Mariage gai: le juge Scalia s'inquiète pour les enfants

 Risqué pour les enfants d'avoir des parents de même sexe? C'est la question posée mardi par le juge Antonin Scalia.

 "“If you redefine marriage to include same-sex couples,” he said, “you must permit adoption by same-sex couples, and there’s considerable disagreement among sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not. Some states do not permit adoption by same-sex couples for that reason.”

 “I don’t think we know the answer to that,” he said. “Do you know the answer to that, whether it harms or helps the child? … That’s a possible deleterious effect, isn’t it?”%% Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg retorted that Scalia’s question was irrelevant because California permits same sex couples to adopt regardless of whether they’re married.

 “It’s true, but irrelevant,” Scalia rejoined. “They’re arguing for a nationwide rule which applies to states other than California, that every state must allow marriage by same-sex couples. And so even though states that believe it is harmful — and I take no position on whether it’s harmful or not, but it is certainly true that there’s no scientific answer to that question at this point in time.”

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/antonin-scalia-same-sex-parents-harmful-children.php

Caricature mariage gai et sondages...

Caricature de STEVE SACK, THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

Caricature Talibans du Dakota du nord?

Caricature de JIMMY MARGULIES, THE RECORD OF HACKENSACK, NJ

Caricature Cour suprême ou confusion suprême?

Caricature de BOB ENGLEHART, THE HARTFORD COURANT

Caricature Red Sox de Boston: une autre mauvaise année?

Caricature de DAVE GRANLUND, POLITICALCARTOONS.COM

Mariage gai et évolution

Caricature de NATE BEELER, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

La NRA est-elle invincible?

Petite réflexion de l'auteur sur les négociations actuelles. Lapierre et la NRA sont très puissants et déterminés, mais Obama et Biden n'auraient pas dit leur dernier mot.

 "Does all this seem like somewhat of a letdown after the terrible tragedy at Newtown? Weren’t we expecting more from our lawmakers?

 A source familiar with White House thinking told me the president is going to use his “bully pulpit” for gun control in the days ahead and Joe Biden will seriously jawbone senators when they return from their spring break.

 “It’s about intensity,” the source said. “A majority of people are for gun control in America, but the NRA has intensity. A billionaire spends money on ads, but will that change things? Senators want to know what their phones calls are like, their letters, their emails, their social media and whether people are going to town meetings. “People can still rise up. Don’t write the obit for gun control yet.”

L'article au complet:
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/can-anyone-beat-the-nra-89353_Page2.html

Mort de Ben Laden: le mensonge d'un SEAL à Esquire

 Il y a un mois la revue Esquire présentait une entrevue avec un membre de l'unité des SEALs qui prétendait avoir tué Ben Laden. Ce même homme prétendait qu'en retour on ne lui offrait même pas une couverture médicale décente à son retour. Selon d'autres témoignages des membres de l'unité, il semble que la revue ait été dupée...

 "But that story is “complete B.S.” a member of SEAL Team 6 also on the raid told CNN. The real story, according to the SEAL was this: The point man successfully shot bin Laden in the head when he poked his head out, gravely wounding him, then tackled the women. When the other SEALs came into the bedroom, bin Laden was already on the ground, basically dead, and the SEALS finished him off with shots to the chest. He was not within reach of a gun, because the guns were only found in the bedroom after extensive searching. So the shooter certainly could have shot bin Laden, but if he did, he was already lying on the ground and completely harmless. It’s a less heroic scenario, as CNN points out, and matches up with the account of Matt Bissonette, the third SEAL to reach the top floor of the compound. Bissonette recounted the raid in a bestselling first-hand account No Easy Day using the pseudonym Mark Owen.

 Rumors had already been swirling that Esquire had been had. CNN’s story comes a few days after the military blogger and former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb said Esquire had been duped by The Shooter in a post on his blog, The Special Operations Forces Situation Report (SOFREP). Citing anonymous SEAL operators, Webb wrote “Sorry to rain on your parade, Phil, but your guy is not the actual shooter.”

 But in addition to alleging the details of the raid was false, Webb also raises the intriguing possibility that The Shooter has been benefiting financially off his self-anointed, and apparently false, role as OBL’s assassin.

