Isn't This Illegal?

I'm a fan of magician Mac King, who performs at Harrah's daily. He's been a guest on "The Strip" and we're grateful because he's a very interesting, humble guy.

I'm just wondering about this. Mac does a weekly comic strip called Magic In A Minute. In it, he walks kids through the steps for doing simple magic tricks. It's well-illustrated and often quite clever.

But Sunday's strip, I suspect, is illegal. I had to scan it in from the R-J because there doesn't appear to be any place online to show you his most recent entries. In honor of Presidents Day, he, uh, teaches kids how to cut holes in $1 bills and feed it a peanut. Really. Click on the image above to see it more closely.

I found this appropriate site -- LawforKids.Org -- that answers the question of whether it's illegal to deface U.S. currency. It sure seems that way, although the definition on that site of what "fraudulent" is makes it murky. (Click on that link; I especially like the protest from Katie in Colorado who wants to make "buttens" out of "mony." Sigh.)

Intriguingly, the commenters on that site are discussing another money-altering trick of sorts, something called "Fraud" by Daniel Garcia. Here he is doing it on YouTube:



But, regardless, it is certainly questionable judgment to be teaching children in the comics pages to go to get a dollar bill and cut a piece out of it, no?