Recent Comments

1. 4 months ago on Free Range

   Disgustingly typical.

2. 4 months ago on The Duplex

   90% of Americans fall short of the USDA’s meager recommendations for daily veggies and fruit, and the vast majority of the population is reliant on automobiles as their sole mode of transportation. Bump that percentage up and the label would quite aptly describe the U.S.

3. 4 months ago on Jeff Stahler

   The event certainly brought to mind the movie Bob Roberts, in which a failed (or possibly faked) assassination attempt ensures electoral victory for the target. Real or fake, the shooting was an absolute coup for the tRump campaign.

4. 4 months ago on Mike Luckovich

   The problem is much more one of greed than of overpopulation. The richest 1 billion consume and pollute more than the other 7 billion combined. However, if you’re truly concerned about overpopulation, you could do your part to help combat it. And no, I’m not talking about the obvious – initiating genocidal acts against, say, American suburbanites – I’m talking about the most proven way of curbing population growth – providing funding in the poorest countries for prenatal and child health and for the education of girls and women.

   The population is growing because life expectancy has increased, but the birthrate has plummeted to the point that the population will plateau before the end of the century (given the lifespan of humans, it takes decades for reduced birthrates to be reflected in the population totals). Throughout the world and across all religions and cultures, when the child mortality rate drops, so too does the birthrate – people have a lot more kids when there is a strong likelihood that any given child might not survive to adulthood. There is a similar correlation between the birthrate and the education and empowerment of women and girls – when women are given more say in family size, they tend to prefer smaller families. So if you are genuinely worried about overpopulation and want to do your part – push those in power to fund programs to decrease child mortality throughout the world.

5. 4 months ago on Clay Bennett

   The event brought to mind the movie Bob Roberts, in which a failed (or possibly faked) assassination attempt catapults the target to electoral victory. It’s hard to imagine tRump losing the election after this. (Though if it was faked, one would think that they’d have scheduled it for closer to the election.)

6. 4 months ago on Bloom County

   One can’t look at an issue as complex as drug use and draw any meaningful conclusions about its relationship to drug policy based upon an individual city or even a handful of cherry-picked ones. But the rate of drug use is not the point of the strip. It didn’t take us terribly long to realize that prohibition of alcohol was a bust, but we have not learned that lesson with other drugs. The drug war certainly seems to be a considerable failure – given the pervasiveness and power of the drug cartels and the extensiveness of related crime, it’s hard to imagine that crime and incarceration levels would have been lower if the war on drugs had been waged with less vigor.

7. 5 months ago on Jeff Stahler

   I doubt that they’ll lament the choice, at least not for quite some time. They love tRump for his hate, and for quite some time he’ll be focused on destroying the things that MAGAts loathe – deporting anyone with brown skin or an accent that isn’t western European, tearing apart all Federal agencies other than Homeland and the military, forcing evangelical “values” on the masses, jailing his enemies, etc. Things will get worse for everyone other than the 1%ers, but he’ll successfully blame all of the bad on a variety of scapegoats, and the delight that the MAGAts derive from his scorched earth tactics will outweigh the pain that they’ll feel from his endless failures.

8. 5 months ago on Matt Davies

   Your racism and stupidity outweigh your desire to see this country thrive – it is quite clear that immigrants generate far more good than harm, and America’s grandest eras have coincided with high levels of immigration. As to the lack of harm caused by immigration, one need look no farther than the Mariel Boatlift in 1980, when Miami was inundated with such a flood of Immigrants that the size of their labor force increased by 7 to 8% in a period of 6 months. Despite this unprecedented influx, only one cohort saw wages decrease as a result – non-Hispanic men between the age of 25 & 59 and without a high school diploma – a total of 17 individuals.

   The actual causes of high housing costs are myriad, but chief among them are exclusionary zoning, NIMBYism, and those greedy and self-absorbed folk (snowbirds and their ilk) who own more than one home.

9. 5 months ago on Matt Davies

   Biden’s administration has proven to be quite capable, and will continue to be so. They are heedlessly continuing this country (and with it the world) on a ruinous path, but that is very much at the directive of the populace – virtually no one has any interest in leaving anything for future generations of doing so would mean an ounce of reprioritization. But contrast that to the Orange Blob and his minions, who would seek to accelerate the country’s (and world’s) demise, all while gobbling up as much of the spoils as possible.

10. 5 months ago on The Argyle Sweater

    An EV is greener than an ICE vehicle in the same sense that being decapitated is preferable to being burned alive – both are terrible, but the former is decidedly less terrible than the latter. Walk, bike, or take transit – anything else is little more than greenwashing.

    As to hydroelectric and ethanol, nobody who actually cares about the environment has advocated for either for decades. The latter is particularly egregious and resulted from a desire to prop corn prices up so that our “yield, yield, yield above all else” mindset wouldn’t be financially calamitous.