More on New Orleans, recovery...

Articles for this week's 'toon:

• Bush was back in New Orleans last week, in an obligatory stop to mark the second anniversary of Katrina. And he brought good news to the townsfolk: he says things are "getting better" there! Just like they are in Iraq! (Speaking of which, if Blackwater gets booted out of Iraq, does this mean they'll have to go back to harassing the people of New Orleans for work?)
  
  Of course, the reality on the ground in New Orleans (as in Iraq) is a bit different than it is inside Bush's tiny, tiny brain. Workplace injustice is on the rise. FEMA is suppressing reports of dangerous levels of formaldehyde in their trailers. Federal aid is hopelessly stuck in a morass of bureaucracy, and Mississippi (with their redneck Republican governor) is getting a disproportionate share of the funds. Infrastructure in poor neighborhoods is gone, causing a dramatic rise in the crime rate and overflowing prisons. The overall death rate was up 47% last year. Shit, they've even got killer bees there.
  
  See my previous posts on some other Katrina/New Orleans issues.
  
  
• Pulitzer Prize-winner and former N.O. resident John McQuaid has an excellent series of columns in Mother Jones about the Katrina recovery. In particular, he addresses the moral imperative of a "genuine national commitment" to protecting the entire U.S. coastline, not just New Orleans. He also takes a possibly sarcastic shot at those who suggest that we shouldn't be rebuilding New Orleans at all:
  

  Instead of addressing those questions, though, the national debate has stressed the idiosyncrasies of New Orleans. Some have written that French explorer Bienville made a mistake when, in 1718, he founded New Orleans on the fringe of a low-lying swamp dangerously close to Hurricane Alley. Others take it a step further and say that three centuries has been a good run, but it's time to give up. There's some truth to these statements—New Orleans' location on a low-lying, sinking river delta has indeed put it in a terrible predicament. But the underlying message is that Katrina was a fluke: that New Orleans' problems are unique and its existential concerns mostly irrelevant to the rest of the country. That may be comforting to people outside Louisiana. But it's not realistic.

  
  
• One New Orleans author recently lamented how they're all "Oprah fodder," and how the superficial mainstream media had become a permanent fixture there. Personally, I don't want to be part of the deluge of generic, post-Katrina pop culture... but I also think it's important to keep talking about it. For example, I caught the last 40 minutes of K-Ville the other night... it's obviously a pretty silly show for the most part, but it I guess it was an honest attempt to deal with some of the issues.
  
  Fall is the time of year when I really miss living in New Orleans. While much of the rest of the country is kissing their summers goodbye, it's still beautiful in N.O.: mid-80's, and the humidity is even starting to die down. I haven't been back since the storm... but then, I don't have a taxpayer-funded jet to take me wherever I want to go. I suppose the best I can do is to stick to the issues, and to just try to convey why it's so important to me to begin with.
  

Fighting Words: 9/17/07 Cartoon...

"Trav'lin' with Post-Presidency George W. Bush"...

What passes for turds these days...

Maybe I'm getting old or something, but this has got to be the worst friggin' song I've ever heard in my life. Straight to the top.

Seriously man, I grew up with "Ice Ice Baby" and "The Thong Song"... but I could actually feel myself getting dumber listening to this song.

Here's a pretty funny review of it, though.

More on Terror Rhetoric...

Articles for this week's 'toon:

• So, as you're likely aware, Osama sent a new tape last week (two of them, actually). What cracks me up is how the media is reacting... not in a sober tone reflecting the significance of such an event in terms of national security and world affairs, but more like, "OhmyGod, did you see what Osama was WEARING?" or "that bad dye job on his beard is so passe." I guess there are some intelligence-related inferences that can be made from minute details like that... but this is a little ridiculous, don't you think?
  
  Of course, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh turned the tapes into an opportunity to call liberals and Democrats traitors.
  
  And then there's the White House response, which brought us right down to Osama's level and made the whole thing akin to a playground spitting contest between 8 year-olds.
  
  
• The goal of this cartoon was to offer a comparison of Osama's "propaganda" with some of the recent gems from the experts in the genre: Cheney, Bush, and the rest of their team of scholars and gentlemen. First, Cheney gave a speech a few months ago (using language that would scare the crap out of John Rambo) in which he suggested that those who are in favor of withdrawal are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Then, while on his trip to Australia last week, Commander Cretin was overheard exclaiming that "WE'RE KICKIN' ASS!" in Iraq. He then challenged the Australian Prime Minister to a game of beer pong, with the loser having to run naked through the quad and around the girls' dorm.
  
  And then there's David Addington. A former White House lawyer by the name of Jack Goldsmith has a new book out called "The Terror Presidency," which portrays Addington as a deranged lunatic who says things like, "We're one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious [FISA] court." So you see, according to the Vice President's Chief of Staff, another terror attack would be a good thing! (By the way, my caricature is obviously not how Addington really looks... I wanted to give him a bit of a Charles Manson look.)
  
  
• Check out Zbigniew Brzezinski on how the administration has created a "culture of fear" in America, a great commencement address by Mark Danner on the administration's use of wartime rhetoric, and Glenn Greenwald on the very real fear of many right-wingers that Islamists are coming to take over the country and impose sharia law.
  

Fighting Words: 9/10/07 Cartoon...

"Republican Scholar Roundtable, #4"...

More on Health Care...

