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Posts Tagged ‘Public Safety’

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Cartoonists Against Gun Violence

In Study Break, Video on April 23, 2013 at 9:52 am

Demand Action

What happens when more than 20 of America’s funniest cartoonists get together? They make a very serious public service announcement demanding action against gun violence.

This PSA was directed by Lester & Charlie’s supportive friend, Peggy Stern. Voices were provided by Lester & Charlie’s less-supportive friends, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julianne Moore.

Show them you agree that it is time for action – and show Congress your support in protecting the next generation. All you have to do it give it a watch – and share it if you can.

Big numbers scare Congress more than bullets.

For more ways to get involved: DemandAction.org

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Make Your Own Restaurant Quality Choking Poster!

In Video on April 20, 2013 at 10:51 am

Choking

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Everybody wants their own restaurant-quality Heimlich Maneuver poster for the kitchen, but who can afford it? Fear not – Lester & Charlie can show you how to make your own! Check it out!

Special Note:

Lester & Charlie have a pledge drive!

And it’s in the final countdown with only days to go. If you want to help support our first book, Please Stand By: Lester & Charlie’s 50 Favorite Test Patterns, come over and get involved!

You can learn more about it HERE.

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Make March 27th National Nina Turner Day

In Study Break on March 26, 2013 at 12:30 pm

bob dole viagra

When Republican lawmakers in Ohio put legislation on the table last year that would essentially give government all power over reproductive choice, State Senator Nina Turner came down from her much-deserved perch on Mt. Olympus and slapped an amendment on the bill that showed “just as much care and compassion toward men as the rest of the bill showed toward women.”

Specifically, Senator Turner wanted to protect men from the potentially harmful side effects of cGMP-specific phosphodiesterase type 5, or what Liddy Dole might lovingly call “Bob’s after dinner mint.” You know, Viagra.

Viagra was approved for human erectile dysfunction on March 27, 1998 by the FDA when men refused to give back unused samples during unsuccessful clinical trials for treating heart problems and high blood pressure. So it got approved for, well, something else.

It was 14 years before anyone came up with another use for Viagra, and that credit goes to Turner, as you can see below. So we proclaim March 27th National Nina Turner Day! Let the celebration begin.

Quick Programming Note:
Find out how you can be part of Lester & Charlie’s new book project!
Click here: Please Stand By

Pledge Drive

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The Week in Politics

In Study Break on January 19, 2013 at 3:43 pm

This week, New York State and President Obama fueled the paranoia of paranoid gun nuts on the national political stage, and Dear Abby died at the age of 94 – leaving those nuts with no one to advise them on the politics of daily life.

The New York Times published some of her best letters, which we’ve plagiarized below:

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Dear Abby: My wife sleeps in the raw. Then she showers, brushes her teeth and fixes our breakfast — still in the buff. We’re newlyweds and there are just the two of us, so I suppose there’s really nothing wrong with it. What do you think? — Ed

Dear Ed: It’s O.K. with me. But tell her to put on an apron when she’s frying bacon.

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Dear Abby: I have always wanted to have my family history traced, but I can’t afford to spend a lot of money to do it. Have you any suggestions? — M. J. B. in Oakland, Calif.

Dear M. J. B.: Yes. Run for a public office.

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Dear Abby: Are birth control pills deductible? — Bertie

Dear Bertie: Only if they don’t work.

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Dear Abby: Our son married a girl when he was in the service. They were married in February and she had an 8 1/2-pound baby girl in August. She said the baby was premature. Can an 8 1/2-pound baby be this premature? — Wanting to Know

Dear Wanting: The baby was on time. The wedding was late. Forget it.

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Dear Abby: Two men who claim to be father and adopted son just bought an old mansion across the street and fixed it up. We notice a very suspicious mixture of company coming and going at all hours — blacks, whites, Orientals, women who look like men and men who look like women. This has always been considered one of the finest sections of San Francisco, and these weirdos are giving it a bad name. How can we improve the neighborhood? — Nob Hill Residents

Dear Residents: You could move.

