My Archives: September 2003
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
[Please note that I will be travelling for the next five days and, so, the blog will be utterly neglected!]
See how your vision can be tricked. The images are not actually moving -- a fact you can verify by placing a fixed object in your field of vision.
[more]Posted by mac @ 12:35 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Cartoonist Ted Rall is on a roll this week: his Bushman appeals to the League of Justice should appeal to old comic book fans; and, his Dubya calls Jeb has a sharp bite to it. (Rall's Bush always looks like a Latin American dictator.)
Kudos to libertarian humorist Dave Barry for his August 31st column "Ask not what telemarketers can do to you." He offered an innovative way to vent your frustration with telemarketers, "Call the American Teleservices Association, toll-free, at 1-877-779-3974, and tell them what you think. I'm sure they'd love to hear your constitutionally protected views! Be sure to wipe your mouthpiece afterward." As a result, the ATA line was flooded by reverse justice. Amazingly enough, the folks who interrupt us all at dinner were not amused by the inconvenience. Barry's response? He feels "just terrible, especially if they were eating or anything." If you call the free number now, however, you will be greeted with: "We are sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected." I particularly like Barry's rejoinder to the ATA's argument that millions of jobs were at risk from the new rules. He wrote: "You could use pretty much the same reasoning to argue that laws against mugging cause unemployment among muggers." [more]
Posted by mac @ 05:25 AM EST [Link]
Monday, September 22, 2003
The Boondocks cartoon "'AWOL' Bush Action Figure" is particularly hard hitting in light of the announcement that more national guard troops are likely to be shipped to Iraq in short order. "A senior military official at U.S. Central Command says at least two more of the Army National Guard's 15 enhanced combat brigades, which have about 5,000 troops each, are likely to be activated this fall for service in Iraq next year." (BTW, the Action Figure cartoon spins off a real action doll of Bush -- The Elite Force Aviator action figure. Are we to be spared nothing?) Meanwhile, the Pentagon wants to cut the hazardous duty bonus offered to those National Guard troops already in Iraq. "US troops serving in Iraq and their families are in a financial no man's land--wondering if bonuses given to them for their hazardous duty will be cut. The Pentagon wants to cut the pay of 148-thousand U.S. troops in Iraq--because the 300 million dollar annual price tag is a budget buster." Funds for the bonuses apparently run out on October 1st.
On the domestic scene -- and, again, in the spirit of much-needed levity -- I quote from The Onion. I quote in full because, even tho' I am an avid fan of the site, it is notoriously unreliable in terms of preserving URL links. New Items in Brief: "Revised Patriot Act Will Make It Illegal To Read Patriot Act. WASHINGTON, DC—President Bush spoke out Monday in support of a revised version of the 2001 USA Patriot Act that would make it illegal to read the USA Patriot Act. 'Under current federal law, there are unreasonable obstacles to investigating and prosecuting acts of terrorism, including the public's access to information about how the federal police will investigate and prosecute acts of terrorism,' Bush said at a press conference Monday. 'For the sake of the American people, I call on Congress to pass this important law prohibiting access to itself." Bush also proposed extending the rights of states to impose the death penalty "in the wake of Sept. 11 and stuff'."
[more]Posted by mac @ 04:35 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, September 20, 2003
Cartoons: the latest from Chan Lowe. [more]
Posted by mac @ 11:02 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
This from Jay Leno, The Tonight Show August 5, "The United States is putting together a Constitution now for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It's served us well for 200 years, and we don't appear to be using it anymore, so what the hell?" In the cartoon department: David Horsey's "How We Got Into This Mess," which reflects my view of Cheney's role in recent events; Clay Bennett's "Rebuilding Iraq"; and, my favorite, PatriotStein by Steve Sack.