Sources for this week's 'toon:

• So, as you might have guessed, I finally got a chance to see Michael Moore's Sicko last week. I thought most of the film was excellent, a very impressive examination of the inequities of our health care "system" and comparative study of other countries' superior approaches to caring for the health of their citizens. I thought the most compelling argument for universal health care in the U.S. was the section on the old reliable, right-wing specter of "socialism," which of course is simply a code word to evoke the red scare. Moore gives a list of public services in this country which, by the definition of many on the right, would have to be considered "socialism." Mailmen? Socialists. Librarians? Socialists! Public school teachers? Socialists!! Police, fire, and military? SOCIALISTS!!
  
  Ralph Nader agrees that the movie is good, but now he wants to know where the movement for real change is going to come from. He laments the fact that movies only seem to stir up peoples' indignation on stuff for short periods of time.
  
  
• Check out Paul Krugman's expose on the right's "socialism" bogeyman, as well as the Heritage Institute's efforts to attack proposals to expand SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program).
  
  The Heritage Institute's arguments against SCHIP are well summed up in this cartoon by August Pollak from a couple weeks ago... they take a perfectly reasonable sentence (like "nearly three out of every four children would be eligible for taxpayer-subsidized health care"), and simply add an exclamation point and/or tone of outrage to it.
  


• Of course, when Sicko first came out, there were quite a few good columns on the subject, many of which were written by Krugman (predictably). In particular, he has us off to a good start in exposing the ultra-conservative underbelly of brand new presidential candidate Fred Thompson.
  
  Amanda Marcotte has Prezzidint Pipsqueak's quote on the subject, "people have access to health care in America... you just go to the emergency room." And, check out Barbara Ehrenreich's excellent post:
  

  Once, many years ago, I complained to the left-wing economist Paul Sweezey that America had no real health system. "We have a system all right," he responded, "it's just a system for doing something else." A system, as he might have put it today, for extracting money from the vulnerable and putting it into the pockets of the rich.

  
  
• Turns out the Dubster himself was treated for Lyme Disease last year. I'm guessing he has pretty good coverage, though...
  

Fighting Words: 9/3/07 Cartoon...

"Billy, the Boy Who Knew Too Much #4"...

More on Bush Iraq Rhetoric, VFW Speech...

Articles for this week's 'toon:

• Anyone see anything a little incongruous between recent claims that "the surge is working," and the almost daily reports of record-breaking suicide bombings in Iraq? Even Hillary is apparently lauding the surge as being successful. The reality on the ground seems to be quite different, as many who have directly observed events there say "we have failed on every promise."
  
  So there appears to be a great deal of doubt over whether the surge is producing any meaningful results, which would merit our continued presence in Iraq. The question is, for people who are so consistently and completely WRONG on important decisions like this, at what point do they totally forfeit the benefit of the doubt? Shoulda been a hell of a long time ago, shouldn't it?
  

• Ari Fleischer's got a new little club of fun-loving guys, whose main goal is to produce ads connecting Iraq to 9-11, and then criticize people who ask them about it for "reliving old debates." Do yourself a favor and watch this clip of him on Hardball... never seen (guest-host) Mike Barnicle before, but he seems to have a knack for throwing out a good question every now and then.
  
  
• So the Prezdint Professor-man gave a speech at the VFW national convention, where he gave us all a much-needed lecture on the simple lessons of America's past wars. You see, in Japan and Korea, we did whatever it took (think Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and the outcome was totally good. In Vietnam, we lost our will (after 15-some odd years of war) and retreated like a bunch of wussies, and the result was a total disaster. So, the reason Iraq is going to hell in a handbasket is the galling lack of will on the part of those who criticize the war (all 210 million of us)... it's our fault, not his. It's just that simple. Maybe if all of us anti-war types spent a little less time complaining and a little more time reading Graham Greene, we'd know what we are talking about.
  
  
  
  
  Yikes...

Fighting Words: 8/27/07 Cartoon...

"Failed Post-Rove PR Tactics"...

Eat me, Apple

I may or may not have a "Moron" post for you this week, so you may have to do without articles for this week's 'toon. Devastating, I know... but my power adapter for my Mac Powerbook finally bit the dust, and all my articles are on my hard drive.

It looks like this has been a huge problem with Powerbooks, judging by the comments on the Apple store page. However, Steve Jobs' secret to generating profit has apparently been to manufacture substandard parts for his products, and then charge ridiculous fees for replacement parts. 80 bucks for a power cord?! As I recall, they gave me a similar explanation for why a new battery is not covered under my AppleCare policy, because the battery is considered an "accessory" that is "external" to the computer. Computers don't run very well without power, though, do they?!

Which leads me back to the title of this post...

Needless to say, I'm a little pissed at Apple lately.

Fighting Words: 8/20/07 Cartoon...

"Media Machine!"...

More on wiretapping, the Protect America Act...

Quick list of articles for this week's 'toon:

• See Charles Babington on the Protect America Act, which may effectively "grant the attorney general the ability to wiretap anybody, any place, any time without court review, without any checks and balances." Apparently, the Dems were in a hurry to get their August vacations started and didn't think this sounded all that important. But, hey, it's not like the administration just acknowledged that the little domestic surveillance programs that they'd previously admitted to were actually part of a gigantic spying operation involving data-mining and eavesdropping on (possibly) millions of ordinary Americans, right?
  
  Unbelievable.
  
  Aziz Huq teaches us the 3-step dance that helped the administration push this bill through Congress.
  
  
• Check out Joe Conason on our fading democracy, John Dean on a historical perspective on Bush's handling of free speech issues, and Joseph A. Palermo, who cites Chalmers Johnson when making the statement that we may be one terror attack away from a form of military dictatorship.
  
  
• Here's a disturbing trend that you may want to think about before you go out to buy your iPhone: backdoors in all your favorite products for the government to spy on you. The possibilities are limitless. How about tiny microphones on to-go cups for your Starbucks lattes? Mini data-recorders in Trojan condoms?
  