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Where Would Jesus Shop?

In Poll on January 10, 2013 at 1:05 pm

jesus grocery shopping

This Week’s Poll!

Last week, we assured you that your government is anxiously readying to quell an imminent Tea Party armed insurrection. We wondered if — despite threats from loonies like failed Senate candidate Sharron Angle – gearing up for battle with the musket brigade isn’t just a little bit paranoid.

Perhaps not. As it turns out, our humble HuffPost poll was picked up by something called the Tea Party Command Center, where it was met by paranoid patriots who informed us that, in the event of violent uprising, armed rebels will “NEVER go after Americans, only progressives!” Oh, and Muslims. And that guns won’t be necessary, because “baseball bats are much more painful and pro-long the dying.”

And they learned us that Obama (who wasn’t born, he was “hatched”) is just like Adolf Hitler because — just like Obama! — he was “able to get just about anything he wanted.” (Wow. Really? Obama gets anything he wants? Then how come there’s still such a thing as the filibuster and Hillary Clinton has been allowed to retire?)

Truth be told, we’re not even all that sure what the Tea Party faithful was saying over at their Command Center. It’s hard to read ALL CAPS, and even harder when you’re deciphering sentences like “THSOE OF YOU THAT HAVE SUCH AS HE IS AN EVIL TYRANT THAT WILL DO ANYTHING TO GET HIS NAME IN THE HISTORY BOOKS THE WAY HE WANTS TO BE REMEMBERED.” Well, now that that’s clear. No wonder the Army is bracing for an attack.

Of course, such is the Internet. There’s a place for everybody! Which brings us to our favorite new site of Christian nationalist insanity: America’s Praytriot Pages, a place where Christian shoppers can, for the low cost of $7.77, access to a list of businesses that promise to “keep Kingdom dollars in the Kingdom!”

Yes, this is a thing. There seems to be a movement to keep Christian dollars in Christian pockets while doing the Christian deed of putting everyone else out of business.

Companies that list with Praytriot Pages promise they will never engage in commerce that is “unbiblical, sinful, or illegal.” That’s a tall order. Really! Neither illegal nor unbiblical? So much for Leviticus and any thrifty online shopper looking for the cheapest stone to kill his swearing neighbor.

The main question behind the site is, of course, “Where would Jesus shop?” And don’t just assume he’s at the hardware store buying a nail puller. Because, see, the Bible is really dedicated to what to do with your disposable income. Kind of gives new meaning to a Sunday Circular!

But, since we don’t want to prejudice you, why not check out one of the site’s testimonials? Like the one from Connie, a woman who hopes to someday get her Associates degree and end up working for “a Christian based organization.” (Hey Connie, some advice: skip the applications and become a nun.)

We weren’t quite prepared to fork over our blood money to see what kinds of businesses are listed behind that Christian paywall. Not when our imaginations are free! So we’re wondering: What do YOU think? What business would YOU expect to see on those holy Praytriot Pages?

Want to find out what people wrote in? Subscribe to the Lester & Charlie Newsletter!

Another money saving tip from Lester & Charlie: Make Your Own Google!

Have a private comment that you wouldn’t mind seeing broadcast to an international audience in the next Lester & Charlie Newsletter? Leave it here!

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Tea Party Poopers

In Poll on January 3, 2013 at 9:36 pm

Seceed

This Week’s Poll!

Gun sales have spiked since Obama’s re-election. Petitions for secession have appeared in all 50 states. Sarah Palin is tweeting like crazy. Citizens with big guns are angry and they’re itching for a fight. Is your government ready?

You’ll be glad to know it is!

See, a “thought exercise” described in an article published by the non-profit Small Wars Journal (co-written by a retired Army colonel and a Civil War historian) tries to figure out what the federal government should do if, say, the frustrated Tea Party gets a little too caffeinated and forgets that their muskets and tricorne hats are supposed to be props.

