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And we're back from the weekend. Everyone enjoyed the EPIC FOOTBALL, apparently, and are anticipating the matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers. We start with a letter saying that an artist going by the name of Madonna was not ready for the big stage yet.
One thing right up top for someone who occasionally drops in on the blog, and has his own experiment underway where he claims to be learning How To Think - mindfulness meditation changes your brain structures after about eight weeks of practice, many of them related to memory, stress levels, and empathy. I don't know how long his program is scheduled to run, but eight weeks sounds like a minimum requirement, perhaps, for some of it?
We continue with something that may violate coptright, but also illustrates why it might be beneficial to do so - an OCR version of A People's History of the United States, by Zinn. In fact, the people who have it put up are well aware of the copyright issues, and claim that they got explicit permission from Howard Zinn to host the entire book on the website in response to the HarperCollins DMCA complaint against them. Excepts have long been covered under fair use, but in our supposed age of new autodidactism, plaing entire works on-line and available may be the next step toward everyone being able to get an education for the cost of the Internet access.
Speaking of lots of documents, al-Jazeera, among other international news organizations, has posted some 1,600 documents leaked about the Israel-Palestine peace process of the last few decades, exposing just how much was offered for peace, and how much was turned down because it wasn't apparently enough.
The Dead Pool Fitness Center hires Jack Lalanne, fitenss enthusiast and spokesperson, at 96 years of age. Additionally, the pool claims the last living member of the "Band of Brothers", Ed Mauser, at 94 years.
Finally, the United States military reports that it can't connect PFC Manning, still being held in super-maximum detention at Quantico, to Julian Assange and the Wikileaks leak. So, the next question is: do they release PFC Manning because they can't find the evidence to charge him with, or will he still be held like this until the evidence can be "found" that he was responsible?
Out in the world today, an altar in Poland will use a vial of the previous Bishop of Rome, John Paul II, as its holy relic, after JPII is formally beatified by the Vatican.
For those traveling, remember that if you intend on entering the United States, Customs and Border Patrol officials will seize your electronic devices, make copies of the information contained on them, and then decide whether they want to return them to you at some later date, all without the authority of a warrant or court order.
China seems to figure prominently in the news today, with sentencing for someone convicted of selling military secrets to China, a Chinese firm tied to steel that was sold to Iran to use in their nuclear programme, (a programme that continues to raise the fear and terror warnings because of their unwillingness to abandon it) and the possibility that the new Chinese stealth fighter uses technology reverse-engineered from a United States fighter shot down in the Kosovo region some years back. All of these things have conservative groups claiming that the military needs to be ready in case China decides to go to war, and so United States defense spending can't be significantly cut.
The scrum for the new government in Lebanon has begun, with one major bloc leader saying his bloc will not participate in a government headed by the blog containing Hezbollah.
Elsewhere, a blacklisting by the United States for a leader of a major terrorist group in Pakistan and the accusation of a local Iraqi militia leader as the planner behind several attacks on Shi'ite pilgrims.
Inside the United States, A Republican Senator from Utah has declared that the laws forbidding child labor are not Constitutionally valid, choosing to cite old law that was overturned by new law. And thus, ladies and gentlemen, is how the Republicans and the Tea Party maintain the fiction that most of modernity is not actually valid - by choosing to follow the train only to the point where it stops in their favor.
We might be doing the same when we point out the Congress has passed socialized medicine programs and individual insurance mandates before - in the time of the Founders, in fact, so arguing that this is unprecedented is not strictly true, and arguing that the founders were against such schemes is not true, either.
Mr. Keith Olbermann and NBC parted ways on Friday, with the cancellation of his show, "Countdown". The timing on it suggests that the increasingly fractious relationship between Olbermann and the network, including the suspension of Mr. Olbermann over political donations, has finally come to a head. The possibility that the NBC-Comcast merger accelerated things is speculation, and nobody will confirm on that. If, however, you've been following Mr. Olbermann as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bradhicks has, then you notice that Mr. Olbermann's constant references to the movie Network were predictors of what his style had eventually become, and at some point, he was going to be cut. Especially when he substitute-turned host of her own, Rachell Maddow, kept showing how it was possible to do all the things he was doing without appearing to take it personally of without a loss of temper. In comments, the Infamous Brad also mentions that Mr. Olbermann was turning away from talking to real people and more and more into just having pundits on. In Mr. Olbermann's defense, though, his oration was always excellent, and he had mastered the key of cadence and clip and vocals that made his words carry weight (listen to him read Thurber if you don't believe me), and he advocated for things that needed to be spoken for.