  And what the hell is up with Apple? This is the second time I've read about something like this with them...
  

Fighting Words: 8/13/07 Cartoon

"The NSA's Funniest Surveillance Bloopers & Outtakes!"...

More Commercial Art...

I've updated my big Commercial Art post with a bunch of new entries to my portfolio, including more Democratic candidate designs (Nader and Biden), a company logo for a local cafe, a design for a gift shop in the Pike Place Market, a shirt design for an Aikido seminar this weekend, and a design I threw together for a shirt for next weekend's Hempfest in Seattle (hint: it's Dick Cheney smoking a doob):

More on the Alaskan Way Viaduct...

Coincidentally, I was planning on doing something on one of Seattle's own disaster-prone bridges for this week's toon before the disaster in Minnesota happened...

For readers outside Seattle, the Alaskan Way Viaduct is a butt-ugly, elevated freeway in the downtown area that has been a source of great controversy over the years. The viaduct is one good ground-shake away from completely falling to the ground, possibly in a manner similar to San Francisco's Cypress Street Viaduct, which came down during the '89 Loma Prieta earthquake. For quite a few years now, local government entities have bickered like children over the best way to handle the viaduct problem, with little progress made on coming up with a final solution.

Clearly, doing nothing with the viaduct is not an option, unless we want to see the thing collapse in rush-hour traffic like 35W did in Minneapolis. Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire has decided that the only option is to replace the viaduct with an even bigger, "butt-uglier" elevated freeway to accommodate all the people who just have to drive their cars everywhere. Mayor Greg Nickels wants a super-cool tunnel to replace the viaduct, a tricky and expensive project that would probably end up bearing a disturbing resemblance to Boston's Big Dig. Both of these choices are wrong, though...

What's the right choice? Tear the sucker down!

The People's Waterfront Coalition site has a good roundup of the arguments and numbers involved in the fight over the viaduct. A new elevated freeway would cost $3 billion, and wouldn't be fully open until 2020. A new tunnel could cost at least $4.5 billion, and who knows when that thing would be completely done. For that kind of money, the best choice would be to tear down the viaduct and invest in making surface street improvements, redirecting traffic out into arterials, and repairing the crumbling seawall.

But most importantly, we could afford to finally start investing in public transit. Every time I visit Washington, D.C., I am really impressed with how easy to learn and use their metrorail system is. And every time I get back from a city like that, I find myself pissed off that we Seattleites (who are supposed to be "enlightened" on environmental issues) don't have something like that here. Seattle has a bus system, but it is extremely unreliable and, of course, vulnerable to traffic jams.

Nickels has received all kinds of accolades for being an "environmental hero" and a "rising green star," but take one look at the ridiculous traffic here and something doesn't smell quite right (literally and figuratively). Any promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions in Seattle are meaningless unless something is also done to break Seattleites of our car addictions. As Erica Barnett notes in an outstanding article, no other city in the world is building a new elevated freeway; in fact, cities like Portland, Chattanooga, Milwaukee, San Francisco and Sydney, Australia are actually tearing them down. By contrast, building a big new freeway here in Seattle would be "inducing demand"... people are gonna drive on it.

The viaduct runs right down the Elliot Bay waterfront, along property which would otherwise be extremely valuable were it not for the gigantic concrete monstrosity hovering over it. The new viaduct that Gregoire wants to build would be 71% larger than the current one, and would put 50% more of the waterfront in shade. Consider instead this vision of the waterfront, which would finally put this "amazing civic resource" to good use. An analogous situation would the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco, which was demolished in favor of a surface street after the '89 earthquake. The result there has not been gridlock, but rather a decrease in traffic. People sought other options.

On March 13, voters in Seattle overwhelmingly rejected both the tunnel option and the new elevated freeway (the surface street option wasn't even included on the ballot). It looks like the State couldn't care less, though... they're just going to do whatever they want anyway.

Fighting Words: 8/7/07 Cartoon...

"The Futuresons: Seattle!"...

Trying out a local issue cartoon... sorry, non-Seattle folks. I'll explain the viaduct debacle in my next blog post.

Previous episode of the Futuresons:

More on Impeachment, Accountability...

Yeah, that's right... I put Alberto in a pimped out lowrider.

Some articles for this week's 'toon:

• For info on Harriet Miers' refusal to respond to a subpoena to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, see reporting by Richard B. Schmitt. Long story short, it pays to have friends in high places.
  
  John Dean also has an excellent column on this. He concludes that the only way this is going to be resolved without making a complete joke out of the Constitution and the institution of Congress (since Republicans don't seem to care much about this), is for the House to exercise it's own "inherent contempt" power to "prosecute contumacious witnesses to require them to comply."
  
  Yeah, I had to look up "contumacious" too...
  
  
• On Alberto, check out a WaPo editorial that documents a few of his bald-faced lies to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
  
  And, lo and behold, it looks like some House Democrats are now going to introduce a resolution to impeach him.
  
  
• On Evil Dick, check out another good Dean column. Just a few of the laws that the Cheney branch of government doesn't have to follow: the War Powers Act, FISA, the Geneva Conventions, the War Crimes Act, the Presidential Records Act, and Dubya's own Executive Order 12958.
  
  Perhaps he should be impeached, too. That might be good.
  
  
• On impeachment, Gary Kamiya has an outstanding column on how pursuing the impeachment of Bush would force Americans to confront some unpleasant truths about ourselves:
  
  

  The problem is that the American people are not judging Bush by the standards of law.
  ...
  
