Do you have a cannon and a fondness for Hunter S. Thompson?

The Aspen Daily News is seeking essays of 100 words or less on why your cannon should be used to fire Thompson's cremated remains into the sky over his home at Owl Farm.

Applicants must:
• Include a photograph of the cannon.
• Have an estimate about how far it fires.
• Know the approximate date for when is was last fired with imformation about any injuries incurred.
• Own the cannon or have legal access. Cannons with historic value or Kentucky origins will be awardedextra points

Out of utter boredom I have updated my cycling log with more info and even graphs of current stats. It's amazing what can be done in those times of sitting in front of the computer while doing nothing.

- Bill Watterson - 03/06/1994

I have received these responses from my representatives in Washington D.C. during the past two weeks. They are responding to a letter written to all of three of them concerning the private accounts that President Bush has proposed. (In my humble opinion it does nothing to address the shortfalls that will eventually hit the Social Security Trust Fund)

Wayne Allard - United States Senator:

In 1997 Congress passed, and I voted for, the Balanced Budget Act, which balanced the federal budget and strengthened Social Security for the first time since 1960. Balancing the federal budget is crucial to protecting Social Security. If Congress does not pass a balanced budget, it has the option of borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund to fund the government.

Balancing the federal budget is the first step toward protecting Social Security. Congress also must reform Social Security and strengthen its solvency. As baby boomers become Social Security beneficiaries in the next two decades, Social Security tax receipts will exceed Social Security benefits paid to beneficiaries.

Unless we take action, Social Security faces certain peril. Although the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in 2003, that the Social Security Trust Fund had a surplus of $156 billion, the surplus exists only on paper. Current benefits are not paid out of a reserve account, but rather from current Social Security tax collections.

In 2008, baby boomers will begin to be eligible to receive Social Security and our surplus will diminish each year. Although the income collected by the Social Security taxes currently exceeds program expenditures, the system will begin running cash flow deficits in 2018. Social Security will continue to face long-range financing problems, with full insolvency projected to occur in 2029 for the Old Age, Survivors, and Disabilities Insurance (OASDI) part of Social Security and in 2042 for the retirement and survivors part of Social Security.

By law, Social Security cannot write beneficiary checks unless the money is in the Trust Fund. The current system will only be able to survive a limited number of years and we should address reform before the account reaches a crisis point.

In the 109th Congress, Social Security will continue to be a top issue of debate and discussion. President Bush has declared it to be one of his main domestic priorities. Once the President makes a formal proposal to Congress, it will be examined through the democratic legislative process. I intend to be actively involved as Social Security reform proposals are considered in hearings and on the Senate floor. I know that the President's proposal will be thoroughly examined and Congress will not act in haste.

I believe that Congress should provide Americans with investment options to allow them the freedom to manage their money the way they want. Traditionally the Social Security Trust Fund has provided meager annual investment returns. Allowing individuals to invest their retirement dollars into even modest savings accounts, should they desire, would yield substantially higher returns than the current Social Security system, consequently providing Social Security solvency and adequate benefits for taxpayers who worked a lifetime to achieve them. Any component of reform or investment must also allow beneficiaries the option of remaining in the Social Security program as it exists today.

Ken Salazaar - United States Senator

Thank you for contacting me regarding changes to the Social Security system. I value your input on this important issue.

I traveled throughout Colorado these past two months listening to seniors, baby boomers and young adults about the President’s proposal for private accounts. The general response is clear: Coloradans feel that private accounts carved out of Social Security are too risky, their benefits are in jeopardy and their children’s retirement will not be as stable as their own.

Social Security is one of our Nation’s most successful and most important programs. I intend to keep it that way. The Social Security system needs careful adjusting, but two things are clear. We have time to find the right solution overall for the system, and privatization is not the way to go. Again, I am committed to finding a solution to the projected benefit reductions of Social Security.

I will continue to work with my colleagues at finding a common strategy to protecting Social Security benefits and ensuring solvency for years to come.

Diana DeGette - Member of Congress

Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to President Bush's plan to partially privatize Social Security. I appreciate the opportunity to learn your views and am pleased to have the chance to share mine.

