Hate mail to editorial cartoonists?

I stumbled across this article today from Politicker.com about how editorial cartoonists in the United States receive reader hate mail and how that inspires them to keep doing what they do, presumably because they take it as a sign that they're being "edgy" or "controversial" and therefore standing up for "free speech". The cartoonists had a big laugh and shared with each other their favorite reader responses at the annual convention of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists.

Ted Rall took a shot at firefighters in New York, calling them "psychotic" after their vocal response to his cartoon that suggested the New York Fire Department was receiving outrageous amounts of money donated after 9/11.

Well. That certainly makes him a hero in my book, standing up for his freedom of expression like that.

Except maybe these cartoonists would do better to at least attempt to support their fellow cartoonists in Denmark, who, as recently as this February (2008), are still receiving death threats from angry Muslims for daring to publish editorial cartoons satirizing Muhammad, cartoons that were originally published in September 2005. Too bad most publishers in the United States (and for that matter, worldwide) caved in to death threats and sought to appease the Islamist censors. So much for free speech.

These guys can't hold a candle to Kurt Westergaard:

When Tax-Hikes Make Sense

As anti-tax as I generally am, I have to admit that there are times when tax policy, including significantly increased taxes, can and should be used to provide certain incentives for people to behave in desired ways.

Starkly contrasting Hillary Clinton's and John McCain's idiotic proposals earlier this year to suspend the federal gas tax, Charles Krauthammer proposes further increasing gasoline taxes because, as we are seeing now, higher gas prices cause consumers to alter their driving and car-buying habits, which in turn puts pressure on manufacturers to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles. It is a market-based approach that would be much more efficient, and more beneficial to the national economy, than a government-mandated corporate average fuel economy or ethanol mandates or suing the Saudis or whatever politically-inspired energy scam is en vogue this week in Washington, DC.

Will people like it? No. Will it be difficult to adjust to, at least in the short-term? Yes, especially for politicians for whom any tax-hike is a career-killer (which is all of them). But it would be effective.

Where in the World?

Give me a break. I've been in the middle of a move to Kosovo.