Sunday morning toons: How can there be popular uprisings? We haven't bombed them yet!

The titular punchline was shamelessly stolen from this week's p3 Legion of Merit (with clusters) recipient, below.

And here's our p3 Current Events pop quiz:

What government leader is currently contending with popular demonstrations in the capitol plus police who are evidently sympathizing with the demonstrators, topped off by a completely embarrassing media appearance?

(If you didn't know that's a trick question, you got here just in time, Dear Reader! See below.)

Today's selections were carefully hand-prepared by Egyptian pizza makers from the week's political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle, and then shipped to us inside the cartons for 6 large pizzas (three vegetarian; two pepperoni/sausage/mushroom; and one jalapeño and sardine).

p3 Picks of the Week:

Mike Luckovich, Clay Bennett, Randall Enos, Steve Sack, David Fitzsimmons, Henry Payne, Jerry Holbert, Ben Sargent, Signe Wilkinson, Tony Auth, Tom Toles, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Legion of Merit (with clusters): Mike Keefe.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (tie): Ingrid Rice and Gary Varvel.

p3 "Lest We Forget" Award: Bob Englehart.

p3 I. P. Freeley Certificate: Steve Sack.

p3 World Toon Review: Cam Cardow (Canada), KAL (England), Sergei Elkin (Russia), Michael Kountouris (Greece), Petar Pismestrovic (Austria), and Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland).


Ann Telnaes is off this week.


Mark Fiore presents the latest program for Middle East autocrats!


Taiwan's Next Media Animation brings you the next whack-job being chased out of power.


From the Comcs Should Be Good archives, here's 60's icon Bob, freewheelin' as you've never seen him before!


And Point Blank Creative brings you Riverdale as you could only have imagined it. You know the faces. You know the names. Now experience the passion. (h/t Alicublog)


Tom Tomorrow tours the latest front in the Republican war on . . . pretty much everything.


The K Chronicles looks at a very special case of elder abuse.


Tom the Dancing Bug imagines life after the revolution.


Do badgers eat pancakes? and other pressing questions raised by the three finalists for the 2011 Cartoonist of the Year Reuben award from the National Cartoonist Society, via Comic Riffs. Fans of "Pearls Before Swine," "Cul de Sac," and Disney's "Aladdin" and "Tangled" should take note!


At Red Meat, Bug-Eyed Earl may have made one tiny mistake.


I don't know which daily strips you follow, but this week the Comic Curmudgeon is looking at handcuffs, elevator sex, and man-boobs. Just something to consider.


Here's Barry Blitt's illustration to accompany Frank Rich's NYTimes column about the coming showdown in Wisconsin.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman offers a quick tutorial on the intersection of the federal government and job openings.


Follow along in your phrasebooks: "Bon jour, Monsieur Pussy-Cat!" . . . "Pauvre, pauvre, pussy-cat!" "The Two Mouseketeers" is the Academy Award-winning 1952 Tom and Jerry short directed by Hanna and Barbera. You either like the little Nibbles character (voiced here by six-year-old Francoise Brun-Cottan) or you find him incredibly annoying. But enough T&J fans liked him that he stayed around for three more adventures in the "Mouseketeers" series. Musical director Scott Bradley's adaptation of the traditional "Alouette" into the theme for the sword-fight scene is great. (Note the tasteful handling of Tom's violent death in the final moments.)

(Note to Facebook friends: If you're reading this in FB Notes, you'll need to click View Original Post, below, to see the video.)

p3 Bonus Toon: At this point, it's simply too much for David Wu's supporters to hope people won't pile on; the only question is which direction(s) they'll come from. Jesse Springer opts for the children's character who makes you afraid.

Test your toon-captioning skills at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Quote of the day: A couple of ticks

Alexander Cockburn on the media and the movement toward democracy in the Arab world:

Washington invokes Twitter and Facebook, made-in-America tools in the struggle for democracy in the Middle East. Compared in significance to al-Jazeera they are like a couple of ticks on the rump of a water buffalo.

Sunday afternoon tunes: I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you

Frank Sinatra recorded this tune (music by Sammy Fain and lyrics by Irving Kahal) 71 years ago today, with Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra, for a 10" disk titled "Fabulous Frankie."

Written in 1938, recorded by Sinatra in 1940, and eventually covered by everyone from Jimmy Durante to Billie Holiday to Fun Lovin' Criminals, the song's theme of casual farewell made it popular in both England and America during World War II. The lyrics included this seldom-heard tee-up:

Cathedral bells were tolling and our hearts sang on;
Was it the spell of Paris or the April dawn?
Who knows if we shall meet again?
But when the morning chimes ring sweet again...
I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places [etc.]