  This society-wide diminution of respect for law has helped Bush immeasurably. It is not just the law that America has turned away from, but what the law stands for -- accountability, memory, history and logic itself. That anonymous senior Bush advisor who spoke with surreal condescension of "the reality-based community" may have summed up our cultural moment more acutely than anyone else in years. A society without memory, driven by ephemeral emotions, which demands no consistency from its leaders but only gusty patriotism, is a society that is not about to engage in the painful self-examination that impeachment would mean.

  
  
  See also Bill Moyers' discussion on the topic of impeachment, Ethan J. Leib and David Ponet's call for ethical training for politicians who refuse to follow the wishes of their constituents on issues like this, and the A28.org site, which has lots of pictures showing "the people's impeachment movement."
  
  What about Russ Feingold's censure proposal? Dave Lindorff is not a big fan of the idea, nor of Feingold for suggesting it. I agree... it would be meaningless.
  

Oh God Yes...

This story is so delicious, it just has to be fattening...

The Duke Cunningham scandal and Tom Delay scandal and Jack Abramoff scandal and Mark Foley scandal and David Vitter scandal etc. etc. etc. etc. etc...... were all satisfying, but nothing would be quite as scrumptious as seeing Ted Stevens stink up a jail cell with his "old man smell":



...unless he was sharing the cell with Inhofe.

Fighting Words: 7/30/07 Cartoon...

"Rules of the Road"...

Good Toons...

We CWA-ers are always working to come up with new ideas to help enrich the lives of you, the consumer. Jen Sorensen has introduced a great new product... "Neocondoms!" And August Pollak has yet another... "Baby Legos!"

And, since I never got around to making a comment on the whole Vitter scandal, here's Ruben Bolling telling the story of an illegal alien who receives absolution for his crime by asking forgiveness of his wife and God.

More on GOP, Iraq withdrawal...

Of course, this week's 'toon takes place in a fantasy world where Republicans (and many Democrats, for that matter) actually intend to make some kind of effort to END the Iraq War. Many analysts believe (justifiably) that they have no intention of ever leaving Iraq; check out a previous blog post on that. So anyway, back in the real world, the goal of this cartoon was just to try and debunk some of the prevailing myths and flawed arguments about withdrawal from Iraq:

• First, the myth about the effectiveness of the "surge" (aka "escalation"). Howard Zinn asks an excellent question:
  

  If our troops are preventing civil war, helping people, controlling violence, then why withdraw at all? If they are in fact doing the opposite—provoking civil war, hurting people, perpetuating violence—they should withdraw as quickly as ships and planes can carry them home.

  The answer is, of course, that logical argument has no meaning for the advocates of this war, who will chug along forever in a world of nonsense. See Bill Kristol, who says that 75% of the population is crazy and that the "surge" (like Bush's presidency) has been a complete success!
  


• On the Democrats and politics, here's a question: for as incredibly unpopular as Bush and his war are, why the hell is it that Democrats and the media still allow Bush and his Republican loyalists to frame the terms of the debate on this issue? Why in hell are they afforded any credibility at all?! Tom Engelhardt has a good column on this, and Larry Everest has a take-no-prisoners column on the Dems' imperialist roots.
  
  So yeah, Joe Lieberman is an asshole. But the truth is that the Democrats are just as beholden to political motivations as the Republicans are. As Robert Parry and Gary Kamiya point out, the proof of this is the simple fact that they are not doing the right thing and cutting of funds for the war and aggressively pursuing impeachment.
  


• I don't think it's a huge secret that many in the hard-core neocon gang are stark raving mad, murderous lunatics, but I wanted to stick the thing in about Norman Podhoretz just because I find him so very offensive. Glenn Greenwald has a good profile of him titled "Face of a Psychopath" (check out his eyes -- my caricature was not an accident). See also a blog post by Steve Clemons on Johann Hari's infiltration of the cruise from hell, where great minds like Kristol, Podhoretz, John Bolton, and other dark forces from the netherworld gather aboard a luxury cruise liner to hash out plans like random executions of anti-war liberals to send a message.
  
  On the myth of "promoting democracy" check out Chris Floyd and Noam Chomsky.
  

• On the myths of "emboldening the enemy" and the terrorists "following us home," check out Ivan Eland, who compares the average American's chances of being the victim of a terror attack to the probability that they will be hit by a comet from outer space.

Fighting Words: 7/23/07 Cartoon...

"GOP Filmstrips 2: How To End A War"...

Previous episode:

That there inter-net sure is fun...

Granted, I'm pretty easily impressed with some of the newfangled stuff there on the World Wide Webs, but I just got my first home high-speed connection so I've been doing some exploring.

This one is just about the coolest thing I've ever seen: if you haven't checked out the Weather Channel interactive map, go see now. If you live in a densely populated area (apparently, anywhere in the world), it allows you to zoom in close enough to see your house, your car parked in the front yard, and maybe even you if you're doing something freaky on the roof. Come to think of it, that's a little disturbing, isn't it? It's all extremely well-labeled, so you know exactly where you're at.

I don't know how many hours I've wasted on this lately, checking out everything from Major League Baseball stadiums, to FEMA trailers still in peoples' front yards in the Lower Ninth in New Orleans, to the canals of Venice, Italy.

More on Republican Presidential Candidates...

This week's 'toon doubles as both a cartoon and a preview for a line of shirts that may be coming out in the future at Not a Number in Seattle. I did a bunch of designs featuring the usual suspects on the Democrat side, so we figured we should do some of the Republicans too.

