Shhh. They may be listening...

Editorial cartoonists are having a field day with the news that the NSA has a hush-hush court order to collect Verizon call records (theGuardian).  So without further ado, let's take a look.  All of the cartoons below were found at The Week, except for the last one, which was published at U.S. News.

Michael Ramirez, "Finally An Answer:"
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Chis Britt, "Unwanted Assistance:"
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Drew Sheneman, "Exception to the Rule:"
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Dana Summers, "Taking Out the Opposition:"
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Steve Benson, "N-S-A!:"
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Have you stopped to consider lately how much we've allowed the Al-Qaeda attacks to influence life in America?  Our collective/political reactions have eroded the legal (habeus corpus, fourth amendment) underpinnings of American society and intruded on our personal (airport security, surveillance) lives.  Sure there be terrorists, but can't we get our fear under control?
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-- Marge

Tactical frivolity

Tired of all the seriousness I've posted lately, I decided to post some frivolity.  First stop was a Google search on frivolity where I found a Wikipedia entry on "tactical frivolity." Sounded interesting.  It is.

One of the references is an article in the Guardian, titled "Carnivalistas slink in with a pink revolution" and written in 2000.  Here's how the article begins --

The idea was sound. Fill up a lorry with 13 women dressed as pink fairies and drive it to Prague for the World Bank meetings to lend glamour to the demonstrations and defuse the confrontations between riot police, anarchists, unions and environmentalists with "tactical frivolity" - carnival, art, song and dance.

The article goes on to detail a comedy of errors surrounding execution of the plan.

Looking for an image to illustrate tactical frivolity, I came across a blog called the South Florida Lawyers with the byline "a law blog done with jealousy, love, snark, humor and civility."  It had this picture --

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The South Florida Lawyers' blog also had this video of Alan Alda in a clip from "Crimes and Misdemeanors," uploaded by TheDukeofMadness.

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Two things -- lawyers can be very funny and I may be "cursed" with seriousness.

Oh, and "If it bends, it's funny. If it breaks, it's not funny!"

-- Marge