La suite de cet article:
  http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2013/03/esquire-story-seal-killed-bin-laden-bs-says-sea.php?ref=fpb

Julia A. Pierson, la première femme à la tête du Secret service

Le "Secret service" assure la protection du Président, du Vice-Président et de leurs proches.  Le Président s'était engagé à refaire l'image de ce service et il répond aussi aux critiques qui lui reprochaient de ne pas faire suffisamment de place aux femmes.

 "The appointment represented a milestone for law enforcement, putting a woman at the top of an agency with a storied past and a Hollywood-fueled image of Clint Eastwood-style men with sunglasses and earpieces stoically guarding the commander in chief at home and abroad. Mr. Obama has also installed women as directors of the Marshals Service and Drug Enforcement Administration, but the Secret Service has a unique visibility."

  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/us/politics/obama-appoints-woman-to-lead-secret-service.html

"Vous êtes libres": mort du Rabbin Herschel Schacter

 

 Herschel Schacter est ce Rabbin de l'armée américaine qui a annoncé aux Juifs de Buchenwald qu'ils étaient libérés.

 "The smoke was still rising as Rabbi Herschel Schacter rode through the gates of Buchenwald.

It was April 11, 1945, and Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army had liberated the concentration camp scarcely an hour before. Rabbi Schacter, who was attached to the Third Army’s VIII Corps, was the first Jewish chaplain to enter in its wake. That morning, after learning that Patton’s forward tanks had arrived at the camp, Rabbi Schacter, who died in the Riverdale section of the Bronx on Thursday at 95 after a career as one of the most prominent Modern Orthodox rabbis in the United States, commandeered a jeep and driver. He left headquarters and sped toward Buchenwald.

By late afternoon, when the rabbi drove through the gates, Allied tanks had breached the camp. He remembered, he later said, the sting of smoke in his eyes, the smell of burning flesh and the hundreds of bodies strewn everywhere.

La suite:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/nyregion/rabbi-herschel-schacter-who-carried-word-of-freedom-to-buchenwald-dies-at-95.html?_r=0

Caricature républicains et "les gais tu ne marieras point"

Caricature de DARYL CAGLE, CAGLECARTOONS.COM

Caricature jeunesse perdue...

Caricature de PAUL ZANETTI, AUSTRALIA

Caricature George W. Bush peintre minimaliste

Caricature de RANDALL ENOS, CAGLE CARTOONS

Jim Carrey ridiculise Charlton Heston sur "Funny or die": controverse...

 

Caricature de ERIC ALLIE, CAGLECARTOONS.COM 

 Le comédien Jim Carrey s'est impliqué dans le débat sur les armes à feu de manière remarquée... Il ridiculise Charlton Heston et la NRA dans une chanson intitulée "Cold dead hands". Vous pouvez voir et entendre Carrey en cliquant sur ce lien: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/0433b30576/cold-dead-hand-with-jim-carrey?playlist=featured_videos

Le titre de la chanson réfère à un célèbre discours de Charlton Heston prononcé en 2000 alors qu'il était le président de la NRA. Voici ce que disait Hseton à ce moment (la célèbre citation débute autour de la
deuxième minute):

 

 La chanson de Carrey est devenue virale et elle soulève les passions.

Caricature mariage gai: la Cour suprême attrape le bouquet de la mariée!

Caricature de JEFF PARKER, FLORIDA TODAY AND THE FORT MYERS NEWS-PRESS

Caricature mariage gai et appui populaire

Caricature de JOE HELLER, GREEN BAY PRESS-GAZETTE

Caricature March madness et politique!

Caricature de DAVID FITZSIMMONS, THE ARIZONA STAR

Mariage gai, proposition 8 et Cour suprême: le mariage gai maintenu en Californie?

 Le plus haut tribunal des États-Unis entendait ce matin les arguments pour et contre la "proposition 8" qui interdirait le mariage gai en Californie. La Cour devra d'abord se prononcer sur la validité de la cause, est-ce bien à la Cour suprême de se prononcer sur cette question? La question du mariage gai en Californie a une histoire complexe et elle soulève de nombreuses controverses...

 "The political and legal history of gay marriage in California is torturous. Proposition 8 was passed by California voters in November 2008 in response to a ruling by the state Supreme Court earlier that same year that found a right to gay marriage under the California constitution. Same-sex marriage had previously been banned by statute and by a referendum passed by the voters in 2000. Following the passage of Prop 8, the California Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that it was valid, but left intact and legal the gay marriages that had been legally performed before Prop 8 passed. Challenges to Prop 8 were filed in federal court and eventually made their way to the Supreme Court, but not before an exceptional amount of legal wrangling and further involvement by the California Supreme Court."

