Deploying the razor-sharp wit and incisive take-no-prisoners satire characteristic of his generation, Gen Xer Ted Rall has become one of the most widely read editorial cartoonists in America. Twice the winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Rall's work has appeared in hundreds of newspapers, as well as such magazines as Time, Newsweek, Fortune and MAD. He is also the author of 15 books, including several graphic novels and political polemics about Central and South Asia.
© Ted Rall - All Rights Reserved.
Joel Pett by Joel Pett
Michael Ramirez by Michael Ramirez
Comments (40) (Please sign in to comment)
Clark Kent said, 6 months ago
BS=toro poopoo,
MS=more of the same,
PHD=piled higher and deeper.
Adam Sherlock said, 6 months ago
PhD = Phoney Doctor
Source: Dr Issac Asimov
Radish
said, 6 months ago
AA = A holes anonymous
ansonia
said, 6 months ago
MD=Mayberry Deputy
walruscarver2000 said, 6 months ago
@
Do you really want to explore exactly what IMA is???
walruscarver2000 said, 6 months ago
Doc and Dred:
If you are interested, my reply from our previous conversation is on the preceding page.
jrmerm said, 6 months ago
“Substitute part-time temp”? Rall certainly has a way with words. Soon the full-time permanent employee will be a thing of the past. As will freedom.
Dredpiraterobt$ said, 6 months ago
@walruscarver2000
Seen and replied to WC2K.
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Thanks for the heads up.
Dredpiraterobt$ said, 6 months ago
Education as a journey to understanding is a wonderful thing. Education as a pathway to employment is best done in trade school.
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If you want a PhD so that it can be shown that you have studied this subject extensively and others have reviewed your work and opined that it meets a rigorous standard upon which you might build even deeper understanding; Great. The world needs deep thinking philosophers.
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If you are getting your PhD because it is a job requirement… It seems only wise to make sure you have the job before you buy the requirement.
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The old joke (since we’re talking Asimov here) is the one Isaac tells of the University President who is having a meeting with the Deans of all departments. Suddenly there is a crack of lightening and a poof of smoky cloudiness and God Itself is standing there. It says to the President that he can have either unlimited wealth OR unlimited knowledge.
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Being an academic he says he wants the knowledge. “Here ya go.” Says God and poofs back out of our existence. The President looks up…. He looks down…His eyebrows knit a scarf… He looks into the faces of his Deans and then he buries his face in his hands…. “I should have taken the money!”
walruscarver2000 said, 6 months ago
@Dredpiraterobt$
Doc and Dred
How refreshing! To have people you can honestly disagree with without name calling. Could I persuade you two to run for office?
walruscarver2000 said, 6 months ago
@Dredpiraterobt$
A drone is nothing more than the latest form of cannon ball. If you oppose one, you must oppose the other. If you oppose both you can either ban bombs (let’s see you enforce it) or ban war (a lovely but impractical idea). If we are at war, I favor ANYTHING that ends the conflict without getting more of my men killed.
As for Bush and Chaney, if they had ADMITTED, committing acts of war against another country (which Osama did), I would hand them over. That is exactly what Afghanistan refused to do. As for defending them if someone came to get them -NO and I would oppose any government that refused to hand them over. Criminals are criminals.
walruscarver2000 said, 6 months ago
@Dr Canuck
I admire your principals, but reality is that innocents die in every war. All we can do is try to minimize their losses. And yes, if it’s a choice between mine and theirs, I choose theirs.
Robert Landers said, 6 months ago
Would it not just be possible that many scientists that go to all that trouble to go for a PhD in their specialty might just be idealistic enough to want to be of some benefit to mankind?
And wealth (although in most cases they are going to at least make reasonable middle class wages) is somewhat secondary?
When I was in my 20’s during the 1960’s we had genuine heroes for our idols, they were the fantastic astronauts, that were doing great things without even worrying about wealth at all.
And just what do the young have today as heroes? The vastly overpaid entertainment and sports figures.Sad, truly, truly sad!!!
Michael wme said, 6 months ago
In New Mexico back in the late ‘70s, a 40 year old unemployed PhD physicist answered an ad. The person who had placed the ad had never been to university. He killed the PhD and assumed the PhD’s identity. Then he got a job as senior vice president at a defence company. He was able to sell weapons systems to the US military, earning millions of dollars for his employer and hundreds of thousands for himself.
The US military required that the head of the sales team have a PhD in physics, and all the real PhDs looked like the liars they were when they said the weapons systems the military wanted could be built. The faux PhD, having no science education, didn’t know the system could not be built and easily sold it. Unfortunately, the murder victim had called his family to say he had a great chance at a job, and when he disappeared, they started a search that found the murderer, who was a far, far better PhD (as far as the defence contractor was concerned) than anyone who’d actually gotten a real PhD in physics.
Of course, the defence contractor who’d won the contract was unable to build a weapons system that violated the laws of physics, but, until the murderer was discovered, they were able to convince the military that they were making excellent progress!
Dredpiraterobt$ said, 6 months ago
@walruscarver2000
“Could I persuade you two to run for office?” WC
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“I’m obnoxious and disliked, you know that’s so!”
“I hadn’t heard” DPR from 1776 John Adams and Ben Franklin
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“I favor ANYTHING that ends the conflict without getting more of my men killed.”
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So chemical bombs are A-OK?
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The Bush and Cheney answer avoids the Bush Cheney question. The base of the question is; can you still be an onnocent if your actions are to protect your homeland and your family from a foreign force?
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If you wake up one night and an unknown person is coming up your stairs to where your family sleeps and you shoot at him. Are you an enemy combattant? Or are you just a guy trying to protect his family?
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And (and I shouldn’t even go here) if your goal is for there to be less people who want to kill you, does it make any sense to kill nearly everyone?
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In the program “Boardwalk Empire” there is a scene where the protagonist (Nucky) meets up with Richard, the best friend of a man Nucky had recently killed (Jimmy). The friends were so because they had both been injured in WWI and they worked together in a criminal enterprise . Richard tells Nucky that it was he who had killed the butcher, because the butcher had killed Jimmy’s wife. He also knew that it was Nucky who had killed Jimmy. Nucky wonders if Richard had similar plans for him. Richard did not, because Jimmy was a soldier and he knew what risks he was taking.
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Point being that when you kill a soldier, everyone agrees with the outcome, even if they don’t like it. But when you kill the soldier’s wife, or mother, or daughter, father, little brother, uncle auntie… whoever… then you have made enemies of that entire family!
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“…innocents die in every war.”
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How many innocents died in the Revolutionary War? How many died at the battle of Waterloo?
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Innocents dying at war is a relatively new development. In WWI the battle was fought out there in the trenches, not in the cities. (although the Germans did soften up the Belgians with Big Bertha(?) )
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Was it Sheman’s march to the sea that ushered in the acceptance of Collateral damage? I’m not a military historian. But I do know that wars used to be fought man to man. That’s not the way we do it now.