Saturday, May 5, 2012

Greatest Hits?

The web is chock full of stuff that will horrify and captivate you all at the same time.  Things like....train collisions!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Pure Genius

One common complaint of the comic strip industry is that it is cluttered with "zombie strips" as well as strips that have grown stale.  Examples of zombie strips would be B.C., Prince Valiant, and Sally Forth.  Those strips have since passed beyond the ken of their creators and have been continued by a series of artists.

Those strips are also poor examples of strips that have grown stale.  Johnny Hart's daughter and two of his grandsons now draw B.C. and their perspective has made it a strip worth reading after decades of stale writing.

The larger point is that the limited real estate of the weekly newspaper makes it terribly hard for new comic strip artists to break into the business.  An example of a strip that is just dying to make the jump and most assuredly never will is XKCD by Randal Munroe.  The humor is quirky.  More importantly, it makes you think and takes you places you might not go on your own.

This strip from last week is a classic.  I was only barely able to contain myself from whipping out a calculator to check each and every approximation.  You never know when you might need a good approximation!  Not only was a laughing at myself for being so obsessed, I was simultaneously awed by Randall's genius and amused at the utter waste of brilliance and effort required for him to create this strip.



As an added bonus, place your pointer over the image to read the alt text.  The many layers of humor that Randall routinely rolls into his work is nothing short of brilliant.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

When Is An Apple Not An Apple

When it's an orange.

Despite the many protestations to the contrary, voter fraud is real in the U.S.  An ongoing investigation in Virginia has revealed hundreds of instances of registration fraud.  The state police have concluded that some of those fraudulent registrations resulted in illegal ballots being cast.

As a side note, I disagree with states that auto-magically remove voting rights from felons as a part of their conviction and sentencing.  Most certainly such folks should not be voting while they are in jail or prison.  But once they have "done their time", is it really appropriate to completely suspend their voting rights?  It ought to be one available element of any sentence, but should it be automatic?

Sadly, it looks like a bunch of felons got screwed by voting advocacy groups...like ACORN...who had workers lie to the felons about their eligibility to vote.

In any case, we now have hundreds of examples of fraud in the voting system to point to the next time some fool decides to claim that a person is more likely to be struck by lightning than for any sort of voter fraud to occur.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Victims Of Communism Day

Lacking a pre-programmed entry for today, I will simply note that Loyalty Day (as practiced in the U.S.) is also a great candidate for Victims of Communism Day.  The Volohk Conspiracy also has more.

Monday, April 30, 2012

That Just About Uncovers It

Potentially NSFW but probably safe enough for your better half to be looking over your shoulder.


Sunday, April 29, 2012