 L'article au complet:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/supreme-court-prop-8-arguments.php?ref=fpa

Caricature Hamid Kazaï et John Kerry: enterrer la hache de guerre...

Caricature de DAVID FITZSIMMONS, THE ARIZONA STAR

Caricature Oncle Sam au régime!

Caricature de LUOJIE, CHINA DAILY, CHINA

Amérique: histoire d'un nom (New York Times)

 Beau topo du Times ce matin sur le contexte entourant le baptême de l'Amérique. J'ai séjourné à quelques reprises à St-Dié dans les Vosges, là où on a référé pour la première fois au nom Amérique pour désigner le nouveau continent sur une carte. Si je connaissais déjà certains pans de cette histoire, l'article apporte quelques éclaircissements supplémentaires.

 "We call ourselves Americans today because of the map’s makers, Martin Waldseemüller and Mathias Ringmann, young clerics in the cathedral village of St.-Dié, France. By incorporating early New World discoveries, their map reached beyond the canonical descriptions of Old World geography handed down from Ptolemy in the second century. On a lower stretch of the southern continent, the mapmakers inscribed the name “America” in the mistaken belief that Amerigo Vespucci, not Columbus, deserved credit for first sighting a part of that continent, South America.

 Or possibly they favored Vespucci because he held more firmly to the growing consensus that this was indeed a New World, not the Indies (as Columbus so wanted to believe), and because he wrote more colorfully than Columbus about the people he encountered.

 The map is also the source of an abiding mystery. How did Waldseemüller and Ringmann already know so well the configuration of South America, before any recorded Spanish or Portuguese voyages around the horn to the west coast? How did they know of the Pacific before Balboa made his sighting in 1513? Hard to believe it was just a guess or futuristic vision of what world geography would come to be.

 Were the cartographers themselves dropping a hint when they wrote on the map that “if you are not familiar with the new discoveries, do not be afraid of what it is you see on this map, for it is how you will come to see your world in the future”?

 La suite:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/science/the-america-map-review-of-a-renaissance-globemakers-toolbox.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130326&_r=0

Caricature Obama de retour: place au vrai problème!

 

Caricature de YAAKOV KIRSCHEN, DRY BONES

Caricature Goya et Chypre...

Caricature de DARYL CAGLE, CAGLECARTOONS.COM

 Reprise de "Saturne dévorant un de ses fils" (Goya, entre 1819 et 1823).  Saturne craignait qu'un de ses fils prennent sa place...  On ne peut certainement pas en dire autant de Chypre!

 

Caricature principale exportation américaine

Caricature de KEITH TUCKER, POLITICALCARTOONS.COM

Caricature Statue de la liberté, NRA et armes d'assaut

Caricature de BILL DAY, CAGLE CARTOONS

Caricature Angela Merkel et la naissance de Vénus

Caricature de CHRISTO KOMARNITSKI, BULGARIA

 L'original, Sandro Botticelli (1486)

 

Caricature Bachmann pop-up! Surprise!

Caricature de STEVE SACK, THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

Caricature histoires de guerre

Caricature de JEFF DARCY, THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER

iFake: pas un phénomène isolé...

 Payer pour un nouveau iPad dans boutique officielle et se retrouver avec une bien piètre imitation... On peut espérer plus pour 500$... Une liste inquiétante d'incidents regrettables.

 "In December 2010, the year the first iPad hit shelves, a man in Dorchester, Massachusetts, said he spent $800 at a local Best Buy on an iPad that turned out to be fake. The store said the same thing had happened to five or six other people, he told his local NBC station, WHDH.

 The next year, Ken Lemal told a similar story after the businessman purchased what he thought was an iPad from a Walmart in Woodstock, Georgia. Like Nassise, Lemal's iPad was packaged in a way that suggested he was buying a product straight from the manufacturer.

 "I think that probably somebody switched (the iPad) and took it back with the cellophane and everything," Lemal told CNN in a recent interview. "An employee says, 'Oh it's wrapped up, we'll stick it back in inventory,' and it gets sold to somebody else. I think that's what happens."