(Dedicated to the crew of the Discovery on her last mission. We'll be looking at the moon, but we'll be seeing you.)

Sunday morning toons: Falling dominoes: Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain -- Wisconsin?

Today's selections were tweeted directly from the Middle East from the week's political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Clay Jones, Nick Anderson, Plante, Clay Bennett, Tom Toles, John Cole, Pat Bagley, David Fitzsimmons, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium: Lester Cagle.

p3 World Toon Review: Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Cameron Cardow (Canada), Ingrid Rice (Canada), and Christo Komarnitski (Bulgaria).


Ann Telnaes thinks that what's retrograde and humiliating about House Majority Leader Boehner's recent statement isn't the retrograde and humiliating thing you're probably thinking of.


Mark Fiore welcomes you to Military Math Boot Camp. (Bonus points for getting the Rudyard Kipling reference.)


Tom Tomorrow celebrates the action-packed adventures of MiddleMan! Why should Americans be the only ones to chill at the words "Time to look forward, not backwards?"


The K Chronicles celebrates life's little victories -- yes!


Tom the Dancing Bug brings us a special guns, gays, and pizza edition, courtesy of Antonin "The Originalist" Scalia.


Courtesy of Comic Riffs: The next Superman and the next Wonder Woman.


At Red Meat, Bug-eyed Earl looks on the bright side.


The Comic Curmudgeon shares his wisdom regarding the Goggle Eyes of Horror. (Read carefully; it's not about a search engine)


Barry Blitt illustrates this week's Frank Rich NYTimes column on "the GOP's post-Tucson trauma."


Oh, the indignity! Fact-checking Doonesbury. (Uhm, they do know that, unlike Fox News, Doonesbury admits it's a cartoon? Right?)


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman has a message for the last one out of Madison. (BTW: After bitching for years about how hard OregonLive.com made it to find JO's stuff, I happily concede: the current format is great.)


She'll awaken when she falls! Or so says libertarian watchman J. Wellington Wimpy in this Popeye classic. Like Warner Bros and Disney, Fleischer Studios built a lot of its early sound cartoons around the promotion music popularized by new-fangled audio recordings and radio. Case in point, "A Dream Walking" (1934), directed by Dave Fleischer and animated by Seymour Kneitel and Roland Crandall. I love watching Olive's nose slowly work out of the bottom of the frame in the early scene -- and listen to the plucked violin as she steps onto the telephone line! Leonard Maltin once praised the rich blues of this film as proof of what the studios were doing early-on with color, apparently not realizing that it was colorized years after its original release in luscious monochrome. Which demonstrates what a tool Maltin was and is.

(Note to Facebook friends: If you're reading this in FB Notes, you'll need to click View Original Post to see the video.)


p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer says, "I just wanted to draw him with goggles on!" Here's his take on Obama, Oregon, and Education:

Test your toon-captioning skills at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Quote of the day: On elections and consequences

Here's Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog on the right and that whole democracy thing:

At the national level, this is the third presidency in a row that the right has approached on the assumption that elections should be only incidentally related to consequences.

Saturday morning tunes: Should I give up, or should I keep chasing pavements?

Even if it leads nowhere?

This goes out via the p3 Total Request Line to Carla, who had a long week of online community organizing -- ending on a good note (definitely as opposed to leading nowhere), but still a pretty long week.

If this song wasn't still stuck in your head this morning, it might be again now, for which I can only say, you know, sorry.

I don't love Portland because they do things like this -- I love Portland because they even think of doing things like this

(Updated below.)


Bike Portland passes along the news:

As part of the public art planned along their Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail project, TriMet is considering something quite interesting for the new Willamette River Bridge — a "sonic bike path." […]

The "sonic bike path" concept is still in its early stages, but at this point, the idea is to create a series of grooves on a 150 foot section of the bikeway on each end of the bridge. The grooves would be placed in such a frequency and depth that a melody would be emitted as bicycle tires rolled over them. As for the song, the artists are considering Simon and Garfunkel's "Feelin' Groovy."

The proposed sonic path would include an opt-out lane (naturally; this is Portland) for people who don't want 60s folk-rock as part of their alt-transit experience. And apart from its intrinsic Keep-Portland-Weird factor it would function as a heads-up to cyclists that the bridge was ending and they are about to be dropped down a ramp into urban traffic patterns again.