Like you, I oppose President Bush's plan to partially privatize Social Security. From the few details that have been released about President Bush's plan, it is clear that his plan would fail to address the long-term solvency of Social Security and would add risk to a program that was designed to act as insurance against poverty in old age. In fact, the President's plan would reduce guaranteed benefits to Social Security beneficiaries by at least forty percent in many cases. Additionally, I worry about the massive expense associated with the President's plan. According to a recent analysis, the President's plan would add $4.9 trillion to our nation's debt in the first twenty years of the program's operations. I believe it would be fiscally reckless to pursue a plan that would increase our country's debt burden so significantly, especially at a time when the government has its hands full trying to manage the mountain of debt that has accumulated over the past four years. I do, however, welcome the opportunity to work with other like-minded, fiscally responsible legislators to devise an alternative plan that would ensure Social Security's future viability and would stay true to the founders' original intent for the program. As the debate on Social Security reform continues in the 109th Congress, I will be sure to keep your opinions in mind.

- Jeff Danziger - 03/08/2005

- Matt Davies - 03/10/2005

I updated this category to make this page smaller. It was just getting to big. I have re-organized my index so that each editorial cartoonist now has there own page. To find the images that may come appear on search engines and aren't showing up check the Archive Index and look for that particular artist.

Sorry for any inconvenience this is causing.

$7 billion is approximately how much taxpayers pay each year to protect federal records from disclosure. That doesn't include the cost of what the intelligence community keeps secret. That figure is of course, classified.

Costly Secrets

A study of news coverage of the war in Iraq fails to support a conclusion that events were protrayed either negatively or positively most of the time.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism, a Washington based think tank, looked at nearly 2,200 stories on television, newspapers and Web sites and found (so says the study says):
25% of the stories were negative and 20% were positive.
The three network evening newscasts tended to be more negative than positive.
The opposite was true of morning shows.

$50 billion: The cost to identity theft to businesses and customers in 2003

1,707: Number of active "phishing" sites, set up by crooks to gaterh data such as credit-card or Social Security numbers, on the Internet in December 2004

24%: Average monthly growth rate in phishing sites. (July-December 2004)

55: Number of corporate brands "hijacked" by phishing scams in December.

The new rule will abandon a remedy favored by most environmental groups in favor of a system of tradable pollution allowances that is more congenial to industry.

The New York Times

- Matt Davies - 03/11/2005

GAO Called Tapes Illegal Propaganda

The Bush administration, rejecting an opinion from the Government Accountability Office, said last week that it is legal for federal agencies to feed TV stations prepackaged news stories that do not disclose the government's role in producing them.

The Washington Post

Bobby Julich became the first American to win the Paris-Nice race on Sunday.

Despite three first-category climbs on the seventh and final day, Julich's CSC team controlled proceedings to help him score his biggest victory to date.

Julich, 33, won with a 10-second lead over Spain's Alejandro Valverde, who had to be content with taking the last stage on Nice's Promenade des Anglais.

The Top Ten:
1. Bobby Julich (U.S.) CSC 22 hours 32 minutes and 18 seconds
2. Alejandro Valverde (Spain) Iles Baleares 10 seconds behind
3. Constantino Zaballa (Spain) Saunier Duval 19
4. Jens Voigt (Germany) CSC 44
5. Jorg Jaksche (Germany) Liberty Seguros 45
6. Franco Pellizotti (Italy) Liquigas-Bianchi 49
7. Franck Schleck (Luxembourg) CSC 58
8. Cadel Evans (Australia) Davitamon-Lotto 58
9. José-Angel Gomez-Marchante (Spain) Saunier Duval 1:20
10. Davide Rebellin (Italy) Gerolsteiner 1:21

BBC

© Chuck Asay - 03/15/2005

- Stuart Carlson - 03/15/2005

Lance Armstrong says he is behind in his preparations for a seventh straight Tour de France title tilt in July.

The American feels he made an error by attempting last week's Paris- Nice, which he quit after three stages.

"I'm going to try and get in shape. I have to admit I'm a little bit behind, more than I'd normally be," he said.

"I picked Paris-Nice for a lot of reasons that were decided before but perhaps I shouldn't have. It was hard, fast, intense with bad weather."

BBC Sport

The Cassini spacecraft's two close flybys of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus have revealed that the moon has a significant atmosphere. Scientists, using Cassini's magnetometer instrument for their studies, say the source may be volcanism, geysers, or gases escaping from the surface or the interior.

When Cassini had its first encounter with Enceladus on Feb. 17 at an altitude of 1,167 kilometers (725 miles), the magnetometer instrument saw a striking signature in the magnetic field. On March 9, Cassini approached to within 500 kilometers (310 miles) of Enceladus’ surface and obtained additional evidence.

