Recent Comments

1. about 4 hours ago on Compu-toon

   Santa does, however, have a postal address: Santa Claus / North Pole H0H 0H0 / Canada. It’s staffed by a bunch of elves who are mostly retired postal workers.

2. about 15 hours ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   I believe that Rand endorsed capitalism in its rawest form, and she was surely rabidly anti-communist. I think, however, that the quote you gave just illustrates the fact that “good” capitalists will sell anyone anything, as long as there’s a profit in it. I don’t see that she sees that as a problem.

   (I remember that Doonsbury‘s Uncle Duke was facing an Iranian firing squad and haggling: "And that’s my final offer!" Apparently that offer was accepted, because he did reappear as “the 53rd hostage” some months later.)

3. 1 day ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   “. . . essentially the same thing, to make opposite points.”

   Seems to me to be the same point.

4. 1 day ago on Doonesbury

   “. . . pretty much anyplace you could possibly shoot at in Afghanistan . . .”

   I certainly remember when any Vietnamese civilian killed by US forces was automatically and retroactively enlisted in the Viet Cong for casualty statistics. And now, any school, refugee centre, or food station in Gaza seems to have a “Hamas militant” inside or nearby or suspected.

5. 1 day ago on Doonesbury

   “I wish posters would indicate to whom they are speaking in their replies!”

   The person to whom they are replying is shown in blue with an “@” sign; where this does not appear, the reply is to the originator of the thread, the post that isn’t indented.

   However, it’s often not clear to what particular comment a post is replying, and even when the replied-to is clear, a reader has to scroll upthread to see that comment and get the context. (Because GC doesn’t support real threading.)

   That’s why I generally try to make context clear by quoting a bit of the comment to which I’m replying.

6. 2 days ago on MythTickle

   “. . . You can’t be brave without being scared, first.”

   I’m trying to remember a story by an sf author (but with few or no sf elements) that makes this point. It’s set in a hospital ward where the patients are about to receive spinal taps. The first patient dies, and then the second. Anyone recognize it?

7. 2 days ago on Doonesbury

   “I remember when the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan. . .”

   My memory is that, when various media tried to get statements of outrage from local Buddhists, the answer was something like, “Our religion tells us not to put much value on material things like statues.”

8. 2 days ago on Doonesbury

   “Foundationless belief in life after death is practically the epitome of superstition . . .”

   Agreed. “Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” —attributed to Voltaire

9. 4 days ago on Jane's World

   I think that one of the features of Magic Realism is that the “magic” seems commonplace and unremarkable to the characters.

10. 5 days ago on Non Sequitur

    “Bird flu was a major cause of egg prices to rise.”

    Aha!! It was the Deep State that required chicken farms to destroy all their hens when bird flu struck. In the Great America to come, bird flu will just engender herd immunity, hens won’t get sick, flocks won’t have to be destroyed, egg production won’t be affected, and egg prices won’t rise. See how it all works out, by and by, in that glorious land above the sky. /s