Portland: Out-"Portlandia"-ing "Portlandia."

Update (October 2011): Sigh.

The unforgiving minute: Threat level raised to Olive

From Think Progress: KS GOP Rep. Connie O’Brien Says She Can Tell Who Is ‘Illegal’ Because They Have ‘The Olive Complexion’ (emphasis added):

REP. O’BRIEN: My son who’s a Kansas resident, born here, raised here, didn’t qualify for any financial aid. Yet this girl was going to get financial aid. My son was kinda upset about it because he works and pays for his own schooling and his books and everything and he didn’t think that was fair. We didn’t ask the girl what nationality she was, we didn’t think that was proper. But we could tell by looking at her that she was not originally from this country. [...]

REP. GATEWOOD: Can you expand on how you could tell that they were illegal?

REP. O’BRIEN: Well she wasn’t black, she wasn’t Asian, and she had the olive complexion.

Goodness. Will these people -- all of them on record as being of the olive persuasion (follow the links) -- also find themselves on racial theorist Rep. O'Brien's list?

1. Jessica Alba (Actress: image)

2. Penelope Cruz (Actress: image)

3. Jessica Biel (Actress: image)

4. Theresa Heinz Kerry (Philanthropist, wife of Democratic Senator John Kerry: image)

5. Gov. Nikki Haley (Republican governor, South Carolina: image)

Or perhaps only the ones getting government benefits the representative thinks should have gone to her family?

Let the round-up begin.

Minute's up.

Sunday morning toons: Celebrating Independence Day and Valentine's Day in the same week

A big p3 Valentine goes out to all of the Egyptian demonstrators who drove Mubarak out of power this week -- and did it without shooting anybody, without burning any buildings, and (as far as I'm aware) without misspelling anything on their protest signs.

And the word of the day is "aggregate" (check out Mark Fiore and This Modern World.)

Oh yeah -- and everything bad that happened in the last forty years? Turns out none of it was Donald Rumsfeld's fault. Who knew?

Today's selections have been lovingly hand-selected from the week's political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Daryl Cagle, Nate Beeler, Bob Englehart, Dave Fitzsimmons, John Cole, , Ted Rall, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best in Show: R. J. Matson, for his nice mashup of the Egyptian uprising and Valentine's Day.

p3 World Toon Review: Cam Cardow (Canada), Frederick Deligne (France), and Ingrid Rice (Canada).


Ann Telnaes shows how to celebrate Valentine's Day -- Republican style.


Mark Fiore explains the newest trend in online journalism in a nutshell.


I finally finished season 3 of Avatar: The Last Airbender last week (hat tip to Wes), and it was pretty damned impressive. If Nickelodeon can produce something like that for kids (the detailed homages to "Apocalypse Now," "Shane," and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" are must-see), it makes you wonder what they could do if they set themselves to producing adult programming. So it's especially good news that Dark Horse Comics will release the "Lost Adventures" comic during Free Comic Book Day in May.


I'm with Oliver Willis on this one: Let's have more of this re-imagining of the classic Superman.


This Modern World unveils the Conservabot 9000. You might want to step back a little.


The K Chronicles recounts the story of the purple wheelchair and, after some awkward silence, sparks a pretty interesting comment threat.


Tom the Dancing Bug explores the lessons of life for a young person.


Comic Riffs pays tribute to legendary Disney animator Bill Justice, who created images burned into the brains of generations: From Bambi and Thumper to the animation in "Mary Poppins" to programming design for the original Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.


Red Meat's Bug-eyed Earl gets back to nature.


The Comic Curmudgeon pays tribute to the strip that helps you navigate your inevitable and painful voyage towards death.


Here's Barry Blitt's illustration for this week's Frank Rich NYTimes column on the corrupt culture of Wall Street.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman peruses the DC classifieds.


Featuring the animation of Bill Justice: The animated chipmunks Chip an' Dale were in a couple of Disney cartoons in the early 1940s, bedeviling Pluto, before this appearance in the 1947 Donald Duck film "Chip an' Dale" (when the duo were named for the first time).

(Note to Facebook friends: You'll need to click View Original Post to see the video.)


p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer takes on the story that took several Oregon news cycles by storm this week.