A proper scrum looks to be developing between old-guard elected Republicans and their Tea-backed freshmen counterparts over the matter of how much, how quickly, and where to cut government expenditures.
An unsubtle check on whether or not HHS was awake and their Institutional Review Boards were paying attention. HHS failed, and one of the IRBs failed spectacularly, despite the obvious names for the false companies.
The continued inaction on trials and investigations into the lawless actions of the previous administration sets dangerous precedent to allow a future administrator to get away with more than merely murder. Justice's lack of charges in congressional corruption cases only compounds the problem.
In the never-ending quest to get high on cheap things, bath salts have apparently become the next big hit...with serious consequences to the mind and body. In some ways, that seems like an argument for drug legalization - that way you at least know what the substance is going to do to you, and it's passed a QC check that says it will do that thing, and you will know what the potential hazardous effects are.
Last out, the trial finally begins in regard to the shooting of a 9 year-old girl in Arizona - last year. The accused has strong ties to the nativist Minuteman movement, and is alleged to have targeted a house based on false information that it had drugs and money inside, shooting and killing most of the residents of the house, then fleeing after they realized the mistake.
In technology, Mr. Scalzi points out that Facebook is the latest iteration of "the Web hit with a stupid stick", and that while it serves a purpose for some people, it is not his thing. So he keeps a minimalist profile and sticks mostly to the places where people who know a thing or two about rolling a website and doing things hang out.
One of the consequences of the practice of sending other people photos of yourself nude - should your relationship sour, they can choose to use the pictures for blackmail or extortion. Which says both something about making sure you're sure before you do such things, and about what kind of bad decisions people make with intimate material when relationships stop working out.
The practice of texting appears to be improving spelling skills, despite fears that SMS slang is corrupting the language, apparently because the phonetic nature of the slang makes it easier, not harder, to remember spelling in longhand. It is, however, a small sample group, and the conventional wisdom as represented by the comment section is unwilling to believe that a positive result is possible, because they are too busy bemoaning the corruption of the language and complaining that it creeps into the formal writing exercises students are undertaking.
In opinions, Mr. Bauman notes both the transisiton of concepts into words divorced from reality used as ideological bludgeons and the way the electorate has been deliberately positioned and bombarded with contradictory statements that they simply give up and go home, because nothing makes any sense and everything is presented as always possible. Even though they know in the back of their heads that those simultaneous assertions are impossible. Once they've given up, then they're suscpetible to LOUD DOGS WHO MUST BE OBEYED BECAUSE THEY'RE LOUD, and the results are fairly predictable.
Mr. Will is the foil to the previous argument, beliving that the American people invest much in their creed, and that creed is fundamentally anti-government, which pits the "statists" against the conservatives in greater and lesser amounts of heat and visible fire. The conflict is good, he says, and the Tea Partiers are the right people to back, because they have actual fidelity to the creed.
Mr. Connor is more neutral about short-term politics, but he's certain that we have failed to pay attention to Dwight Eisenhower's warnings about government and short-term thinking, both in government, which engages in costly enterprises that are not adequately funded, and in individuals, who have abandoned thrift and run themselves up in a flurry of spending to the very brink of insolvency.
Because we're still in the rush of heady symbology, instead of in the nuts and bolts of actual governance, the conservative papers are pushing the idea that the health care bill can be repealed a bit harder than normal. For example, Mr. duPont paints the November elections as The Will Of The People Against Obamacare, and now the Republicans need to make good on that Mandate From Heaven any way they can, even if it means picemeal concessions and small laws passed that chip away at the bigger bill. Ms. Parker also claims the Mandate From Heaven, but this time The People rejected SOCIALISM! and the control of Special Interests (a mirror check is required any time someone mentions Special Interests on the other side) that prevent good policy from taking hold, instead of policy that continues to keep poor people poor and receiving substandard care. (Of course, the chronic underfunding of those porgrams has absolutely nothing to do with it, does it, Ms. Parker?) Mr. Krauthammer has a much more sane position, "merely" accusing the administration of accounting tricks to produce a favorable CBO result and hiding the fact that a central promise hinges only on employers keeping insurance instead of following the incentives to dump everyone into the exchanges, and charging the Republicans with creating a proper alternative to the current law so that repeal does not generate a void.