What really scares the authors is the possibility that an armed teabagging rebellion wouldn’t stand a chance of being dunked by local law enforcement — because the locals would be too sympathetic to the rebels. Yes, it may sound paranoid. But it turns out that the U.S. Army’s operating concept for 2016 to 2028 considers a threat by “radical U.S. citizens operating domestically and abroad” to be highly likely.

Conservatives were outraged that anyone was even considering such a scenario. The Washington Times called it “cartoonish” and “farcical.”

We’re not so sure.  After all, just two years ago in her bid for the U.S. Senate, Nevada Republican Sharron Angle threatened that her criminally insane supporters would resort to “Second Amendment remedies” if the GOP didn’t get its way. True, she lost. But not without getting 45% of the vote. And we’re pretty sure that her 45% own a lot of guns.

Have we been watching too many episodes of “Homeland”? Maybe. But the Small Wars article is pretty startling, talking about how preparations must begin now if we’re ever to deal with domestic insurrection — detailing how carefully the U.S. military would have to tread to stay within the law. Any intel collected against the rebels would have to be destroyed within 90 days. Court orders would have to be obtained before any eavesdropping. This wouldn’t be your regular kind of war. You know, the ones we just watch on TV and the soldiers come home, we toss and Oscar at Kathryn Bigelow and then pretend the whole thing never happened.

Still, we’re wondering if the military isn’t making a Tyrannosaurus out of a teapot. If the Tea Party takes up arms against the U.S. government, would it really require boots-on-the-ground warfare to control? What are they going to do – misspell us to death? These are the folks who march around demanding that the government keeps its dirty hand off Medicare. How hard could it be to outsmart them?

Let’s come up with a simple alternative. If conservatives take up arms against the federal government, what’s the easiest way to stop them?

Want to find out what people wrote in? Subscribe to the Lester & Charlie Newsletter!

Another money saving tip from Lester & Charlie:

Have a private comment that you wouldn’t mind seeing broadcast to an international audience in the next Lester & Charlie Newsletter? Leave it here!

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The Week in Politics

In Study Break on December 15, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Hindsight is supposed to be 20/20.


April 1999 - two teenage schoolboys shot and killed 12 schoolmates and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, before killing themselves.

July 1999 – a stock exchange trader in Atlanta, Georgia, killed 12 people including his wife and two children before taking his own life.

September 1999 - a gunman opened fire at a prayer service in Fort Worth, Texas, killing six people before committing suicide.

October 2002 - a series of sniper-style shootings occurred in Washington DC, leaving 10 dead.

August 2003 - in Chicago, a laid-off worker shot and killed six of his former workmates.

November 2004 - in Birchwood, Wisconsin, a hunter killed six other hunters and wounded two others after an argument with them.

March 2005 – a man opened fire at a church service in Brookfield, Wisconsin, killing seven people.

October 2006 – a truck driver killed five schoolgirls and seriously wounded six others in a school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania before taking his own life.

April 2007 - student Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people and wounded 15 others at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, before shooting himself, making it the deadliest mass shooting in the United States after 2000.

August 2007 - Three Delaware State University students were shot and killed in “execution style” by a 28-year-old and two 15-year-old boys. A fourth student was shot and stabbed.

December 2007 - a 20-year-old man killed nine people and injured five others in a shopping center in Omaha, Nebraska.

December 2007 - a woman and her boyfriend shot dead six members of her family on Christmas Eve in Carnation, Washington.

February 2008 – a shooter who is still at large tied up and shot six women at a suburban clothing store in Chicago, leaving five of them dead and the remaining one injured.

February 2008 – a man opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, killing five students and wounding 16 others before laying down his weapon and surrendering.

September 2008 - a mentally ill man who was released from jail one month earlier shot eight people in Alger, Washington, leaving six of them dead and the rest two wounded.

December 2008 - a man dressed in a Santa Claus suit opened fire at a family Christmas party in Covina, California, then set fire on the house and killed himself. Police later found nine people dead in the debris of the house.