Articles:

• On McCain: check out a couple of articles that I've linked to previously by Jeffrey St. Clair and Max Blumenthal, which paint a picture of McCain as a hot-tempered hypocrite and (as St. Clair says) "the most fraudulent politician in Washington."
  
  Of course, this may all be moot, because it looks like his campaign is currently circling the drain.
  


• On Romney: I probably could've done something a lot more scathing on Mitt Romney, but I just couldn't make any substantive critiques work here (aside from something on his Michael Vick-like treatment of his dog, which alone should get him a year in Guantanamo).
  
  Mikhaela Reid has done a good job taking Romney to task over the years. And Ana Marie Cox has a list of his top ten dumb comments.
  

• On Rudy: his constant invoking of 9-11 is now well known, but in general, this guy's just a gigantic dweeb who is desperate to make conservatives like him. And he will do or say anything to make it happen. Anything.
  
  It appears now, though, that the "urban legend" of Rudy's heroism on 9-11 is starting to fade a little.
  


• On Hunter: if it's not obvious, I hate this guy more than any of 'em. Check out a couple of previous 'toons on his high-profile support for Guantanamo and war profiteering, as well as a great Daily Show clip on Hunter. Looking at his policy positions, though (particularly on the "surge"), there's not a single issue where he isn't just a typical ultra-conservative knuckle-dragger, and a possibly corrupt one at that.
  
  And yeah, the line was taken from Silence of the Lambs.


• On Thompson: aside from the flap over all of his ex-girlfriends and Joe Scarborough's comment about Thompson's hot wife, there's not much to say about Thompson yet. Surely, this is because he has intentionally avoided saying anything of substance in preparation for a presidential run. Still, a lot of people insist on lauding Thompson as the divine resurrection of Reagan because... well, he's on th' teevee! And, some may remember he was minority counsel during the Watergate hearings...
  
  However, here's one on Hillary criticizing Thompson for suggesting that Cuban immigrants are terrorists.
  


• On Paul: granted, the guy's not all great. He has some typically short-sighted libertarian positions on issues like health care and college tuition, and he could possibly have some very disturbing ideas about race relations.
  
  But, whether you'd vote for him or not, you have to admire the guts of a guy who was against the war from the beginning and wants to shut down Guantanamo, and still puts the "R" next to his name.
  

Of course, there's no way in hell I was going to vote for a Republican anyway, but at this point, it looks like not many Republicans are either...

Fighting Words: 7/16/07 Cartoon

"The Usual Suspects"...

chirp... chirp... chirp...

Those are the crickets on my end of the blog. Yeah, it's been a while... and, yeah, the last cartoon was a repeat... (here's my original Moron post for that cartoon). I swear, though, it's not my fault! Honest... I ran out of gas. I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!!

The AAEC 50th anniversary convention was outstanding. Shook hands with a hero of mine, Helen Thomas, and a guy who ain't gonna be president, Dennis Kucinich. Heard Dana Priest speak during lunch at the Washington Post, and listened to Mark Shields repeatedly praise the courage of Ronald Reagan, which made me want to barf up the crab cakes or whatever the hell we were eating at that meal. Most importantly, though, I feel like I gained a new appreciation for my chosen profession, which I hope will be evident in the growth of my work in the near future. I also gained a broader understanding of the challenges that we face as a group, which are formidable.

Also, our CWA booksigning crowd at the downtown D.C. Borders kicked serious ass. Mikhaela points to an attendee who scanned his autograph page and put it online.

Thanks a bunch to Warren, Matt, and Jim & Karen for giving me places to rest my head last week.

Here are some more upcoming events:

• July 26-29 @ 10am - 7pm | San Diego: Cartoonists with Attitude at San Diego Comic-Con Ted Rall, Keith Knight, Shannon Wheeler and more! (San Diego Convention Center)

• July 27-28 | San Diego: Shannon Wheeler's Too Much Coffee Man Opera Wheeler reprises his hit comic opera for the San Diego Comic-Con crowd. Fri. July 27 at 5 p.m. and 11 p.m.; Sat. July 28 at 2 p.m. and 11 p.m. Evening shows $20, day shows free to Comic-Con attendees.

• September 28 @ 7 pm | Boston: Cartoon Signing and Slideshow with Mikhaela Reid and Masheka Wood (exact location TBA)

• September 29-30 | Portland, OR: Stumptown Comics Fest featuring Ted Rall, Shannon Wheeler, Matt Bors, Stephanie McMillan, Ben Smith and more! (Lloyd Center Doubletree)

• October 12-13 | Bethesda, MD: SPX Ted Rall, Mikhaela Reid, Masheka Wood, Brian McFadden, Jen Sorensen, Stephanie McMillan, August Pollak, and more!

Fighting Words: 7/9/07 Cartoon

"FBN: Fundamentalist Broadcasting Network"...

More on Congress' Workload...

One paragraph on this week's 'toon, since I'm getting ready to catch a red-eye to Washington D.C. for the big American Association of Editorial Cartoonists 50th anniversary extravaganza...

The 'toon was motivated mainly by this article in The Hill, regarding a survey that they conducted which indicated that very few Senators actually read the NIE on WMDs before they voted for the AUMF. I remembered reading similar articles about the Patriot Act, and then I remembered articles on Congress' latest pay raise and the "new" 5-day work week (including Jack Kingston's quote about Democrats not caring about families). That was quite enough. An interest group called Downsize DC has proposed a bill that would require members of Congress to actually read these rather important documents before deciding whether they support them or not. I can't say that I agree with this group's broader agenda, but its an interesting concept. If it's just not practical to expect them to know exactly what they're voting on... ummm... shouldn't we change the system so it is practical?

OK, I'm off to our nation's capital. I'll bring you back a snow globe or something...