And then, because the anniversary of the Roe decision is upon us, a nexus of opinions about abortions. A short quote from Mother Teresa claiming abortion is the greatest killer of love and peace, because it teaches the acceptance of violence and allows both potential father and mother to sidestep the responsibility of a child, Ms. Malkin taking a practice of delivering viable babies and then killing them in an inhumane manner and generalizing it to the whole of abortion procedures, regardles of where in the pregnancy they happen and how they are performed, which should sound like a familiar tactic, like displaying pictures of aborted fetuses or engaging repeatedly in heated and violent talk that always has the potential of setting off a "lone gunman" to go do something that the rhetoricians will deny in public and cheer in private. Or exerting governmental authority to force women to go through various hoops and lean heavily on the sense of social shame or the expectation that women are all supposed to be baby-carriers, and that hearing the sounds of their fetuses will magically awaken their protective maternal instinct, regardless of the situation that brings them to seek an abortion. Or worse, attempting to deny any tax ebnefits that come from insurance policy purchases if those policies include coverage for abortion, continuing the attack technique of making abortion either prohibitively expensive or otherwise unaccessible without actually banning it.
Truth is, a lot of people are in the camp that abortion should be a legally protected by socially unnecessary thing, due to prevalent availability and usage of birth control, medicine that could save both mother and child instead of forcing them to choose, some sense to stop sexual assault, and societal support such that nobody ever has to abort because they can't afford another child. Or that they know full well nobody will adopt their child and they can't raise them. If people really want women and mothers to choose life, they have to make the option attractive and workable. That means child care, infant care, supplemental income, resources, and education. That means having things available so that women and men who know they can't afford children but choose to engage in sex can reduce the risks of pregnancy. Nobody should have to abort, but until we can actually prove that we can handle it if nobody chooses to abort, then abortion, like the poor, will be with us always. And forced sonograms, heartbeat recordings, and other things aren't going to ease the pain, whether the decision stays the same or changes. If anyone is really and truly pro-life, they would be trying to put in place a system that ensures that life will thrive.
Even though his program is gone, the segment lives on, and will be repeated as many times as needed. So, once again, beware the Worst Persons in the World (Sort of...)
The bronze is the above pieces claiming the Mandate From The People in transferring control of one house of government to the opposition and that everyone must take their vote to repeal a health care bill with popular portions seriously. "We are Republicans of the House, King of Kings! Look upon our works, ye mighty, and despair!" Moving onward...
The silver to Mr. Doherty, for a Gargoyle-response piece about the Tuscon shootings - he's right, gun control laws probably would not have stopped the shooter, but he's remarkably wrong in thinking that there's nothing that should be done to gun laws or available gun equipment because of this. Some of the things mentioned would be rather symbolic, but getting rid of extended magazines and weapons that do not have an obvious use other than sport would probably have reduced the magnitude of the action. Most people calling for more gun control are cognizant that lawbreakers are lawbreakers, but they are also of the opinion that someone who wants to break the law in those kinds of ways should have to go to effort to obtain the things that they want.
Melanie Phillips takes the gold for insisting that the gay agenda is everywhere, including geography classes, science classes (Emperor penguins and seahorses!), maths classes, and many other attempts to brainwash children into believing that QUILTBAG people are actually, y'know, people. Those who dare to uphold their religious beliefs are persecuted by the Government! The Beeb reports that some members on a drugs council are planning on stepping down because one of the other members is staunchly anti-gay and they feel uncomfortable when he claims that traditional marriage should be promoted as a way of stopping drug addictions and use. Ms. Phillips claims that the gay rights movement risks becoming McCarthy instead of the oppressed minority, and that they're already the "more equal than others" group with special rights. As with all things, when you can be openly gay without having people refuse you service, loudly point their fingers at you cand claim you're evil, Satanic, or deluded, and not have to worry about physical violence because you happen to be out, then people can bitch about "special" rights or how gay rights have somehow taken over. Without that, there's still no argument.
Last for tonight, a cat summoned to jury service.