 That same year in Vancouver, British Columbia, several iPad shoppers at Future Shop and Best Buy stores said they opened the Apple packaging to find plastic bags filled with modeling clay. Last November, a man in Miami accidentally gave his wife a fake iPad for her birthday, thinking he'd spent $480 on the real deal. In January, a woman in Randolph, New Jersey, said that she, too, wound up with a fake Apple tablet after shopping at her neighborhood Walmart."

 http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/22/tech/mobile/fake-ipads-walmart/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Caricature Irak, Bush et Cheney: choc et stupeur...

Caricature de BILL DAY, CAGLE CARTOONS

Caricature Irak dix ans déjà: Cheney se souvient

Caricature de ADAM ZYGLIS, THE BUFFALO NEWS

Caricature "Put yourself in their shoes" (Obama)

Caricature de STEVE GREENBERG, FREELANCE, LOS ANGELES

Homosexualité et protection d'emploi: dans 29 états on peut être congédié parce qu'on est gai...

 J'ignorais tout de cette réalité...

 "Andre Cooley lives in Mississippi, one of 29 states where it's legal for employers to fire a person for being gay. In that environment, why would he risk being out of the closet at work? Cooley grew up in foster care and wanted to give back. His job as a juvenile corrections officer was too central to his identity. So he covered it up. The 27-year-old lowered his voice. Talked less with his hands. Pretended he was straight, all to protect himself. But it didn't work."

 L'article au complet:
  http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/22/opinion/sutter-employment-discrimination-lgbt/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Caricature March madness: un tableau qui ne fait pas l'unanimité!

Caricature de Nate Beeler, The Columbus Dispatch

Républicains et minorités: rapprochement possible?

Caricature de MILT PRIGGEE, WWW.MILTPRIGGEE.COM

 La caricature de MILT PRIGGEE est particulièrement, mais elle représente pour certains observateurs le fossé qui sépare le G.O.P. de la réalité des nouvelles données démographiques.

Harvard bat New Mexico: le québécois Laurent Rivard participe à cette victoire historique

 Personne ne s'attendait à cette première victoire de l'Université Harvard dans ce tournoi de la NCAA. Plus tôt en saison, Harvard avait perdu des deux meilleurs joueurs en raison d'un scandale académique (les deux joueurs avaient triché à un examen). Le québécois de St-Bruno Laurent Rivard, brillant hier soir, évolue au sein de l'équipe gagnante.

 "So there was Harvard, winner of an N.C.A.A. tournament game for the first time in team history. The Crimson upset the third-seeded Lobos, 68-62, at EnergySolutions Arena in one of the latest finishes on Thursday night, on the first day of full action in the tournament. It was, if not a seismic upset, then a big one.

 When it ended, Harvard’s players danced on the court like they had just won the national title. The band played. The flags waved. The players skipped into the locker room. History was assured.

 “What a sensational, gutsy effort by our team,” Harvard Coach Tommy Amaker said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/sports/ncaabasketball/harvard-beats-no-3-seed-new-mexico.html

Obama vs Bush en Israël: des discours révélateurs

Intéressant cet article du Washington Post qui établit les similarités et les différences entre deux discours importants des Présidents Obama et Bush en Israël. Si les discours se ressemblent sur des comme la reconnaissance d'Israël par Truman, les souffrances du peuple juif, le rôle des Nations-Unies, la menace iranienne, la dénonciation du Hamas et la nécessité pour les États-Unis d'appuyer Israël, ils diffèrent sur les questions des liens avec le monde arabe ainsi que sur les étapes à venir.

 Un extrait:

 "Relations with Arab World

 “This fundamental insight, that freedom yields peace, is the great lesson of the 20th century. Now our task is to apply it in the 21st. Nowhere is this work more urgent than here in the Middle East. We must stand with the reformers working to break the old patterns of tyranny and despair. We must give voice to the millions of ordinary people who dream of a better life in freedom. We must confront the moral relativism that views all forms of government as equally acceptable and thereby consigns whole societies to slavery. Above all, we must have faith in our values and ourselves and confidently pursue the expansion of liberty as the path to a peaceful future.”
 — Bush

 “This truth is more pronounced given the changes sweeping the Arab World. I recognize that with the uncertainty in the region -- people in the streets, changes in leadership, the rise of non-secular parties in politics --it is tempting to turn inward. But this is precisely the time to respond to the wave of revolution with a resolve for peace. As more governments respond to popular will, the days when Israel could seek peace with a handful of autocratic leaders are over. Peace must be made among peoples, not just governments. No one step can change overnight what lies in the hearts and minds of millions.”
— Obama