March 2009 - a 28-year-old laid-off worker opened fire while driving a car through several towns in Alabama, killing 10 people.

March 2009 – a heavily armed gunman shot dead eight people, many of them elderly and sick people, in a private-owned nursing home in North Carolina.

March 2009 - six people were shot dead in a high-grade apartment building in Santa Clara, California.

April 2009 – a man shot dead 13 people at a civic center in Binghamton, New York.

July 2009 - Six people, including one student, were shot in a drive-by shooting at a community rally on the campus of Texas Southern University, Houston.

November 2009 - U.S. army psychologist Major Nidal Hasan opened fire at a military base in Fort Hood, Texas, leaving 13 dead and 42 others wounded.

February 2010 – A professor opened fire 50 minutes into at a Biological Sciences Department faculty meeting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, killing three colleagues and wounding three others.

January 2011 – a gunman opened fire at a public gathering outside a grocery in Tucson, Arizona, killing six people including a 9-year-old girl and wounding at least 12 others. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was severely injured with a gunshot to the head.

April 2 – A gunman kills seven people and wounds three in a shooting rampage at a Christian college in Oakland.

July 20 – A masked gunman kills 12 people and wounds 58 when he opens fire on moviegoers at a showing of the Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, a suburb of Denver, Colorado.

Aug. 5 – A gunman kills six people during Sunday services at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, before he is shot dead by a police officer.

Aug. 24 – Two people are killed and eight wounded in a shooting outside the landmark Empire State Building in New York City at the height of the tourist season.

Sept. 27 – A disgruntled former employee kills five people and takes his own life in a shooting rampage at a Minneapolis sign company from which he had been fired.

Oct. 21 – Three people are killed in a Milwaukee area spa including the estranged wife of the suspected gunman, who then killed himself.

Dec. 14 – A shooter opens fire at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 27 people including children.

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Romney to the Rescue?

In Poll on October 31, 2012 at 3:30 pm

This Week’s Poll!

Here at the Lester & Charlie Institute of Forward Thinking, we love to track current events! Though sometimes things get in the way. Such as Hurricane Sandy, who came, saw and conquered as if she had memorized the script that those pagan scientists, meteorologists and computer simulators had written for her. One of the side effects was grounding the planes that were shuttling the presidential campaigns into the last few days of the election cycle – which we thought was the only current event left.

But wait. Did it really grind the campaign to a halt or did it give each candidate a chance to show how they respond to emergencies? Even before the storm hit, and just based on those predictions from the pagans, President Obama made it abundantly clear that the federal government was there for the states and that he had an open phone line available to governors with a blank storm relief checkbook sitting next to it.  He instructed federal agencies, even the deservedly maligned FEMA, to get off their butts and start moving.

Did someone say FEMA or federal funds? The Romney campaign certainly heard it, and for the Romney campaign, thems fightin’ words. Romney is on record for stating (read: soon denying) his conviction that FEMA and all federal emergency aid should be cut for being immoral and that the responsibility for disaster relief should be shifted to the all-knowing states – because they are so much better equipped to take care of their own. States like… well, pick any Red State. Almost all of them hate taxes and hate the federal government but are always first in line for federal handouts when disaster strikes. Disasters seem to strike Red States more often than others – in spite of their close connections to Jesus and his pet dinosaur angels!

For the record, let’s note that most federal tax revenue comes from Blue States and gets sent to Red States, who claim they don’t want it but still take it even though it’s sooooo socialist. But even New Jersey’s governor, Chris Christie — a man who never met a conservative policy he wouldn’t swallow — praised Obama for stepping up to the plate and using the forces of good (federal money) to counteract the forces of (nature’s) evil.

So how did Romney weather this storm? He pitched in! He got some paid supporters in Ohio to donate a bunch of bottled water and diapers and cans of tomato puree to the Red Cross and he even helped load up the goods in a Penske rental truck! A truck that, by now, has most likely veered off a shovel-ready bridge project that Congress wouldn’t let Obama fix — because it would require socialist federal funds.

