Recent Comments

1. almost 8 years ago on Non Sequitur

   … while difficult to believe, the data shows a persistent decline in homicides, with current US rates slightly lower than they were in the 1950s, after bulging upward to about twice where they are today in the 1990s.

   The data speaks for itself:http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873729.htmlhttps://ourworldindata.org/homicides/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

   … perhaps this is a case of news media trumpeting murders as if they are occurring everywhere, all the time? When a murder that takes an instant to commit occurs, how many days does it blanket the evening news?

   Which is not to imply that things are hunky-dory, just that in the Fullness of Time, we have become less homicidal.

   Shouting about the murder rate as if it were soaring to the skies only makes that more likely to occur.

   Kinda like the immigrant invasion, another ficticious terror that does not plague our society, or hordes of jihadists lurking around every corner. Of all the terror attacks since 9-11, it strikes me that they have been Americans who are either slightly nuts and pushed all the way to full-on crazies by our klaxons-blaring news media and political machines, or …. I guess that pretty well covers the waterfront.

2. almost 8 years ago on Non Sequitur

   … extremists and fanatics (of BOTH parties) need to remember and reflect upon the pithy observation of Alexis de Tocqueville: “In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.”

   Now be silent and contemplate the lesson.

3. about 8 years ago on Non Sequitur

   The juxtaposition of comic strip figures and real people is a tad jarring … unless Wiley is using the strip to hint at a burgeoning relationship between himself and Ms Garner, with Bob in the strip being a stand-in for Wiley …

4. about 8 years ago on Non Sequitur

   And in recent news … a half-mile tunnel discovered between Tijuana and Sand Diego, a highway for illicit drugs, neatly bypassing the Trump-posed Great Wall of Safety … of all those who escaped the Berlin Wall, the vast majority did so by tunnels. Why is it, that nowhere in Nature, do we find other creatures stoopid enough to believe that “walls” represent some significant degree of protection?

5. about 8 years ago on Non Sequitur

   Oh, one observation on the efficacy of “walls” … walls did not keep El Chapo contained … he merely had a tunnel dug to his cell. No walls will stop the drug traffickers from bringing drugs into the US (in exchange for guns and money), they use tunnels that we cannot detect, because they are sufficiently deep.So much for walls.

6. about 8 years ago on Non Sequitur

   a rather delightful comic … which of course attracts attackers and defenders, erecting “walls” spontaneously …

   If “walls” had a shred of credibility as viable defenses, we would see thousands of examples in the natural world, as a great many critters are territorial.

   But ants do not build walls, nor bees, nor wasps, spiders, crows, bears, lions, tigers, monkeys, or snakes … only humans are foolish enough to build walls to hide behind.

   The Repooblican party has largely made this mess, by targeting extremist groups who will support anyone who backs their cause, and so we see a patchwork of my-way-or-the-highway planks comprising their party platform, with Democraps watching their opposite numbers build insane jenga towers with a great many planks that will not bear the weight of scrutiny … they make a little noise, but do nothing to counter their fellow psychopaths’ strategies, until their opponents are too deeply entrenched to regroup, and then they counter with walls of their own, matching fear for fear the creaky towers of the Repooblicans.

   Why do they do this? Because they think that by toppling the Republican towers of paranoia at the last moment, they can slide past almost anything, rather than have a buffoon who cannot shout two sentences sequentially that do not contradict each other, or are clearly representative of ignorant, mindless insanity, or his primary opponent, who would effortlessly slide into place as a card-carrying member of ISIS, where those who do not immediately fall in line with his own brand of bigotry are beheaded.

   The Democrats LOVE opposing Trump and Cruz, and want them as far out in front in the Republican primary as possible. The Dems feel that with an opponent like either of the leading Republican candidates, they don’t really require much of a platform, and can run campaigns that are just as directionless as those of the Repooblicans (but a few decibels quieter, and not nearly so threatening). The Republicans will supply all the fear needed to bring billions pouring in via PACs.

   Oh, for the days of old, where Republican meant a fiscal conservative, who supplied the “because the funds are not present” argument to the Democraps “let’s do this …” (there has not been a Republican President or Congress in the past half-century that balanced spending with matching taxation).

   But those days are long gone (if they ever existed at all). All we have today are “walls”.

7. over 8 years ago on Bloom County 2019

   color me cynical, but … surely this paves the way for a stuffed Opus Support Penguin, as we trip over the Black Friday hurdle and stumble toward the end … of 2015.

   And if it does not, it should. In a variety of sizes (12" to 40"), as some of us need more support than others.

8. over 8 years ago on [Deleted]

   News flash, O unthinking one … those that cannot afford health care end up at the ER in far worse shape, costing far more than those with health care … so hospitals (YES, ALL OF THEM, even in Texas) regularly write off millions in expenses that cannot be paid or extracted from those unable to afford health insurance. And yet hospitals are NOT going broke … so how do YOU think they recover those costs, O Unthinking One?

   Answer: YOU pay more for your health care, which feeds back into YOUR health care insurance.

   Take your time, think it through. The world is not as simple as you imagine or want to believe that it is — everything is connected to everything else, and it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to isolate yourself from the impact of the actions of others.

   So, do you want a healthcare system that has lower expenses overall, or one that you can fantasize delivers you lower bills, even though it does not?

   If you can make everyone a little healthier (and having health insurance helps in this), then your costs decline. This is supported by the statistics of the rest of the world’s health care systems, where they get as good or better care for a LOT less money.

9. almost 9 years ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   Bill Watterson is missing a bet by not putting together a book called “The World According to Calvin’s Dad”

10. about 13 years ago on Non Sequitur

    a few things are missing from this portrait …

    The garage would not be a modest brick building, it would be a massive, gleaming edifice several stories tall, with a doorman at the entrance for suppliers and salesmen and a sign indicating that customers should enter via the “servant’s entrance” around back, in the alley …

    … oh, and the sign out front should read “The Best Garage for the Money”, with a subtitle “If you have to ask what it costs, you can’t afford it”.