Bush’s speech was made before the Arab Spring and its messy outcome, so his vision was much more hopeful. Israeli leaders were always suspicious of Bush’s desire to promote democracy in the Middle East, believing that popularly elected leaders would be less likely to maintain friendly relations with Israel. Obama tries to make the case that Israel now has a more pressing need to show progress on ending the conflict with the Palestinians precisely because those elected leaders may be swayed by popular passions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-speech-in-israel-versus-bushs-speech/2013/03/21/a7b3a4b8-9267-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239_blog.html?hpid=z2

"Admission" avec Tina Fey: compétition féroce pour l'accès à l'éducation supérieure!

 Critique du new York Times sur le nouveau film mettant en vedette Tina Fey et Paul Rudd.

 "The timing of “Admission,” Paul Weitz’s new comedy, is either clever or cruel — perhaps both. In the next few weeks, word will go forth from colleges across the land about who is in and who is out, as the American higher-education-industrial complex enacts its own Darwinian version of “Project Runway.” As the father of a high school junior, paying my tithe to the test prep gods while preparing to sacrifice most of my worldly goods on the altar of the liberal arts, I can’t tell if I’m part of the intended audience, or if the ratings board should issue a special warning for sensitive parents like me. How could anyone make light of the brutal, capricious system by which our young people are judged and sorted?"

 La critique en entier: http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/movies/admission-starring-tina-fey-directed-by-paul-weitz.html?_r=0

Caricature Chypre: peut-on en demander plus?

Caricature de PARESH NATH, THE KHALEEJ TIMES, UAE

Obamacare trois ans plus tard: quel bilan?

 Peut-on déjà percevoir les retombées positives du Affordable Care Act? Difficile...

 "All through the Obama years, backers of the Affordable Care Act have lifted their spirits with a consistent refrain: Just you wait.

 Someday, the law's backers insisted, Obamacare will make the transition from a divisive idea to a widely popular one, from a program that many people still find confusing and scary to a familiar and comforting part of American life.

 This weekend, which marks the third anniversary of the law’s passage, one thing remains clear: Someday has not yet arrived, and may not for a long time. Even as the pitched ideological and legal battles have faded, a huge raft of complicated and potentially crippling practical challenges remain, raising questions about whether Obamacare ultimately will work and whether it will become the Rushmore-size achievement that President Barack Obama hopes for.

 This weekend, which marks the third anniversary of the law’s passage, one thing remains clear: Someday has not yet arrived, and may not for a long time. Even as the pitched ideological and legal battles have faded, a huge raft of complicated and potentially crippling practical challenges remain, raising questions about whether Obamacare ultimately will work and whether it will become the Rushmore-size achievement that President Barack Obama hopes for.

L'article en entier:
 http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/obamacare-challenges-linger-89205.html?hp=t1_3

Obamacare pourrait littéralement tuer des gens! (Michele Bachmann)

 Encore un peu et je m'ennuyais des déclarations spectaculaires, et souvent ridicules, de Mme Bachmann. C'est exactement ce genre de bêtises que doit éliminer le parti républicain... Peut-on critiquer Obamacare? Bien sûr! Mais pas au point de dire n'importe quoi.

 "Bachmann, who has kept a low profile since her unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination, came out swinging against President Obama and health care reform in a speech that lasted more than 10 minutes.

 “Let’s repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens,” Bachmann said on the House floor. “Let’s not do that. Let’s love people. Let’s care about people. Let’s repeal it now while we can.”

 http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/bachmann-calls-for-obamacare-repeal-before-it-literally-kills-women.php?ref=fpb

Caricature aide en Syrie...

Caricature de PARESH NATH, THE KHALEEJ TIMES, UAE

Caricature collection NRA

Caricature de JIMMY MARGULIES, THE RECORD OF HACKENSACK, NJ

Caricature Obama chanson du Moyen-Orient...

Caricature de PETAR PISMESTROVIC, KLEINE ZEITUNG, AUSTRIA

Rembrandt et les républicains! Leçon d'anatomie...

Caricature de DARYL CAGLE, CAGLECARTOONS.COM

 Alors que les républicains s'interrogent sur les causes des problèmes de leur parti,  Cagle récupère "Leçon d'anatomie" (1632)