Oh, and Steampunk Palin, a comic whose premise and politics are welded together in such a way as to be both horror-inspiring, curiostiy-encouraging, and good for more than a few laughs.
One thing right up top for someone who occasionally drops in on the blog, and has his own experiment underway where he claims to be learning How To Think - mindfulness meditation changes your brain structures after about eight weeks of practice, many of them related to memory, stress levels, and empathy. I don't know how long his program is scheduled to run, but eight weeks sounds like a minimum requirement, perhaps, for some of it?
We continue with something that may violate coptright, but also illustrates why it might be beneficial to do so - an OCR version of A People's History of the United States, by Zinn. In fact, the people who have it put up are well aware of the copyright issues, and claim that they got explicit permission from Howard Zinn to host the entire book on the website in response to the HarperCollins DMCA complaint against them. Excepts have long been covered under fair use, but in our supposed age of new autodidactism, plaing entire works on-line and available may be the next step toward everyone being able to get an education for the cost of the Internet access.
Speaking of lots of documents, al-Jazeera, among other international news organizations, has posted some 1,600 documents leaked about the Israel-Palestine peace process of the last few decades, exposing just how much was offered for peace, and how much was turned down because it wasn't apparently enough.
The Dead Pool Fitness Center hires Jack Lalanne, fitenss enthusiast and spokesperson, at 96 years of age. Additionally, the pool claims the last living member of the "Band of Brothers", Ed Mauser, at 94 years.
Finally, the United States military reports that it can't connect PFC Manning, still being held in super-maximum detention at Quantico, to Julian Assange and the Wikileaks leak. So, the next question is: do they release PFC Manning because they can't find the evidence to charge him with, or will he still be held like this until the evidence can be "found" that he was responsible?
Out in the world today, an altar in Poland will use a vial of the previous Bishop of Rome, John Paul II, as its holy relic, after JPII is formally beatified by the Vatican.
For those traveling, remember that if you intend on entering the United States, Customs and Border Patrol officials will seize your electronic devices, make copies of the information contained on them, and then decide whether they want to return them to you at some later date, all without the authority of a warrant or court order.
China seems to figure prominently in the news today, with sentencing for someone convicted of selling military secrets to China, a Chinese firm tied to steel that was sold to Iran to use in their nuclear programme, (a programme that continues to raise the fear and terror warnings because of their unwillingness to abandon it) and the possibility that the new Chinese stealth fighter uses technology reverse-engineered from a United States fighter shot down in the Kosovo region some years back. All of these things have conservative groups claiming that the military needs to be ready in case China decides to go to war, and so United States defense spending can't be significantly cut.
The scrum for the new government in Lebanon has begun, with one major bloc leader saying his bloc will not participate in a government headed by the blog containing Hezbollah.
Elsewhere, a blacklisting by the United States for a leader of a major terrorist group in Pakistan and the accusation of a local Iraqi militia leader as the planner behind several attacks on Shi'ite pilgrims.
Inside the United States, A Republican Senator from Utah has declared that the laws forbidding child labor are not Constitutionally valid, choosing to cite old law that was overturned by new law. And thus, ladies and gentlemen, is how the Republicans and the Tea Party maintain the fiction that most of modernity is not actually valid - by choosing to follow the train only to the point where it stops in their favor.
We might be doing the same when we point out the Congress has passed socialized medicine programs and individual insurance mandates before - in the time of the Founders, in fact, so arguing that this is unprecedented is not strictly true, and arguing that the founders were against such schemes is not true, either.
Mr. Keith Olbermann and NBC parted ways on Friday, with the cancellation of his show, "Countdown". The timing on it suggests that the increasingly fractious relationship between Olbermann and the network, including the suspension of Mr. Olbermann over political donations, has finally come to a head. The possibility that the NBC-Comcast merger accelerated things is speculation, and nobody will confirm on that. If, however, you've been following Mr. Olbermann as
bradhicks has, then you notice that Mr. Olbermann's constant references to the movie Network were predictors of what his style had eventually become, and at some point, he was going to be cut. Especially when he substitute-turned host of her own, Rachell Maddow, kept showing how it was possible to do all the things he was doing without appearing to take it personally of without a loss of temper. In comments, the Infamous Brad also mentions that Mr. Olbermann was turning away from talking to real people and more and more into just having pundits on. In Mr. Olbermann's defense, though, his oration was always excellent, and he had mastered the key of cadence and clip and vocals that made his words carry weight (listen to him read Thurber if you don't believe me), and he advocated for things that needed to be spoken for.A proper scrum looks to be developing between old-guard elected Republicans and their Tea-backed freshmen counterparts over the matter of how much, how quickly, and where to cut government expenditures.
