With Sec. Gates’ re-prioritization of Pentagon spending, our leaders are being primed for the types of conflicts we expect in the 21st Century – Y’know, like between highly-paid defense lobbyists and Pentagon budget cutters…

Due to taxes, a pack of cigarettes is ten bucks in NYC now. That’s…that’s…almost the same price as a beer in the same town. Incentive to quit? I’m not a smoker, so you tell me (but I pay ten bucks for a beer when I have to…)

So familiar. Just another garden variety hostage taking/mass shooting in Binghamtom, NY.
I miss the days when aggrieved lunatics seemed happy to be armed with only a megaphone.

I was reading the message boards over at the Binghamton Press and saw the talking camps set up in their usual boring places – Y’know, just far enough away that they couldn’t hear each other. I personally have better things to do with my spare time (alright, I admit, I have no spare time) than play with guns. I kind of understand why people like them and also understand why some people feel that they need them. So without going over the same tired arguments and insults, (we can by now recite them all – from both sides) anyone care to offer an actual solution as to how we can prevent mass-murders carried out by lone, self absorbed narcissists? Or should we trade sophomoric insults, toss out trite bumper-sticker slogans and just wait for the next group killing?

I’ve been ludicrously shot for time these past few days (more speaking engagements…) So I’m posting a twofer to placate the angry pitchfork wielding masses assembling at the foot of this blog.
The bottom one (from Thursday’s paper) was a lousy attempt to show the folly of having two completely separate remedies for the same problem, but the G-20 crowd went behind my back and selfishly cooperated, which is the worst possible outcome for a political cartoonist. Good for the global economy though, so I’ll be gracious in my defeat. The top cartoon isn’t so bad, though.

Politicians in Albany are a special breed. I get that the public sector is under greater fiscal pressure when there’s a recession. More people on unemployment, more pressure on public health care and service spending. But the budget in Albany has taken on its own pre-eminent sense of entitled existence. It is always hashed out in secret, and, despite the rhetoric, doesn’t seem to take into account the fiscal landscape that it relies upon for its sustenance. That the budget’s spending provisions went up by 8% (paid for by higher taxes and fees!) during the worst economy since the depression is pretty mind-boggling.