Today's Pix

The View From Out There

When the whole whole world says you're bug-fuckin' stoopid, one thing you have to stop and consider is that maybe you're bug-fuckin' stoopid.

The Week:

Coverage of the school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, was splashed across newspaper front pages around the world, a testament to the universal horror of a tragedy in which 20 children, all of them ages 6 and 7, were killed in their classrooms by a lone gunman. There was an outpouring of sympathy from the international community, which was inevitably followed by utter bewilderment at America's continued obsession with lethal weapons. The U.S. is home to 270 million privately held guns, which equates to an average of nine guns per 10 people. (In second place, with roughly 1 gun for every two people, is Yemen, "a conflict-torn Arab nation still dealing with poverty, political unrest, a separatist Shia insurgency, an al Qaeda branch, and the aftereffects of a 1994 civil war," notes Max Fisher at The Washington Post.) It is no coincidence that the U.S. also boasts the highest rate of gun-related deaths among developed countries — an American is 20 times more likely to die at the hands of a gun then another member of the developed world. Here, some reactions from around the world:

Canada's The Globe and Mail:
There is something inexorable about the phenomenon of mass shootings in the United States. We have been forced to write about it with tragic regularity for years. We have exhausted adjectives to describe our horror and revulsion. We have stated and restated the problem…
The time for platitudes is past, Mr. President. It’s time the U.S. cured its gun sickness.

And there're 10 more links and excerpts.

Today's Toon

I'd like to think we'll figure something out, but I'm not very hopeful.  We can't even decide we should do something - much less decide what we'll do.

Dear Obama Haters

I'm not saying you're all the same as this bunch of spit-cup deep-fried slop-faced apes, but I think you should know about your fellow travelers.

via Wonkette

Todays' Tweets

Better Gun Laws Now

A gunman puts a bullet in the brain of a Democratic congressman, Gabrielle Giffords, and nothing changes. A madman murders young people in a crowded theater in Aurora, Colorado, and nothing changes. Sikh worshippers in Oak Creek, Wisconsin and Christmas shoppers in Portland, Oregon become casualties and nothing happens. Our children are now being slaughtered as a result of a political calculation.

Tim Dickenson at Rolling Stone

Mike Bloomberg at Mayors Against Illegal Guns

Today's Toon

And when weaponized anthrax is outlawed, only outlaws will have weaponized anthrax. --John Fugelsang

Godly(ish) Tunes

Of course, the inevitable crap immediately showed up on Facebook about how assholes shoot kids at school because the schools have told God to get out.  Here's the thing:  if your all-powerful god can be kept out of anywhere just because some minor functionary on some random local board says so, then that is one weak shit god ya got there, Sparky.

And if your all-loving and all-merciful god turns his back as innocent people are being slaughtered - and while you shrug and rationalize it all as "god's will" -  then you and your god can both go fuck yourselves.

The Shooting(s)

We have a gun problem.  And since the problem is all about guns, the solution has to be all about guns as well.  So here's the logical approach to solving it.

I'm calling on all you gun owners to carry your guns wherever you go, and when you see someone who has a gun, I want you to shoot him.  Shoot anybody you see who has a gun.

There's bound to be some collateral damage, but once the gun freaks are all busy shooting each other, maybe they'll leave everybody else the fuck alone.

And while we're at it, the Sate Department should add the NRA to its list of Terrorist Organizations.

Fuck All

And there can't be anybody in the world who's more of an asshole than Bryan Fischer.