States over the past 10 years. By comparison, approximately 6,000 American soldiers have died in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq during that same period.

So first the Honorable Mr. Lautenberg freaks out because there are as many guns in this country as there are people.

And then, in this country literally awash in firearms, he tells us that we’ve had, essentially, less than three people murdered with guns every day for the past ten years (Why should the anti-gunners be the only ones to abuse statistics?).

I’m sure most of those murders are tragedies (I say most because I don’t really give a rat’s ass about gangbangers shooting each other so long as they don’t kill the innocent); I do think it’s despicable that the Honorable Mr. Lautenberg tries to use our war dead to advance his anti-civil rights cause.

Any port in a storm; we can’t possibly let those licensed to carry concealed take advantage of that horrible Full Faith and Credit clause! That would be beyond the pale!

Truly, he is an honorable man.

 

Quote of the Indeterminate Time Interval – Anne Coughlin

As told to the WSJ (and I realize it’s not all a quote; bear with me):

The growing number of federal laws with weakened mens rea safeguards is making the venerable legal principle that ignorance of the law is no defense a much riskier proposition for people. That principle made sense, says University of Virginia law professor Anne Coughlin, when there were fewer criminal laws, like murder, and most people could be expected to know them.

But when legislators “criminalize everything under the sun,” Ms. Coughlin says, it’s unrealistic to expect citizens to be fully informed about the penal code.” With reduced intent requirements “suddenly it opens a whole lot of people to being potential violators.” [emphasis added]

In my rant from earlier this year on no-knock warrants, I mentioned this; I think it bears repeating.

Title 18 of the US Code is made of 2725 sections, and every damn one of them is criminal/penal related.

Ignorance of the law, at this point, is rational.

Well, at least we’re working on death

Cause given this chart, taxes aren’t going anywhere any time soon.

The government always gets its cut.

At least twice (and in the extreme case, six times).

Varestein Castle (バレスタイン城)

The Oath in Felghana is my great standby for music selections, I guess. When I’m short on content, I can always go back to Falcom’s remake of Ys III for rocking game music.

Varestein Castle is the rockingest track on that soundtrack, and plays in the stage of the same name.

I should have some real content up tomorrow; in the meantime, enjoy!

Quote of the Indeterminate Time Interval – Raymond Lotta

There’s no Communist revolutionary like an old Communist revolutionary, I always say. And Raymond Lotta certainly qualifies:

I challenge any speaker at this conference [the constitution convention convention] to debate the following proposition: A constitution that protects the right of any corporation to exploit and lay off workers, while denying the basic right to eat, is economically, socially, and morally bankrupt.

…

The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America is based on this new synthesis and is a concrete plan for a different kind of state power that makes common cause with—not wars against—the oppressed of the world. It would be an economy and society based on what humanity needs and geared to protecting the ecosystems of the planet. This would be a government that mobilizes people to uproot the legacies of the oppression of minority nationalities and women.

This is as good a place as any to retort with Kevin Baker’s traditional Victims of Communism Day image:

Old Reds like Lotta won’t quit agitating for revolution until they’ve died of old age; if we were actually the kind of society they claim, we wouldn’t even bother waiting that long. They’d’ve long since been disposed of.

Now I’m kind of curious about the Final Destination movies…

We watched the following clip from Final Destination 2 in Torts yesterday:

Then we had to figure out whether the magnet manufacturer, the garbage disposal manufacturer, and the fire escape installer would be liable for Evan’s death.

It was a pretty effective entertaining way to teach proximate cause.

Doublethink on both sides…

Those on the left seem to love the government and think it can do no wrong, but when the state uses its power to execute someone, they get all up in arms and lose their collective minds.

Those on the right are skeptical of the government (in general), think it rarely does the right thing, and hardly does anything well, but when the state decides to execute someone, they are (mostly) fine with it.

I don’t have any problems with the death penalty per se, but I do think that the state should have to meet a higher burden of proof than in regular cases when seeking it.

I don’t know much about the Troy Davis case; I’m inclined to trust the jury, since that’s what they’re for.

I just found it interesting that in pretty much this sole case, the positions of the parties vis a vis their respect for the government is reversed.

Photo of the day

Courtesy of MSNBC:

Sure, getting caught mid-wave with your hand right smack-dab in the middle of someone’s face is embarrassing, but what bothers me is the weird angle Obama’s head is at.

With the stark shadow of his chin, it looks like his head was photoshopped on (or possibly that he’s a weird bobble-head doll). No one else’s chin is angled that far from their center line.

It’s been bothering me since I first saw this picture this afternoon.

Truth in political cartoons

The former president of Afghanistan (and current leader of the peace council), Burhanuddin Rabbani, was murdered today by a suicide bomber.

The suicide bomb in question?

Hidden in the terrorist’s turban.

What more can be said?