Archive for February, 2010

Bob Batz

I was at a business establishment the other day when I spotted a sign on the wall that said “Watch Your Purse and Personal Property.”

The sign got me to thinking: If a robber suddenly stepped out of the shadows, bopped me on the head with a tire iron and started going through my pockets, what would he get?

That gun ain't gonna get you nothing.

After checking my personal belongings, I realized the answer would be not very much.

No robber in his right mind would choose me to be his victim if he knew what I was carrying.

For openers, he’d get my plastic pocket comb. The one with the 12 teeth missing. Really, though, he’d be lucky to get my comb because I usually don’t carry a comb. In the last 45 years I’ve lost a trillion and 14 pocket combs, at least. And, if I don’t lose them, I break them. Especially the so-called “unbreakable” pocket combs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bob Franken

Have you ever watched a football game, where the two sides continuously fumble and throw interceptions and blow their opportunities by repeatedly turning over to each other?

Have you ever sat through nine innings of inept baseball where both teams combine bad pitching and fielding errors to hand the lead back and forth?

Rah, rah, sis boom bah!

Or the basketball game with airballs and traveling on both sides of the court? You get the idea. Bear with me, because as always, sports is an easy metaphor for that other team hot potato competition, Politiball. And I’m not even talking about Tiger Woods.

This is about the conservative comeback. Are you noticing how they’ve resumed a ferocious offense? This year’s CPAC meeting is almost a celebration of the cheerleaders, as the old vets perform their old tricks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bob Maistros

From “Fox News Sunday:”

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: “Why wouldn’t you run for president?

SARAH PALIN: “I would. I would if I believed that that is the right thing to do for our country and for the Palin family. Certainly, I would do so.”

Rite 4 me 2 run?

Sarah Palin Tweet, July 4, 2011:  “Rite 4 USA & 4 Palin fam 4 me 2 run 4 Prez.  Need real Cmmndr in Chief 4 Real America + need 2 promo new book, Going Rouge: That $150,000 in Wardrobe, Hair & Makeup Wasn’t My Idea, but It Didn’t Go to Waste.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Bruce Fisher

Is there a compelling public interest in preserving the artifacts and sacred sites of an ancient civilization?

The United Nations answers that question with an emphatic yes. So does the United States when it comes to national treasures. And even if we don’t have a Japanese-style “irreplaceable cultural masters” program to support living folk artists, we do have aggressive enforcement of the National Historic Preservation Act and five or six laws focused on Native American religious issues, especially graves and sacred sites.

Heritage.

The United Nations designates and supports world heritage sites, a majority of which are religious—cathedrals, monasteries, temples, even whole communities shaped by old beliefs.

So it would seem that official respect for religious expression, especially in visual and plastic arts and architecture, is pretty well established policy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Steven Hutson

It was bound to happen.

In my world of “what-ifs,” I’ve always wondered about the range of   unique problems that might befall an interfaith couple.  Should one partner convert to the other’s faith?  Should they decorate their home with the icons of one religion, or the other, or both, or none?  How should they raise their children?  Should their families be involved in these decisions, or is it none of their business?

Conspiracy?

In the course of human history, no single issue has ever united people – or divided them – quite like the realm of religion.  And when I ponder the foolishness of trying to reconcile two faiths under one roof, it makes my head hurt. But even in my ever-so-fertile imagination I never saw this one coming.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jamie Weinstein

Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio was the first speaker at this year’s Conservative Political Action Committee that got under way this morning in Washington, D.C. Before Rubio’s speech, I had heard of the legend of Marco Rubio.  But I had never heard him speak in person. Now I have. He’s the real deal.

The real deal.

Indeed, Rubio is all he is made out to be and more. Young and energetic, he says that he is ready to work with Democrats to defeat radical Islam and reduce the deficit, but he is not ready to work with them to abandon America’s free market system and make America a “submissive” member of the international community.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Calabrese

Let’s have a little talk about the most spectacularly failed political movement in recent memory. This would be the American conservative movement. And let’s talk about how this movement continues to embrace the same failed leaders who have been all talk and no action for the better part of a generation.

Blah blah blah . . .

As if you were wondering, a cadre of “conservative leaders” has released a so-called statement of conservative “beliefs, values and principles” known as the Mount Vernon Statement.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Sherrier

A spending bill was passed by the House of Representatives Dec. 16, and soon, it will go before the Senate. The bill is dubbed the Jobs for Main Street Act, and it’s here to tell you not to worry–the federal government will make it all better!

To learn about this bill, let’s journey to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s propaganda page.

Trust us. For your own sake.

Someone from her staff writes, “On December 16th, the House passed the Jobs for Main Street Act to create or save jobs here at home with targeted investments ($75 billion) for highways and transit, school renovation, hiring teachers, police, and firefighters, small business, job training and affordable housing – key drivers of economic growth that have the most bang for the buck. These investments are fully paid for by redirecting TARP funds from Wall Street to Main Street.” Read the rest of this entry »

Brett Noel

cartoon

cartoon

cartoon

cartoon

cartoon

cartoon

cartoon

High resolution version for newspaper publication

Greyscale version for newspaper publication

H

Bob Franken

We have deteriorated. The old “Do Nothing Congress” has crumbled into “PLEASE Do Nothing,” and the best we can hope for is gridlock. The Olympic organizers in Vancouver must really envy Washington, not just for our snow, but our downhill slide.

While the gettin's good.

Is it only now that Evan Bayh has seen the light of our darkness? He has spent his whole life in this mud pit. His father, Birch Bayh, was a Senate legend who was unseated by Dan Quayle, for crying out loud. So the kid has always known what he got into.

Fairly, or unfairly, Quayle was viewed as a lightweight, who not only knocked out a heavyweight, but went on to be vice president.

Anybody who believes Sarah Palin could never be elected president should remember Dan Quayle, who was a heartbeat away.

Read the rest of this entry »