Was There Ever A Time When Garfield Was Funny?

This cartoon is about the compromises that the Democrats have been making and continue to make with this evil administration. Support for a disastrous war taken up for no GOOD reasons (although plenty of bad reasons) has been linked to patriotism–support an open-ended war with no end strategy and you’re patriotic–call for a phased withdrawal and you’re an evil traitor who’s threatening the lives of “OUR BOYS”. There’s no middle ground given or taken. The Democrats who are jockeying for the position of being the next losing presidential candidate are falling over themselves to get mired in this trap lest they be called weak. But the real weakness is seen to be being the marionette on the string, trying to be a centrist when there’s no longer a center in American politics…(AP) Senate rejects calls on Iraq troop pullout

In the meantime, it has been four weeks since I wrote Google about their inappropriate limiting of all but 50-some HAIL DUBYUS! cartoons to adults-only searches. I have received no answer, other than the acknowledgment emails 4 weeks ago. Those of you who read this know that this is anything BUT a sexually explicit cartoon. I don’t think it comes as much of a surprise to note that our downgrading by Google came only a few months before Google launched its new Government Portal Site. I don’t believe HD is being specifically targeted, but I believe Google’s AI has been tuned to downgrade all administration-critical sites. But limiting this site to adults-only image searches is simply wrong. So, I have written Google again, not by email, but by real mail, explaining the problem. I will be loading the document onto my Google issue page later today (Now uploaded. also see the original discussion on the original Google adults-only page.)

DUM DUM DUM, DUM DaDUM, DUM DaDUM!

(WashPost) Court Eases ‘No Knock’ Search Ban Illegally Collected Evidence Allowed

(AP?WashPost) Excerpts From Police Search Ruling

I don’t believe I need say much more than Stephen Breyer in his dissent: “The question is not what police might have done had they not behaved unlawfully. The question is what they did do…Without such a rule … police know that they can ignore the Constitution’s requirements without risking suppression of evidence discovered after an unreasonable entry…That rule does help protect homeowners from damaged doors; it does help to protect occupants from surprise. But it does more than that. It protects the occupants’ privacy…Could it not be argued that the knock-and-announce rule … is simply not important enough to warrant a suppression remedy? Could the majority not simply claim that the suppression game is not worth the candle? The answer, I believe, is ‘no.’ That ‘no’ reflects history, a history that shows the knock-and-announce rule is important…Our Fourth Amendment traditions place high value upon protecting privacy in the home. They emphasize the need to assure that its constitutional protections are effective, lest the Amendment `sound the word of promise to the ear but break it to the hope.'”

Let me just add to the supposed followers of the “original intent” form of interpretation…do you really think that the founders, who had personally endured illegal searches by British troops, really meant that illegal searches were to be permitted simply because we had changed the design of the flag? Is it not possible that when they wrote the fourth amendment to LIMIT searches, they actually meant what they had said. The fourth amendment is one of the bulwarks of liberty and its erosion is yet another slip down the slope to police state. You may say, but only the guilty have anything to fear. But I say, what happens when YOUR behavior is declared illegal? As it well might be if extremists of any stripe become elected to power…

And in other news, man, I have NEVER had multiple kidney stones before. Believe me, they are NO fun. I may be going in for a bout of ultrasound to get them out of the system. Updates will follow 🙂