Bors Blog
Archive for January, 2009
Non-Friedman Friedmanism
The first line from a NYTimes article today caught my eye:
Getting between a broker and his bonus is like getting between a schnauzer and his lunch bowl. He may not bite you, but you are going to smell his breath.
Huh? I quickly looked for the line at the bottom “Thomas Friedman contributed to this report” but it wasn’t there. I don’t know if they are biting Friedman’s style, but I definably smell it on their breath. Or something.
Hack of the Day
The “Page Six” cartoonist for the NY Post is know for his cartoons that viciously mock gays, women and fat people. On top of that he’s just not any good at coming up with ideas. Last June I posted about Delonas tracing his own cartoon and reissuing it, which might be an industry first.
The jet landing in the Hudson River recently provided cartoonists with an easy news peg: label the plane “economy” and go home for the day. But Delonas takes this practice to a lower level, employing the plane four times in the last nine days.
At least he didn’t trace them this time.
Editorial cartooning is crumbling. Economic forces beyond our control threaten it from the outside. Within the field, lazy unoriginal cartoonists threaten to make the whole profession a joke.
I don’t know what frightens me more…
The fact that Rush Limbaugh had an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal in which he proposes the “Obama-Limbaugh Stimulus Plan of 2009.”
OR
Snuggies.
(via Kevin)
Meth + Massage
If you watch the HBO documentary “The Trials of Ted Haggard” keep an eye out for a brief appearance of one of my cartoons.
Gitmo
So Gitmo is set to be closed down…eventually. It’s going to take the Obama administration a year to do it, with Karl Rove predicting he won’t succeed.
I do have one question that I’d like to see a reporter ask Obama. Since the illegal detentions began, those that resisted their imprisonment through hunger strikes have been tied down and force fed. Is this happening right now?
Ad Nauseum
I went to see a movie this weekend and while I avoid the snack bar’s obscene prices, I wanted to see how obscene they were these days. Trouble was, the board where prices are normally listed was a video screen which was currently showing an ad for Dasani bottled water. This crossed some imaginary line of acceptability in my head and I nearly combusted into flames. I want to know the prices and I want to know them now!
Small popcorn $5.50. Dasani bottled water $4.00.
(Hey, wasn’t my blog post title clever? I’m sure no one has used it for a post about advertising before!)
Zen Legal Theorists
I’m very worried about this New Age “Zen Legal Theory” that seems to be gaining prominence. Does Deepak Chopra have a new book out on this or something? The “move forward” attitude to prosecutions is the new “it” trend in legal thinking. Better get on board. Fox New Sunday:
WALLACE: How do you feel about that, the idea of the possibility of investigations and even criminal prosecution of people who were doing what they were told to do during the Bush years?
What’s the point of laws anyway? They were just doing what they were told. Were they told to do something illegal? Chill out, man. Relax with a scented candle. McCain’s response:
MCCAIN: I think it’s time to move forward. I believe that waterboarding is in violation of the Geneva Conventions, and I’ve said it for years. But it’s time to move forward.
He’s said it for years. Again, I ask this formula to be applied to other crimes committed by the unimportant commoners who don’t hold power over the nation. “Why yes, assault is a violation of the law, and I’ve said it for years! Decades I’ve said this! But let’s be reasonable here.”
The Nuremberg Principles, a shrill screed written by liberal bloggers and outraged cartoonists, has very radical ideas about lawbreaking that play into their partisan witch hunt agenda:
Principle I: Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.
Principle III: The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV: The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
Seems simple enough. But leave it to New Age quacks to find a way to dance around plain facts with mumbo jumbo. Pretty soon they’ll be incorporating quantum physics and astral projection into the mix.
illo
An illustration for the OC Weekly about a 16-year-old wearing a shirt that portrayed Obama as a monkey and spouting all sorts of racist nonsense.
Do The Crime, Forget With Time
That the Bush administration ordered waterboarding is a fact–they’ve proudly admitted to it. That waterboarding is torture is clear–we’ve prosecuted people for doing it to our soldiers. It did not cease to be illegal over the last eight years because John Yoo and David Addington wrote memos saying the president can do whatever he sees fit. That is the Nixon defense: “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.” Not so, unless we allow them to get away.
Most politicians and pundits want to “move on” and think investigating and subsequently prosecuting members of the Bush administration for their numerous violations of the Constitution and International Law would be “bad for the country.”
It was Bush that was bad for the country.
We face a lot of other problems that need our attention. But we can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Why is punishing lawbreakers so controversial at the national political level? We clamor for harsh sentences for poor drug addicts, but when a president breaks laws or kills thousands we develop amnesia. We claim to be a nation of laws and not of men. Let’s back it up.
The idea that doing this is “looking back” or “obsessing over the past” is an idea I’d like to hear a common criminal express when the police show up at their door. Unless we have entered the era of Pre-Crime foretold by Philip K. Dick, we have no choice but to “look back” as we prosecute a crime. They usually occur in the past. And prosecuting them today is a way to send a message to presidents in the future.
So let’s look forward…to the fair trials we are obligated to give all of our citizens who break the law.
Bush Memorials
Nothing should be named after George W. Bush that isn’t totally corrupt, disreputable, incompetent and/or criminal.