An unsubtle check on whether or not HHS was awake and their Institutional Review Boards were paying attention. HHS failed, and one of the IRBs failed spectacularly, despite the obvious names for the false companies.
The continued inaction on trials and investigations into the lawless actions of the previous administration sets dangerous precedent to allow a future administrator to get away with more than merely murder. Justice's lack of charges in congressional corruption cases only compounds the problem.
In the never-ending quest to get high on cheap things, bath salts have apparently become the next big hit...with serious consequences to the mind and body. In some ways, that seems like an argument for drug legalization - that way you at least know what the substance is going to do to you, and it's passed a QC check that says it will do that thing, and you will know what the potential hazardous effects are.
Last out, the trial finally begins in regard to the shooting of a 9 year-old girl in Arizona - last year. The accused has strong ties to the nativist Minuteman movement, and is alleged to have targeted a house based on false information that it had drugs and money inside, shooting and killing most of the residents of the house, then fleeing after they realized the mistake.
In technology, Mr. Scalzi points out that Facebook is the latest iteration of "the Web hit with a stupid stick", and that while it serves a purpose for some people, it is not his thing. So he keeps a minimalist profile and sticks mostly to the places where people who know a thing or two about rolling a website and doing things hang out.
One of the consequences of the practice of sending other people photos of yourself nude - should your relationship sour, they can choose to use the pictures for blackmail or extortion. Which says both something about making sure you're sure before you do such things, and about what kind of bad decisions people make with intimate material when relationships stop working out.
The practice of texting appears to be improving spelling skills, despite fears that SMS slang is corrupting the language, apparently because the phonetic nature of the slang makes it easier, not harder, to remember spelling in longhand. It is, however, a small sample group, and the conventional wisdom as represented by the comment section is unwilling to believe that a positive result is possible, because they are too busy bemoaning the corruption of the language and complaining that it creeps into the formal writing exercises students are undertaking.
In opinions, Mr. Bauman notes both the transisiton of concepts into words divorced from reality used as ideological bludgeons and the way the electorate has been deliberately positioned and bombarded with contradictory statements that they simply give up and go home, because nothing makes any sense and everything is presented as always possible. Even though they know in the back of their heads that those simultaneous assertions are impossible. Once they've given up, then they're suscpetible to LOUD DOGS WHO MUST BE OBEYED BECAUSE THEY'RE LOUD, and the results are fairly predictable.
Mr. Will is the foil to the previous argument, beliving that the American people invest much in their creed, and that creed is fundamentally anti-government, which pits the "statists" against the conservatives in greater and lesser amounts of heat and visible fire. The conflict is good, he says, and the Tea Partiers are the right people to back, because they have actual fidelity to the creed.
Mr. Connor is more neutral about short-term politics, but he's certain that we have failed to pay attention to Dwight Eisenhower's warnings about government and short-term thinking, both in government, which engages in costly enterprises that are not adequately funded, and in individuals, who have abandoned thrift and run themselves up in a flurry of spending to the very brink of insolvency.
Because we're still in the rush of heady symbology, instead of in the nuts and bolts of actual governance, the conservative papers are pushing the idea that the health care bill can be repealed a bit harder than normal. For example, Mr. duPont paints the November elections as The Will Of The People Against Obamacare, and now the Republicans need to make good on that Mandate From Heaven any way they can, even if it means picemeal concessions and small laws passed that chip away at the bigger bill. Ms. Parker also claims the Mandate From Heaven, but this time The People rejected SOCIALISM! and the control of Special Interests (a mirror check is required any time someone mentions Special Interests on the other side) that prevent good policy from taking hold, instead of policy that continues to keep poor people poor and receiving substandard care. (Of course, the chronic underfunding of those porgrams has absolutely nothing to do with it, does it, Ms. Parker?) Mr. Krauthammer has a much more sane position, "merely" accusing the administration of accounting tricks to produce a favorable CBO result and hiding the fact that a central promise hinges only on employers keeping insurance instead of following the incentives to dump everyone into the exchanges, and charging the Republicans with creating a proper alternative to the current law so that repeal does not generate a void.