Fighting Words: 7/2/07 Cartoon

"Club Congress"...

The Seattle SuperSonics are Dead.

As always, ignore this post if you don't care, but I had to document my displeasure at yesterday's events in the NBA. June 28, 2007: the day the Sonics died. They're done. Over. Bye-bye. Finito.

We go from the high of the #2 pick, to trading Ray Allen for... excuse me, Wally "Whiney-Little-Bitch" Szczczerbiak (or however you spell it)?!?! The guy who, with the Timberwolves a few years ago, bitched and moaned for a whole game and stomped around like a 2 year-old, throwing the ball to the ceiling and not getting ejected... which got him booed heartily at the Key Arena for the next couple years? THAT guy?!

This was the final middle finger from Clay Bennett (the Sonics owner, not the cartoonist!) to the fans in Seattle. We said goodbye yesterday not only to Ray Allen, but to Gus Williams, Jack Sikma, Fred Brown, Gary Payton, and Shawn Kemp.

Go TrailBlazers. You're our local team now.

It's nice being a football/baseball town, anyway...

More on Global Warming skeptics...

Quick list of articles for this week's 'toon:

• James Wolcott has a good column on Rush Limbaugh as the poster-boy for Global Warming skepticism. See also Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on some of the corporate lackeys who are trying to drive the debate on the environment into the mystical right-wing land of Narnia, where animals can talk, magic is common, good battles evil, and environmentalism equals tyranny.


• Check out the recent Frontline episode, Hot Politics, which is now posted online. Among the points made in this episode, they suggest that the Clinton administration is as much to blame for current environmental policy as Bush II is. As proof, they cite Clinton's bungling when they were supposed to submit the negotiated Kyoto protocol to the Senate for ratification. George Monbiot makes a similar argument in an excerpt from his book, How to Stop the Planet From Burning.
  
  It has struck me before, that when all is said and done, in some ways Dubya may end up having been a good thing for this country. Not because of anything he's done on purpose, but just because he so freakin' bad, people now actually make an effort to keep themselves informed on rather obscure issues like environmental policy. Maybe it's just me, but I don't recall a public dialogue of any kind when the Clinton administration was, in Monbiot's words, "destroying the Kyoto protocol as an effective instrument."


• Check out a SCOTUSblog post on the Supreme Court's recent decision on global warming, and an article on the Dems close-call with a plan that would have blocked California (aka "Cah-lee-FOH-nya") from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.


• Marilyn Berlin Snell has a good recap of a roundtable of intellectuals on global warming, almost all of whom (even the "free-market Republican") agree that there must be substantial government intervention in tackling this problem.

Fighting Words: 6/25/07 Cartoon

"The Skeptics"...

Similar previous 'toons on Global Warming arguments:

More on TV "journalism" personalities...

Articles and sources for this week's 'toon, on the media in general:

• Think Progress is all over the Paris coverage extravaganza, including Katie Couric's hypocrisy on the subject.
  
  
• While Danny Schechter marks the 20th anniversary of Manufacturing Consent, Rupert Murdoch looks to take his lovely propaganda model to the Wall Street Journal. Thankfully, it looks like he won't be successful... not that it would make much of a difference given the leanings of the Journal's editorial page.
  
  And, just how big of an "asshole" (I just couldn't think of a better word in the cartoon) is Bill O'Reilly? Big enough to stalk you in the parking lot of your local grocery store, whether you want to talk to him or not.
  
  
• For a look at the right way to do broadcast journalism (from two giants in the profession), see a lengthy interview with Bill Moyers by Amy Goodman.
  

On the media and the 2008 election:

• Paul Krugman writes about the media's silly obsession with the "authenticity" of the candidates. Every four years, it inevitably turns the competition for a very important job into an adolescent popularity contest, a puerile struggle for the affection of media personalities instead of the hearts and minds of voters.
  

On the "Dobber" and immigration:

• Go read David Neiwert's post, titled "Lou Dobbs Goes Off the Rails," on the CNN anchor's propensity for getting his "facts" from white supremacists. He also points out that while Dobbs only claims to get his hate on when it comes to "illegal" immigrants, his bizarre reporting on leprosy and the Spanish-language national anthem would seem to vilify anybody who might be named Hernandez, Rodriguez, etc.
  
  See also my previous post on the Dobber, and a debate that I had with a commenter. My opinion of Lou has soured considerably since that post.
  

Plans For the Fourth?

The Cartoonists With Attitude gang storms the capital on July 7 with an edgy satirical cartoon slideshow and book signing!

• When: Saturday, July 7, 2 p.m.
  
• Where: Borders 18th & L Streets NW Washington, DC 20006 ( 202.466.4999)
  
• Price: Free!
  

Celebrate Independence Day weekend with a slideshow and signing with edgy, groundbreaking and controversial alternative cartoonists from around the country! Be there or the torturers, bombers, ex-gays and wire-tappers win! Meet:

• Ruben Bolling ("Tom the Dancing Bug")
  
• Matt Bors ("Idiot Box")
  
• Keith Knight ("The K Chronicles")
  
• Brian McFadden ("Big Fat Whale")
  
• Stephanie McMillan ("Minimum Security")
  
• August Pollak ("Some Guy With a Website")
  
• Ted Rall(Silk Road to Ruin)
  
• Mikhaela Reid ("The Boiling Point")
  
• Ben Smith ("Fighting Words")
  
• Jen Sorensen ("Slowpoke")
  
• Masheka Wood ("Not Just Knee Deep")
  

And in case you weren't aware, you should really read our group blog (also available as an RSS feed if you want to get all our blogs and most of our cartoons in one convenient place. We also have a not-so-frequently updated Cartoonists With Attitude MySpace page if you want to be our friend.