Good job, Mitt!

Oh, but wait. While the Red Cross, which has been raising money even longer than Jerry Lewis – if that’s possible – expressed tepid gratitude for the donation, the organization makes it abundantly clear on its website that this kind of donation “impedes the valuable resources of money, time, and personnel” because it has to be processed and dealt with. What they really want is donations of blood and money. Money allows the relief team that’s working on the ground — the only folks who can see what’s really going on in real time — to decide whether the millions of victims without homes, power and/or medicine really need tomato puree, or, say, insulin. And then go out and buy it. From somewhere close.

Hmm. That’s kind of like Obama’s storm relief checkbook! 

This gets a person’s imagination stirring faster than the spoon in Christine O’Donnell’s big black witch’s kettle. Imagine it’s two years from now and a Katrina- or Sandy-like disaster hits the U.S. Given what we know about him, how would a President Romney make sure that the innocent, needy victims are taken care of? What steps would he take first?

Want to find out what people wrote in? Subscribe to the Lester & Charlie Newsletter!

Lester & Charlie would like you to watch this before casting your vote: Don’t Be a Sucker!

Have a private comment that you wouldn’t mind seeing broadcast to an international audience in the next Lester & Charlie Newsletter? Leave it here!

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It’s the Heat, Not the Humidity

In Poll on May 3, 2012 at 10:03 am

This Week’s Poll!

(With a special h/t to our friend @StoryRoute on Twitter)

YOU! Yes, you, lazily staring at your computer and feeling triumphant to have just won an eBay auction of spare Malibu Barbie body parts. Aren’t you the least bit afraid of the takeover of your government by the United Nations???

What? You’re not? Perhaps that’s because you haven’t been paying attention to what’s been going on in the cutting-edge state of Arizona, where lawmakers are working furiously to make it illegal to “implement the creed, doctrine, principles or any tenet of” the 1992 U.N. Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, a non-binding resolution sometimes referred to as Agenda 21.

OK, we’ll admit it. Agenda 21 sounds more than a little bit ominous. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to liken it to the last words Peter Graves might hear before some top secret government tape self-destructs: Your mission, Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to save America and stamp out the nefarious Agenda 21…

As it turns out, however, the Agenda 21 that Arizona has lined up in its cross-hairs has nothing whatsoever to do with undermining the U.S. government. Rather, it deals with seemingly non-controversial topics like fighting global poverty, protecting the atmosphere and safely disposing of radioactive waste.

But in Arizona, those non-binding concepts from the U.N. are fightin’ words. So here comes AZ Senate Bill 1507 to the rescue! If it passes (and it has already gotten through their state Senate), it will immediately be illegal in Arizona to combat poverty, protect the environment or safely dispose of radioactive waste. (“That oughta learn them pesky foreigners not to mess around with our state!”)

Before you say it, yes, we do realize this is Arizona we’re talking about: home to lab experiments like Jan Brewer,  John McCain and recent inductee Sarah Palin — not to mention millions of tan people trying not to wear shoes that look too Mexican.

But what we’re wondering is: haven’t they already succeeded in proving to the rest of us that they earned the gold medal for crazy? Do they really need to pass a law that makes it illegal to safely dispose of radioactive waste just to drill the point home? Apparently, they feel they do.

So we at the Lester & Charlie Institute of Forward Thinking are wondering: What’s next? If lawmakers in Arizona just want us to recognize again and again that they’re insane, what’s the next crazy law they’ll try to pass? What do YOU think?

Have a private comment that you wouldn’t mind seeing broadcast to an international audience in the next Lester & Charlie Newsletter? Leave it here!

Want to find out what people said? Subscribe to the Lester & Charlie Newsletter!

And now, check out this week’s featured video :

MICHELE BACHMANN’S BABY SECRET!

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Aunt Betty on Public Safety

In Aunt Betty's Almanac on April 11, 2012 at 10:49 am


“Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the back or a priest.”

-Aunt Betty’s Almanac

More wisdom from Aunt Betty