And then, because the anniversary of the Roe decision is upon us, a nexus of opinions about abortions. A short quote from Mother Teresa claiming abortion is the greatest killer of love and peace, because it teaches the acceptance of violence and allows both potential father and mother to sidestep the responsibility of a child, Ms. Malkin taking a practice of delivering viable babies and then killing them in an inhumane manner and generalizing it to the whole of abortion procedures, regardles of where in the pregnancy they happen and how they are performed, which should sound like a familiar tactic, like displaying pictures of aborted fetuses or engaging repeatedly in heated and violent talk that always has the potential of setting off a "lone gunman" to go do something that the rhetoricians will deny in public and cheer in private. Or exerting governmental authority to force women to go through various hoops and lean heavily on the sense of social shame or the expectation that women are all supposed to be baby-carriers, and that hearing the sounds of their fetuses will magically awaken their protective maternal instinct, regardless of the situation that brings them to seek an abortion. Or worse, attempting to deny any tax ebnefits that come from insurance policy purchases if those policies include coverage for abortion, continuing the attack technique of making abortion either prohibitively expensive or otherwise unaccessible without actually banning it.
Truth is, a lot of people are in the camp that abortion should be a legally protected by socially unnecessary thing, due to prevalent availability and usage of birth control, medicine that could save both mother and child instead of forcing them to choose, some sense to stop sexual assault, and societal support such that nobody ever has to abort because they can't afford another child. Or that they know full well nobody will adopt their child and they can't raise them. If people really want women and mothers to choose life, they have to make the option attractive and workable. That means child care, infant care, supplemental income, resources, and education. That means having things available so that women and men who know they can't afford children but choose to engage in sex can reduce the risks of pregnancy. Nobody should have to abort, but until we can actually prove that we can handle it if nobody chooses to abort, then abortion, like the poor, will be with us always. And forced sonograms, heartbeat recordings, and other things aren't going to ease the pain, whether the decision stays the same or changes. If anyone is really and truly pro-life, they would be trying to put in place a system that ensures that life will thrive.
Even though his program is gone, the segment lives on, and will be repeated as many times as needed. So, once again, beware the Worst Persons in the World (Sort of...)
The bronze is the above pieces claiming the Mandate From The People in transferring control of one house of government to the opposition and that everyone must take their vote to repeal a health care bill with popular portions seriously. "We are Republicans of the House, King of Kings! Look upon our works, ye mighty, and despair!" Moving onward...
The silver to Mr. Doherty, for a Gargoyle-response piece about the Tuscon shootings - he's right, gun control laws probably would not have stopped the shooter, but he's remarkably wrong in thinking that there's nothing that should be done to gun laws or available gun equipment because of this. Some of the things mentioned would be rather symbolic, but getting rid of extended magazines and weapons that do not have an obvious use other than sport would probably have reduced the magnitude of the action. Most people calling for more gun control are cognizant that lawbreakers are lawbreakers, but they are also of the opinion that someone who wants to break the law in those kinds of ways should have to go to effort to obtain the things that they want.
Melanie Phillips takes the gold for insisting that the gay agenda is everywhere, including geography classes, science classes (Emperor penguins and seahorses!), maths classes, and many other attempts to brainwash children into believing that QUILTBAG people are actually, y'know, people. Those who dare to uphold their religious beliefs are persecuted by the Government! The Beeb reports that some members on a drugs council are planning on stepping down because one of the other members is staunchly anti-gay and they feel uncomfortable when he claims that traditional marriage should be promoted as a way of stopping drug addictions and use. Ms. Phillips claims that the gay rights movement risks becoming McCarthy instead of the oppressed minority, and that they're already the "more equal than others" group with special rights. As with all things, when you can be openly gay without having people refuse you service, loudly point their fingers at you cand claim you're evil, Satanic, or deluded, and not have to worry about physical violence because you happen to be out, then people can bitch about "special" rights or how gay rights have somehow taken over. Without that, there's still no argument.
Last for tonight, a cat summoned to jury service.
Oh, and Steampunk Palin, a comic whose premise and politics are welded together in such a way as to be both horror-inspiring, curiostiy-encouraging, and good for more than a few laughs.