Fighting Words: 6/18/07 Cartoon

"MediaMatch"...

More on Mercenaries, "Security Contractors"...

Yeah, so I'm guessing that this week's 'toon is about the zillionth "Bush as Darth Vader" parody you've seen, but I've had Star Wars on the brain lately. Partly because of all the 30th anniversary crap on TV, but also because I've been playing the demo for "Lego Star Wars" on my Mac (where you reenact the movies in a world made of Legos). Totally freakin' addictive game... and the little cut-scenes, with the SW characters as stubby little Lego people, are hilarious.

Here's some articles:

• There are currently 100,000 civilian contractors operating in Iraq, which is approaching the number of U.S. soldiers there. The so-called "security contractors" there are operating virtually free of any kind of oversight or accountability, and until recently, were not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
  
  Jeremy Scahill is "the man" when it comes to investigating this subject. Check out two articles of his on Iraq, and two articles on the use of Blackwater mercenaries in post-Katrina New Orleans.
  
  Johann Hari also has an excellent column on this topic:
  

  In April 2004, mercenaries working for a private militia named Blackwater were guarding US occupation headquarters in Najaf when a protest by Shia Iraqi civilians began to stir outside. According to the Washington Post and eyewitnesses, Blackwater opened fire on the protesters, unleashing so many rounds so rapidly they had to pause every 15 minutes to allow their gun barrels to cool down. A video of this attack made it on to the Web, where a mercenary can be seen describing the Iraqis they are gunning down as "fuckin' niggers".

  
  He also notes that mercenaries in Iraq have been allowed to use "experimental ammunition" that the military is forbidden from using. The bullets are made from "blended metal" so as to leave wounds that are "untreatable." Nice.


• So we have mass murder by psycho racist mercenaries... anything else?
  
  Check out a previous post and cartoon on war profiteering, inspired by Robert Greenwald's documentary, Iraq For Sale.
  
  See also an AP article on a lawsuit against Blackwater by the families of mercenaries killed in Iraq, which alleges that the men were killed because they were not given proper armor (Blackwater has successfully moved the suit into private arbitration).
  
  Of course, there's the involvement of CACI Int'l in documented cases of torture.
  
  The ACLU is currently suing Boeing, alleging the company has facilitated the shipping of detainees to secret CIA prisons.
  
  And, Zia Mian writes that some contractors have violated laws banning human trafficking in the shipping of laborers to Iraq to do the slop work.
  
  All paid for by you and I, the taxpayers.


• I also previously posted on this column by Chris Hedges, where he argues that the radical Christian Right's infiltration of the military and police "signals the final and perhaps most deadly stage in the long campaign... to dismantle America's open society and build a theocratic state." When I first read this, I was a little skeptical, and I felt he was taking the argument a bit far. No more.
  
  The Founder of Blackwater is a right-wing, Christian conservative named Erik Prince, who is extremely well-connected within the Republican party. Reading Scahill's column on Blackwater's activites in post-K New Orleans, you have to wonder if you're going to be seeing mercenary "security contractors" coming soon to a street near you.

Fighting Words: 6/11/07 Cartoon

"Dark Time For the Empire"...

"Lil' Bush"

Speaking of stuff I wish I woulda thought of... oh wait, I did!

A few people have asked me about this. It happens sometimes in the world of satire... people come up with the same idea. But hey, Donick Cary (creator of the show), if you want to give me a job as a writer, I'm a hard-working and conscientious employee...

And, note to Comedy Central: I've got a lot of ideas like that...

More on New Orleans, Racism, Economics...

Articles and sources for this week's 'toon:

• It's hurricane season again, and the Feds are scrambling to compensate for another winter of half-assing on emergency preparedness in New Orleans. The N.O.A.A. is predicting a whopper of a hurricane season, with a 49% probability of a major storm hitting the Gulf Coast. Meanwhile, Sue Sturgis of Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch (an indispensable resource for those still following the situation in New Orleans) reports that "serious weaknesses" have been found in the newly "repaired" levee system, which could cause the system to fail in as little as a Category 2 storm.
  
  See also a previous post on the ongoing debacle involving faulty pumps installed by MWI (owned by J. David Eller, a pal of Jeb Bush's).
  
  
• For more on the federal government's catastrophic failure of leadership, check out an outstanding column by Rebecca Solnit, who points out that it has not "fully sunk in that the city was flooded not by a hurricane but by the failure of levees inadequately build by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers." Greg Palast argues that this is why the White House has tried to stifle the coverage of this aspect of the issue, because once the federal levees go, the whole thing stops being about an "act of God" and becomes their responsibility.
  
  
• Nothing quite captures the federal government's indifference on New Orleans quite like the war spending-slash-hurricane recovery bill they just passed. Let's see... killing brown people in Iraq and Afghanistan: $99.5 billion... doing "whatever it takes" to rebuild a city right here on American soil: $4.1 billion... ethnically cleansing a major metropolitan area and delivering it into the hands of corporate developers: PRICELESS! (Meanwhile, it has been revealed that the Bush administration turned down $800 million in aid offered by other countries after Katrina.)
  
  Is it really about racism? Glen Ford says the disaster has revealed a corporate plan to drive out Black populations and bring about a corporate urban "renaissance" in cities across the country.
  
  For those who think that this kind of racism doesn't exist, I'd suggest you take a look at the amendment proposed by Rep. Jeb Hensarling that would require Katrina victims to perform 20 hours/week of approved "work activities" to receive federal housing aid. Can anybody in their wildest dreams imagine a congressman proposing such an amendment after 9-11? They would be finished forever in professional politics.
  