Test your toon-captioning chops at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Another look at the Oregon Weatherman's Thesaurus

From today's KGW seven-day forecast in the Oregonian:

Saturday: Rain Late
Sunday: Rain Early
Monday: Rain
Tuesday: Showers
Wednesday: Sun and Showers
Thursday: Sun and Showers
Friday: Partly Sunny

I assume Friday was some kind of misprint.

Saturday morning tunes: All day and all of the night

I had something more elaborate in mind for this week's Saturday tune, but one thing led to another, and meanwhile this got stuck in my head.

This performance by the Kinks was on the ABC TV series "Shindig!" (no, seriously -- that's what it was called) which was a beachhead for a lot of British Invasion groups beginning in 1964.

House GOP budget priorities: Walking the fine line between "doomed" and "less-doomed"?

You can't make this stuff up:

A group of Republican lawmakers have written to the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and its Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee recommending that funds for NASA's climate change research satellites be shifted to human spaceflight, reports Space News today.

The letter to Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) reportedly was signed by Reps. Pete Olson (R-TX), Bill Posey (R-FL), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Sandy Adams (R-FL), Rob Bishop (R-UT), and Mo Brooks (R-AL). All have districts with interests in the human spaceflight program.

Many Republican Members of Congress are skeptical that climate change is human-induced and in the past have not been particularly supportive of NASA programs focused on climate change research. Recommendations to cut those programs thus are not surprising, whether the money is reallocated to other space activities or to deficit reduction.

The House Republican leadership is expected to introduce the latest Continuing Resolution (CR) later this week, perhaps Thursday, with a vote anticipated next week.

As TPM dryly observes about the "Abandon Earth letter:"

Although the signatories don’t explicitly state that the goal of shifting funding from climate research into manned spaceflight is to find a new home for the 350 million people of the United States, one can only assume that they support that goal.

The logic might run approximately as follows: Rather than spend all that money on climate-change science (in someone else's district) in a futile effort to rescue our doomed planet, we should divert the funding to manned space flight projects -- bringing more federal money to their own districts in the near term and presumably allowing us eventually to move to another, less-doomed planet later on.

Well, actually, as it turns out, you really can make this stuff up:

Surprising as it feels to say it, the Abandon Earthers could be onto something here. The only question is: Who do we put in the B Ark?

Personally, I think it would be really nice to know I'm going to be relocating to a planet where someone had already established limited government and low taxes for us. Don't you?

(Note to Facebook friends: If you're reading this in FB Notes, you'll need to click View Original Post, below, to see this video clip.)

Rudy, Colin, and Laura get motivated!

The traveling financial and faith-healing tent show that is the Get Motivated! seminar will soon return to Portland, according to a billboard I saw downtown this week. Headliners include Rudy Giuliani and Colin Powell, both veterans of the tour, and relative newcomer Laura Bush.

A former mayor and former presidential candidate, a former First Lady, and a formerly respected Republican -- quite a slate.

You can read about my adventure at one of these events a few years ago here.

You can also get a sense of the chunk of change -- and it's considerable -- that these luminaries are going to pull in for an hour's worth of work here.

Quote of the day: "A government that's scared of #Facebook and #Twitter"

A tweet from Egyptian Google executive Wael Ghonim (@ghonim) on the Mubarak regime's attempts to stifle or control social media in Egypt during the recent uprising:

A government that is scared from #Facebook and #Twitter should govern a city in Farmville but not a country like #Egypt #Jan25

I'm not a big subscriber to the "Social media created the Egyptian uprising" meme (decades of oppression and poverty did that), but it is a great line, partly because half of the people in the Mubarak government wouldn't get it, which is precisely the point.

(H/t to Crooks & Liars, who have good video, too.)

Breaking news: AZ legislature passes Omnibus Handbag Law

The law eliminates background checks and waiting period for handbag purchases, legalizes carrying concealed handbags without a permit, and permits carrying a handbag on school property.

A provision of the bill establishing mandatory handbag ownership for all Arizona residents over 18 was narrowly defeated.

At a press conference this morning following passage of the bill, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said,

This law represents a great step forward in helping the citizens of Arizona keep their homes and their families safe.

Governor Brewer is expected to sign it in time for the pre-Valentine's Day shopping weekend.

Quote of the day: You go with the Gipper you've got, not the one you wish you had

Esquire's Tim Hefferman on why a President who did so many things the current GOP and Tea Party claim to despise is now their religious totem:

I suspect that the Republican mythmakers deify Reagan not out of desire, but simple necessity. The reality of living Republican leadership is hypocrisy and disaster; might as well take a shot at riding to legitimacy on a pack of lies strapped to a dead man's back. If nothing else, he can't complain.

