Recent Comments

1. about 12 hours ago on Frazz

   No library on Earth (not even the Library of Congress) can reasonably expect to have a copy of every single book. However, librarians are extremely resourceful about books they don’t currently have on their shelves: “Interlibrary loans are a wonder of the world and a glory of civilization.” —Jo Walton, Among Others, winner of the 2012 Hugo Award for best SF novel

   So yeah, if they don’t have the book you’re looking for, they stand ready to find it for you.

2. about 12 hours ago on La Cucaracha

    Germany 1945 • Postmortem

   — From Pastor Martin Niemoeller

   They first came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

   Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

   Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

   Then they came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

   Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

    USA 2025 • Premortem

   They first came for the illegal immigrants and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t an illegal immigrant.

   Then they came for the liberal media and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a media person, let alone a liberal.

   [The rest of the story remains to be written, but yes, there will be more to the story.]

3. about 12 hours ago on Pearls Before Swine

   Ever hear of Wikipedia? They’re a much more thoro source of such information than I am. You could start here:

   en.Wikipedia.Erg/wiki/List_of_book-burning_incidents#21st_century

4. about 12 hours ago on La Cucaracha

   In what manner am I wrong? It seems to me that your own opinion is without foundation, since the Israelis could easily have wiped out all of Gaza with a tactical nuke, but they didn’t. So where’s this intent to eradicate that you keep blathering on about?

5. about 18 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   Ooooo, look! A crossover comment from today’s “Doonesbury”.

6. about 18 hours ago on Non Sequitur

   I think most of the exemplars you’re holding up as nations we should be emulating also have national health care — of which universally available and readily accepted vaccinations against common diseases are a core component.

7. about 18 hours ago on Pearls Before Swine

   Your question involved “where”, and that was what my answer was based on. There’s photographic evidence of piles of books being burned, which any internet search could easily reveal to you — and apparently did. Your subsequent attempt to dodge that hard reality by throwing in the “when” as an additional requirement doesn’t make my response baseless, it just points out that your denial that such things are even possible isn’t motivated by a search for truth.

8. about 18 hours ago on Monty

   The legal system sets up the rules for what constitutes guilt or innocence according to rules which follow the general guideline that it’s better for a civilized society if 10 guilty people go free than that 1 innocent person suffer the penalty for a crime he or she didn’t permit. Most people I know would rather live in a country like that than in one that goes the other way. And such countries do in fact exist in this day and age.

9. about 19 hours ago on La Cucaracha

   Well, do note that, of the 3 characteristics I listed above, Israel checks none of the boxes — except, as I acknowledged above, if you mean with regard Hamas in particular, which they have vowed to exterminate. But in your latest message you say that they’re “calling for the literal extermination of Palestinians” without throwing the word “some” in front of Palestinians, so I can only assume you mean “all”. And that’s just flat out untrue.

   “Willful murder of non-combatants and civilians” is in fact a characteristic of genocides, but once again the word “all” comes into play. A true genocide doesn’t just kill them off here and there or by accident, it does it systematically and universally.

   But, speaking of checking off boxes in the definition of what constitutes a genocide, do note that Hamas quite explicitly, unabashedly, and unapologetically checks off #1 and #2 with regard to Israelis, it’s just that they don’t have the practical ability to also check off #3. But they would if they could.

   So when you start throwing around phrases like “support a genocide”, do take a good, hard look in your own mirror.

   None of which is to say that this kind of racial/ethnic/religious animosity and hatred — regardless of who’s perpetrating it — has any business in a civilized world.

10. about 22 hours ago on Non Sequitur

     HELP WANTED!!

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    Send résumés and photos to Sycophancy Department, Mar-a-Lago

     Competent, talented, and qualified persons need not apply