Recent Comments

1. 3 days ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   True, though there were at least some who hoped European integration would go a bit farther than it actually has. And there is the fact that unlike in the case of the European Union, where any major steps that limited the sovereignty of individual states requires the unanimous agreement of those state, it is possible to change the US Constitution without the agreement of every state (just a supermajority of them), so it is at least theoretically possible that an amendment could be passed that would somehow force less populous states to merger (perhaps, for example, setting the same population as used for House representatives as a minimum population for a state). But I’ll acknowledge that even if it is theoretically possible, the prospects of it ever happening are vanishingly small.

2. 3 days ago on Get Fuzzy

   Bucky has a real gift for coming up with alternate titles to movies and things like that.

3. 3 days ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   Jon Stewart did a good bit on so-called “cancel culture”. He pointed out that all the right-wingers who complain about how they aren’t allowed to say stuff still keep on staying that stuff. He went on to note that the real “cancel culture” is in the Republican party, since anyone who criticizes Pumpkin Hitler or openly disagrees with his various delusions (especially about the 2020 election) is silenced by his followers.

4. 4 days ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   Gas prices rose along with other prices in the post-pandemic period because of inflation that was a global phenomenon. That inflation was mostly a matter of supply chain issues, seriously exacerbated by corporate price gouging. Oil companies like Exxon made record profits in the last couple of years, so it isn’t as if they couldn’t have lowered prices considerably. But keeping them artificially high not only allowed them to feed their greed but had the bonus of causing ignorant people to blame the high prices on Biden. In fact, many countries had much higher rates of inflation, so blaming Biden for something that was happening all over is plain ignorance. As for global temperatures, the current rise in temperatures is certainly not part of anything “cyclical”, as the temperatures in the past decade have exceeded anything seen in hundreds of thousands of years. Also, the rate of increase over the last couple of decades is far beyond anything that has been seen in the past, except during catastrophic events like asteroid strikes. But again, you are clearly only interested in data that fits your worldview.

5. 4 days ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   Yes, both parties have benefitted from gerrymandering, but in the past couple of decades it is the Republicans who have taken it to extremes. But outlawing it would ultimately benefit voters of every stripe, as with more swing districts, it will be harder for representatives to take any voters for granted. And it will also create more openings for the subject of this comic, third parties and their supporters.

6. 4 days ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   I am aware that merging smaller states is not a politically realistic option for the foreseeable future, but nevertheless I would favor doing so if it ever does become possible.

7. 4 days ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   But given that the total number of representatives is currently fixed, the number of people per representatives changes every ten years. What I’m suggesting is fixing the number of people per representative, and allowing the total number of representatives to increase with the population.

8. 5 days ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   If you choose to ignore data that doesn’t support your opinions and instead base your decision on just what you think is good for you personally (without, I strongly suspect, even closely examining the reasons why your circumstances have gotten worse and which side bears more responsibility vs. which side has attempted to make things better), as opposed to what is better for the country as a whole, or even humanity as a whole, then I don’t have a great deal of sympathy if you get “insulted and belittled”, as you put it.

   If this was an election between two candidates like, say, John McCain and Joe Biden, it would be a bit more understandable if some people wanted to cast a protest vote. I wouldn’t consider it myself, as Biden (and pretty much any Democrat) is better than even the (now virtually extinct) old-school Republicans like McCain on the vast majority of issues. Nevertheless, it would be understandable. But this is not that kind of election. The expected Republican nominee was not only by a large margin the worst president in a century (really ever), he has no respect at all for democratic institutions, spouts fascistic rhetoric like calling his opponents “vermin”, tells outrageous lies constantly, has shown a willingness to foment violence in order to overturn election results he doesn’t like, and plans to make sure this time that his appointees are more loyal to him than they are to the country. Even if Biden were as senile as the right likes to portray him (which he is not), he would still be a vastly better choice, indeed the only choice. And given that these two are the only ones with a chance to win, any sensible person who cares an iota about the future of the country will vote for Biden, if only to make sure the other guy doesn’t get back in.

9. 5 days ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   But another important component of such reform would be banning gerrymandering, including the partisan gerrymandering the current right-wing Supreme Court allows.

10. 5 days ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

    Of course states with populations less than that would be an exception, but then maybe any states smaller than that should be merged with another one like I suggested, which would also help balance the Senate.