If the NFL owners hate them, that's good enough for me

I don't really follow pro football much (a strike in the early 1980s made me realize I could spend my Monday nights otherwise occupied with no significant loss). I couldn't name more than one or two players on their team this season, but if I see it's a Packers game on the TV I always root for them.

It's kind of a perverse version of a great Hyman Roth line from The Godfather, Part II:

I loved baseball ever since Arnold Rothstien fixed the World Series in 1919.

Me, I've loved the Packers ever since they sold their shares to the Green Bay community in 1923.

The Packers’ unique setup has created a relationship between team and community unlike any in the N.F.L. Wisconsin fans get to enjoy the team with the confidence that their owner won’t threaten to move to Los Angeles unless the team gets a new mega-dome. Volunteers work concessions, with sixty per cent of the proceeds going to local charities. Even the beer is cheaper than at a typical N.F.L. stadium.

May the best theory of ownership win.

(Only the NFL owners could take a bunch of millionaires with attitude control issues and make them the victims of the story by threatening to lock them out in a union dispute. Well played, gentlemen. Well played.)

Walk a day

[Note: This post contains one of the lesser-known but quintessential Reagan stories. It was originally published on Feb 3, 2007. I'm reposting it today to mark the centeniary of Reagan's birth.]

Back in the early 1980s, the Age of Reagan Ascendant, some wealthy enthusiast endowed the Ronald Reagan Chair of Broadcasting at the University of Alabama . (Oh, how I teased my friends at UA over that one.) There was quite a bit of hoopla: The first holder of the position gave an inaugural lecture to the public, and Himself came down from Washington (or back from California, whichever) to give the enterprise his blessing.

As I recall long-time p3 friend Doctor TV telling me the story: There were photo ops aplenty, one of them involving a trip to a local McDonald's for lunch. In walked the Leader of the Free World, with his entourage, followed by a gaggle of reporters and photographers. Whether briefed ahead of time or by simply listening to the fellow in line in front of him, Reagan successfully ordered a Big Mac, fries, and Coke.

The minimum wage-earning teenager behind the counter handed the Chief Executive his tray of food--and then watched in bewilderment as the latter smiled, nodded, and walked away without paying.

Reagan's handlers immediately slipped up to the counter and gave the kid his money. Someone close to the presidential visit later remarked that, by that time, Reagan hadn't had to carry cash on him in years. This, from the man who gave the phrase "welfare queen" to the American political lexicon.

I bring that story up so I can mention this one:

Last Friday and Saturday, the eight Democrats who have in varying degrees announced their intention to run for president came before the executive board of the most powerful and strategic organization in American liberalism -- the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). No sooner had this first of countless candidate cattle calls been completed than the SEIU's president, Andy Stern, flew off to Iowa for several days, followed by a couple of more days in New Hampshire.

No, Stern insists, he's not running for president. Rather, he's setting in motion an SEIU program called "Walk a Day in My Shoes," in which the union will encourage (or hector) the candidates to spend a day with a working-class family in one of the first four states (Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina) to hold primary and caucus elections in 2008.

Here's a cherished but impractical opinion I've held for for some time: Anyone, regardless of party, planning to run for federal office should first have to endure something like what Barbara Ehrenreich did for the writing of Nickled and Dimed: Give them $40 and one change of clothes, drop them in a town a long way from home, and let them find work, food, and shelter for a month on their own, without breaking the law or trading on their name or connections.

If they make it through that, then we can talk about forming an exploratory committee.

Sunday morning toons: Place your bets

The line in Vegas: Steelers and 3, Hosni Mubarak and 7.

Today's selections have been carefully chosen from the week's political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, John Sherffius, Clay Bennett, Matt Wuerker, Chan Lowe, Pat Bagley, Jeff Parker, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Award for Naked Truth: Ted Rall.

p3 Best in Show: Cam Cardow.

p3 Lgn of Hnr Awrd: David Fitzsimmons.

p3 "By Their Facebook Friends Shall Ye Know Them" Award: Patrick Chappatte.

p3 "The Revolution Will Be Twittered" Award: Ingrid Rice.

p3 World Toon Review: Sakai (Japan),Graff Dagbladet (Norway), Leahy (Australia), Clement (Canada), Hagen (Norway), and Moir (Australia).


Ann Telnaes hears the clock ticking.


Mark Fiore warns: Autocrat Action Figures may be a choking hazard.


