Recent Comments

1. about 6 hours ago on Over the Hedge

   You might want to look at what can be done by hand if you are sufficiently motivated.

   1. A lot of people yap about ‘genocide’ nowadays. Even if you take Hamas’s figures as being totally honest (I don’t), the body count is well under Nagasaki, which was well under Hiroshima. Both combined were well under Operation Meetinghouse, the Great Fire Raid on Tokyo, which was well under what the Imperial Japanese Army did, by hand and rifle and bayonet and sword (two officers had a bet: which one of us can decapitate the most prisoners in five minutes) at Nanking.

   2. The IJA were amateurs: Rome vs. Carthage. Kill most of them, enslave the rest, and burn down the town.

   3. The IJA and the Romans were amateurs: the Ottoman Turks sacking Constantinople. 60% of military-age men dead.

   4. The IJA, the Romans, and the Turks were amateurs: Paraguay vs. the Triple Alliance, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. At least 75%, some say over 80%, of military-age men dead.

   5. The IJA, the Romans, the Turks, and the Triple Alliance were amateurs: Mongols vs anyone stupid enough to resist. Multiple towns were destroyed, their inhabitants decapitated, and the skulls piled up in pyramids. 100% fatalities unless you could run far and fast. Genghis’ boys killed over 10% of humans worldwide. And did it by hand. And they never reached Africa or the Americas.

   I won’t even bother to mention Magdeburg Mercy (Germany during the 30 Years War) or T’shaka’s guys ‘washing their spears’ (there’s a reason why Robert Mugabe’s ancestors bugged out at max rate knots and got as far away as possible) or, my personal favorites, the Aztecs, who annoyed their neighbors so much that said neighbors willingly joined Cortez on the principle that anything was better than having the Aztecs around.

2. about 6 hours ago on Luann

   OK. Now it’s getting really creepy.

3. 6 days ago on Over the Hedge

   I’m under 65. I know who Rex Morgan MD is. I just haven’t read the strip in over 30 years. Same with Mary Worth.

4. 6 days ago on Lio

   Okay. That’s the Nina. Now we need the Pinta and the Santa Maria. Admiral of the Ocean Sea Lio needs a fleet.

5. 8 days ago on Bloom County

   Dukakis lost in very large part because of The Tank Incident. He showed up in the loader’s seat of an Abrams to try to show that he was a ruff, tuff, bad boy (hint: he wasn’t) and that was because he had to go left to stomp on Jesse during the primaries. He had to appear to be as military as Daddy Bush… who had been the youngest aviator in USN history and had seen combat, being shot down over Japanese-help territory. The Tank Incident convinced many, including me, that he should never be allowed within 50 miles of anything vaguely military. The Tank Incident was a Thousand Points of Light for the Bush campaign. Go Comics won’t let me paste in the URL, but there’s a lovely write-up in Politico: “Dukakis and the Tank:The inside story of the worst campaign photo op ever.” Daddy Bush walked all over him. It could have been worse. Dukakis could have been Wally Mondale.

   Wally Mondale was just Wally Mondale. And it was Morning In America. It wasn’t that the Rainbow Coalition didn’t show; it was that Dems, in general, didn’t show, and he got hammered. Wally got lit up in the second-worst political defeat in North American history, behind only what happened to the Canadian Tories in the Great Wipe-Out of 1993. (Yeah, that means that Wally was #1 for nine lonely years…) Frankly, I don’t see how Jesse could have done worse.

6. 8 days ago on Cleats

   He’s not that bad…

7. 8 days ago on Bloom County

   Jesse Jackson really did have a Rainbow Coalition and really did campaign under Action Jackson. Really.

   There would be reasons why the Dems lost to Ronnie Raygun in 84 and Bush the Elder in 88.

8. 9 days ago on Luann Againn

   And that’s a hit. Roll ‘Top Gun Anthem’.

9. 9 days ago on Bloom County

   Even with the personality change, he’s not gay enough for Richard Simmons.

10. 11 days ago on FoxTrot Classics

    1. Don’t buy Official Epson (or HP, or Canon) ink cartridges. Generic from Amazon is almost as good, and I can get an eight-pack for my Epson (two each black, cyan, magenta, yellow) for under $40; Official Epson carts are $60 for a three-pack, one each cyan, magenta, yellow, and $30 for a one-pack of black. Epson rigged the thing so it won’t scan if one or more carts are empty or missing. Guess how I found out.

    2. get a laser printer. I do most of my printing on a Brother grayscale laser. The toner carts are $40 and produce 3000 pages, way better than any inkjet. The toner doesn’t dry out and doesn’t clog. My old Brother laser printed over 25,000 pages since 2007, before it finally died. The replacement has only done 1000 pages, but it’s still young.

    I will be replacing the Epson with a Brother color laser.

    Note that the president of HP has said that he wants to move all users to a subscription model, where they pay HP per page. Interestingly, HP also reports that they have had a 20% decline in printer sales. Gee. I wonder why that might be…