NASA - Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley - 03/16/2005

- Tony Auth - 03/17/2005

In 1970, The Clean Air Act was supported by liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, including President Richard M. Nixon and Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.). When the act was amended under George H.W. Bush in 1990, a bipartisan Congress not only supported the changes but paid close attention, decreeing precise emission allowances and timetables.

The bipartisan consensus has since crumbled, and the legislative process has ground to a halt. In an unpublished paper, Richard Lazarus of Georgetown University points out that increasing partisanship has meant that although dozens of environmental laws passed in the 1970s and 1980s, there have been no amendments to the Clean Air Act since 1990, or to the Clean Water Act since 1987. Congress has not reauthorized the tax that funds toxic waste cleanup, and it has made no significant reforms to laws on mining, grazing or endangered species protection on federal lands since 1992. These days only riders attached to appropriations bills can pass, or oddities such as the new budget resolution that may legalize drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In part, the shift reflects a change among congressional Republicans, whose leaders found that environmental laws won them no friends (Nixon himself said so, according to Mr. Lazarus, on one of his famous tapes) and whose key committee chairmanships now go more often to anti-environmentalist Westerners than to the environmentalist Northeasterners who held them in the past. The issue is so unpopular generally among Republican politicians that a career civil servant now runs the Environmental Protection Agency.

By rigidly opposing compromise, some environmentalists haven't helped matters. But the president sets the tone. And by refusing to push higher environmental standards in any area, whether climate change, forest policy, ocean policy or automobile emissions, the Bush administration has eliminated goodwill. Earlier this month, yet another air pollution law, the Clear Skies Act, stalled in the Senate, following a tied committee vote. The changes proposed, to set up a cap-and-trade scheme for three pollutants, will now be written by regulators, whose interpretations are more easily challenged in court.

Many believe the Clear Skies Act could have passed if it had been intended to win bipartisan support from the start. Instead, Republicans made changes at the last minute, trying to win over a single Democrat; Democrats, wary of an administration with no environmentalist credibility, refused to go along, as did Sens. Lincoln D. Chafee (R-R.I.), and James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.). No one thinks the shift from legislation to regulation is good for the environment or for business. If the president cares about these issues, as he sometimes claims to do, he should look harder at the leading role he has played in the impasse, and propose ways to get out of it.

A Washington Post Editorial - Monday, March 21, 2005

Meet The Security Family
Cartoon by Mark Fiore
Happy that the war on terror has been taken abroad, so that the homeland is more secure!

How savvy marketing is contributing to the nation's obesity epidemic

Overeating and its lethal companion underexercising are the recognized culprits in this country's rise in obesity rates. Today, two thirds of American adults are obese or overweight. A national team of researchers reported in last week's New England Journal of Medicine that obesity already reduces the current life expectancy in the United States by four to nine months.

What's worse, they project that the rise in obesity rates among children and teens could knock off as many as five years from today's average of 77 years as overweight people in that generation grow up and die prematurely. Diseases associated with obesity, such as diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, and some cancers, are likely to strike at younger ages. It would be the first time in 200 years that children would be statistically likely to live shorter lives than their grandparents.

U.S. News and World Report

I have a DD Seaton original. I'm an art collector now!

Here is a site that is a must visit. It is a collaborative art project:
http://www.eviltree.de/zoomquilt/zoom.htm

Enjoy!

- Tom Toles - 03/23/2005

Let your actions be like clouds going by; the clouds going by are mindless. Let your stillness be as the valley spirit; the valley spirit is undying. When action accompanies stillness and stillness combines with action, then the duality of action and stillness no longer arises.

- Pei-chien

© Ann Telnaes - 03/23/2005

Deep Cover by Tim Eagan - 05/24/2005

Arlington, Va., has been rated the "best walking city" in the nation by the American Podiatric Medical Association, a group with a strong interest in what people do with their feet. Walking, the association says, is one of the best exercises for feet, and in Arlington people apparently do a lot of it. Surveys indicate that 35 percent of residents there walk for exercise. Second among the 200 cities, despite its many steep streets: San Francisco. Fourteen criteria were used to evaluate the cities, among them the percentage of people who own baby strollers, buy athletic shoes, and go backpacking. The APMA's 10 best walking cities:

1. Arlington, Va.
2. San Francisco
3. Seattle
4. Portland, Ore.
5. Boston
6. Washington
7. New York
8. Eugene, Ore.
9. Jersey City, N.J.
10. Denver

- Tom Toles - 03/29/2005

Found this beauty on cyclingnews.com today. A fine piece of Belgian craftsmanship if I have every seen one. Be sure to read the details on this cycle to find out about all the glory it has to offer!