USA Today reports, "The chief of the U.S. Army Reserve is taking the unusual step of warning all 205,000 soldiers under his command that the Army Reserve is 'on a war footing' and will need to take tough measures to meet commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan." [more]
Posted by mac @ 05:43 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Only the Canadian government could lose money as a drug dealer. According to the Ottawa Citizen, "Some of the first patients to smoke Health Canada's government-approved marijuana say it's 'disgusting' and want their money back." [more]
Posted by mac @ 07:40 AM EST [Link]
Monday, September 15, 2003
Mark Fiore's latest animation "A Nation Remembers" is worth checking out. As is David Horsley's bitter/funny cartoon "I feel like LBJ". [more]
Posted by mac @ 10:27 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, September 14, 2003
A bumper crop of cartoon commentary on the occupation of Iraq and its various fall-outs. Pat Oliphant offers economic/domestic commentary in Panhandler"; David Horsey speaks to the irony of Bush appealing to the French in "Pardon Monsieur?"; Chan Lowe plays off an actual Bush action figure in his pointed cartoon "Broken Bush Action Figure"; Steve Sack's "Bush and the UN" dramatizes America's shift in approach, whether the administration admits it or not; Mike Luckovich comments on the ineffectiveness of Bush's economic rescue schemes in "Unemployment Line"; and, finally, my personal favorite -- Ted Rall's "Bold Leadership".
[more]
Posted by mac @ 10:29 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, September 13, 2003
The pop-culture philosophy message is a bit hokey...but the accompanying photos are a delight! [more]
Posted by mac @ 09:38 AM EST [Link]
Friday, September 12, 2003
Altho' the following list -- The 25 Most Inappropriate Things An Objectivist Can Say During Sex -- is not funny to those uninitiated in the ways of Randroids, it is hilarious to those of us who have our roots in Rand. [more]
Posted by mac @ 12:09 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
Why is this clock so fascinating? I watched it for a full five minutes as tho' in a zen-like trance...
Kudos to Claire Wolfe for today's blog entry and my apologies to her for taking liberties with punctuation. Claire writes, *THERE'S ALREADY A WOLFE'S LAW, so I can't propose one. (And anyway, who needs more laws?) So call this WOLFE'S EXTREEEEMLY TIGHT GUIDELINE: The person with the least to say is the most likely to add you to his mailing list without asking. FIRST COROLLARY: The person who adds you to his mailing list without asking is the most likely to use open cc to expose you to spammers. SECOND COROLLARY: The person who uses open cc to expose you to spammers will invariably, when requested to use bcc, respond, "But I cannnnnn't use bcc if you don't tell me howwwwwwwww." THIRD COROLLARY: The person who adds you to his mailing list without asking is the only mailing-list operator who will invariably, when requested to remove you from his list, scream, "You're nothing but a big phoney who doesn't want to listen to what's really going on in the world!" FOURTH COROLLARY: N number of people will never Get a Clue, even if they live long enough to experience the heat-death of the universe.* [more]
Posted by mac @ 08:38 AM EST [Link]
Friday, September 5, 2003
I like to start each blog with humor because a good laugh is one of the ways I cope with hearing/reading so much that is discouraging...war, the economy, anti-terrorism/anti-civil rights bills, copyright lawsuits, SoBig and its ilk... I'll stop now because I'm depressing myself. Quick! An emergency infusion of humor, beginning with Chuck Asay's Those Bad Democrats, Joe Pett's Freedom Of, and, this, from The Chortler. Alas...sad news must follow: Ann Coulter has spontaneously combusted. According to one report, "Ms. Coulter was in the middle of an extended rant about liberal comedian Al Franken when her face became beet-red and smoke began to shoot out of both of her ears.Then, almost without warning, Ms. Coulter appeared to burst into flames, sources said."
[more]Posted by mac @ 06:58 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, September 4, 2003
Tom Tomorrow hits a home run with his latest cartoon entitled Moebius Strip Foreign Policy.
[more]Posted by mac @ 10:16 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
The Vote for Arianna Huffington for CA Governor website has a cute movie -- a short animated sequence -- that depicts her in a Recall Car Race with Arnold. Okay, okay...it *is* PC in that it bashes gas-guzzling SUV-type vehicles, and it takes more than one low blow at what Arianna clearly considers the main competition. But it has a laugh or two as well. then check out Mark Fiore's latest -- John Ashcroft's Patriot Act Summer Tour. He will, he will rock you...
Best
macPosted by mac @ 04:06 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, September 2, 2003
It is with no pleasure that I enter an ongoing fray within libertarianism.... [more]
Posted by mac @ 09:18 AM EST [Link]