Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling for March 11, 2011

It’s funny because it’s true ! No, wait, not ‘funny’, what is the word - ‘terrifying’!

Think of London, a small city It’s dark, dark in the daytime The people sleep, sleep in the daytime If they want to, if they want to

I’m checking them out I’m checking them out I got it figured out I got it figured out There’s good points and bad points Find a city Find myself a city to live in.

There are a lot of rich people in Birmingham A lot of ghosts in a lot of houses Look over there!…A dry ice factory A good place to get some thinking done…

“Cities” Talking Heads, Fear of Music

If the military had to hold a bake sale, we’d all be eating strudel and wearing lederhosen.

Yawn, we pay over 2x as much (in inflation adjusted dollars) now on each kid as we did in the 70’s and there has been no improvement in the ability of our kids to read, write, do math, understand science or know history.

There is no reason to believe that any further increases would change that.

Wow, Horseski, where did you get your information?

I like strudel…

“…there has been no improvement in the ability of our kids to read, write, do math, understand science or know history.”

Stop it! You’re gonna give Rupert & the Koch Brothers a woody.

I think if education were accustomed to getting funded like the military, education would be accustomed to throwing money away like the military. Big education contractors will charge exorbitant amounts, and the Dept. of Education will act like it’s just the cost of doing business. New and improved learning systems and gadgets would be unveiled every year, and I imagine the process would become more important that the ultimate usefulness of the product.

And the $11 trillion in deficit spending on the military since Reagan have made us demonstrably safer?

It’s interesting that while both the military and the education industry are authoritarian systems in service to the ruling class, one is popular with the folk and the other is abused and despised. I understand that even the police-prison industry is doing better. Perhaps the education system isn’t authoritarian enough?

The last panel makes me think of SecDef Gates quivering in fear at the thought of a no-fly zone over Libya.

Meantime, while ga-Daffy slaughters his people, Obama takes on the real threat: high-school bullies. Wouldn’t want any of those nice people in other countries to think America is anything special.

Where can I find a rocket taking me to this Teacher paradise? My wife & I would be true patriots & respected for it. I like that.

Tom The Dancing Bug makes an excellent point here. When speaking of serving your country, one should speak of teachers first.

If only education were funded and supported as strongly as is the military.

If education were funded as much as the military (especially at the federal level), then it would be as wasteful as the military. (And it is getting funded more, and getting more wasteful, all the time, but it will never catch the military.)

@ pschearer

It was delightful to hear Gates admit the plain truth: that imposing a no-fly zone on another country is an act of war. Even liberals were denying that one up and down during the Clinton years (throughout which the U.S. was violating international law by waging war against Iraq, among other things), and they may have to start denying it again.

But actually I agree with you: as acts of war go, a no-fly zone is a pretty good one, being essentially defensive (although not defensive of the U.S., of course) and the war in Libya (currently a civil war) already exists. Although my pacifism rebels at it, I must admit that even Clinton’s no-fly zone in northern Iraq (however illegal) did good. It’s still outrageous that the United States treats the world as its empire, and this obviously does far more harm than good overall, but emperors can do good things as well as bad.

Yes, certainly. Like Obama is now, Clinton was just sticking with the policies that were begun by a Bush.

Yayy number9 cities in “that earth”!!

I wrote:

But actually I agree with you

Of course, NATO went beyond shooting down murderers in aeroplanes very quickly this time. So much for that idea.