Taiwan's Next Media Animation explains the politics, economics, and particle physics of Wall Street pay raises.


Tom Tomorrow recalls the days of yore, when giants strode the earth -- sort of.


The K Chronicles reflects on the hidden potential ironies of Black History Month.


Tom the Dancing Bug shares fun Super Bowl facts to know 'n' share!


At Red Meat, Ted Johnson reviews the principles of peace of mind.


The Comic Curmudgeon teaches us that Beetle Bailey is not necessarily about what you think it's about.


Here's Barry Blitt's illustration for this week's Frank Rich NYTimes column about the fashionable misunderstandings regarding the uprising in Egypt.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman looks at what an iffy neighborhood can do to property values.


Now listen, Weasel, you don't want a dog -- which I'm: Foghorn Leghorn, Barnyard Dawg, and an unnamed weasel go at it in "Plop Goes the Weasel" (1953), direction by Robert McKimson, story by the amazing Ted Pierce, voices by Mel Blanc, and music by Carl Stalling.

(Note to Facebook friends: If you're reading this in FB Notes, you'll need to click View Original Post, below, to see the video.)

p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer is a little concerned about the "S" word in Oregon Governor Kitzhaber's budget proposal:

Test your toon-captioning skills at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Saturday morning tunes: Marian McPartland and Dave Brubeck

Didn't even know this was out there. Marian and Brubeck sit down together on the Paul Desmond classic that was Brubeck's big breakout hit.

As always, I play Marian McPartland for my friend Marilyn, whose birthday is this week (I'm pretty sure) and who I'm just not making much headway getting back in touch with.

Quote of the day: Keeping score

Paul Krugman:

Any leading player in the world of finance makes so much money that he more or less literally already has everything money can buy. If he cares about making even more money, it’s purely as a way of keeping score.

The unforgiving minute: To future students cramming for their history finals

Today, the only thing anyone remembers (if they remember anything at all) about 13th century Scholastic theology is that people apparently spent a lot of time wrestling with this question:

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

In the future, the only thing that anyone will remember about early 21st century American politics is that people apparently spent a lot of time wrestling with this question:

Which is worse: If they're really that intellectually dishonest, or if they're really just that dumb?

Minute's up.

Simple answers to simple questions

In this morning's feed:

Answer: No. Just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art.

This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions. (All applicable internet traditions acknowledged.)

Five years ago in p3: The question no one but p3 dared to ask

He's supported by a gaggle of well-connected white guys.

No one expects him to be right, and no one is surprised when he's wrong.

Whatever he says, life goes on anyway.

Sound familiar?

Three years later: Arizona's still "looking down the barrell"

[Updated below.]

I don't remember seeing this 2008 story get mentioned much during the aftermath of the Arizona shootings last month. I only stumbled across it myself because I was hunting for something else.

Following a shooting at Northern Illinois University in spring of that year (too far back to remember?), Arizona State Senator Karen Johnson had a plan:

Horrified by recent campus shootings, a state lawmaker here has come up with a proposal in keeping with the Taurus .22-caliber pistol tucked in her purse: Get more guns on campus.

The lawmaker, State Senator Karen S. Johnson, has sponsored a bill, which the Senate Judiciary Committee approved last week, that would allow people with a concealed weapons permit — limited to those 21 and older here — to carry their firearms at public colleges and universities. Concealed weapons are generally not permitted at most public establishments, including colleges.

Ms. Johnson, a Republican from Mesa, said she believed that the recent carnage at Northern Illinois University could have been prevented or limited if an armed student or professor had intercepted the gunman. The police, she said, respond too slowly to such incidents and, besides, who better than the people staring down the barrel to take action?

Because, as I commented at the time,

There are some people so dim that they think they could take a terrible and dangerous situation like the Northern Illinois shootings and make it better by throwing in a hail of crossfire and potshots from freaked-out amateurs for good measure.

We could call her bill The Full Employment for Arizona Attorneys Specializing in Wrongful Death Suits Act of 2008.

Update: It's hard to say Arizona has seen much daylight on the subject since 2008. I haven't tracked down what became of Senator Johnson's bill, although I believe it wasn't passed. Her State Senate seat is now filled by Republican anti-immigrant enthusiast Russell Pearce.

Update #2:  Did I say "Republican anti-immigrant enthusiast Russell Pearce?"  My bad.  I meant to say Republican secessionist and anti-immigrant enthusiast Russell Pearce. p3 deeply regrets the error.