  I was struck by the power of a particular phrase that Solnit used in her column:

  New Orleans is recovering from... not just physical devastation, but social fissures and racial wounds in a situation that started as a somewhat natural disaster and became a socially constructed catastrophe. Nothing quite like it has happened in American history. (my emphasis)
  

• Yet again, the Daily Show comes up with a joke that I wish I'd thought of:
  

  Stewart then turned to the indictment of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), saying, "On the downside, Jefferson faces 235 years in prison. On the upside, now we know what it takes for the federal government to pay some attention to a black man from New Orleans."
  

Fighting Words: 6/4/07 Cartoon

"GWB Tech"...

People no want think when read comics.

Fellow Attitude 3-er and damn good political cartoonist Eric Millikin points to a review of the "new" Blondie, now penned by a cartoonist named John Marshall:

Marshall calls Blondie a bit of Americana whose lasting appeal stems from the fact that it takes a humorous look at everyday problems. Dagwood overeats and goes to work every day, facing a demanding boss. Blondie is the all-American wife and mother, although she joined the work force in 1991 as the proud owner of Blondie's Catering.

...

Young agrees that the strip's humor relates to the world going on around us and purposefully shies away from politics and controversy.

"My dad told me a long time ago, "we want to win friends, not make enemies.' Our job is to make people laugh," he says.

Eric's dead-on reaction: "That’s right: Blondie relates to the world around us by purposefully shying away from politics and controversy."

Personally, I just feel like a complete jackass. For the 3+ years I've been doing this, I had no idea that truly great satire about "the world around us" means just looking at the insular lives of white suburbanites who obey gender and class roles rooted in 1930's "Americana."

Boy do I have egg on my face.

C.W.A. book to check out...

C.W.A.-ers are leading a revolution in the world of editorial cartooning, and it all starts with releases of high-quality collections of subversive cartoon madness.

Mikhaela's is out soon, and Masheka's is below. I can vouch, this is good stuff:

Deep Doodle by Masheka Wood (Preview)

More on... movies...

Not much to say about this week's 'toon for my weekly "More On..." post (or as some might call it, my "Moron" post... ha-ha-ha... ahhhh). Just me making a few cracks about the spectacular pile of crap coming out of Hollywood this summer. Other people have done better cartoons on this subject than I, but I thought I'd put my two cents in because... well, that's all I could pull out of my ass this week.

It does bother me, though. Why exactly is it that every movie that is slightly popular these days has to turn into a trilogy? I probably should've thrown Shrek 3 and Rush Hour 3 into this week's 'toon. Seriously, Rush Hour 3? Why? Did anybody like Rush Hour 2? But what really, seriously drives me batshit insane is the seemingly endless parade of identical pop-"horror" turds that the viewing public is subjected to. My question is: does anybody really care if the hysterical idiots in these movies get killed? Can you imagine if, say, Bruce Lee were in one of these movies, and when the "scary part" comes, he screams like a little girl and runs out of the room with his arms flailing in the air?

OK, back to important stuff next week...

Fighting Words: 5/28/07 Cartoon

"Stuff I'd Rather Do Than Watch That Movie, #4"...

Previous episodes:

Glory be...

You can close the book on my wavering on this cartoon from a couple weeks ago.

Either I'm totally friggin' psychic, or I'm the smartest man alive, or the "opposition party" in this country is just that predictably lily-livered and worthless. I can assure you the first two ain't true, if you didn't already know...

Pathetic.

More on abortion, Gonzales v. Carhart...

Very quick list of articles and sources for this week's 'toon, cuz I'm swamped:

• For analysis of the Court's surprise ruling (to me, anyway), check out Lyle Denniston. David Crary predicts the decision will open the floodgates for our more back-assward states to start passing legislation against abortion without any regard for women's health. And, Patrick O'Connor has President Jello-head's quote regarding possible congressional legislation allowing federal funding for abortion-rights or family planning organizations: "I will veto any legislation that... allows taxpayer dollars to be used for the destruction of human life" (except... y'know... if it's used for killin' brown people in Iraq... heh-heh).


• For some excellent commentary on the decision, see Dalia Lithwick, Bonnie Scott Jones, Denniston, Yifat Susskind, and Joanna Grossman and Linda McClain (part one and part two).


• Also, make sure you read Ruth Bader Ginsburg's incredible dissent in this case. It will be referred to in future cases.

Fighting Words: 5/21/07 Cartoon

"The Truth About the Opposite Sex"...

Similar previous 'toon:

Kick-ass cartoons...

...from CWA-ers.

Matt Bors out-Tinky-Winkies them all.

Also, the dialogue in this week's Slowpoke just clicks for me.

I love dialogue that makes a meaningful argument and still comes off with just the right rhythm, so it reads almost like music. That's what I strive for every week in my 'toon. More often than not, I miss the mark... but that's what keeps me coming back to try it again.

More on Iraq withdrawal...

I wanted this week's 'toon to be more of a comment on the appropriateness of withdrawal from Iraq given the current situation there, as opposed to yet another diatribe on the dubious morality of the war in general or how dumb it was for us to go there in the first place.

Here's some articles:

• Check out this astounding report from Gareth Porter of Inter Press Service, which says that Democratic timetables for withdrawal have contained huge loopholes allowing for the indefinite continuation of military operations in Iraq in an effort to fight al-Qaeda (an idea supported by Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton). More importantly, it claims that the Sunni insurgents are a much more effective force against al-Qaeda in Iraq than the U.S. military. Apparently, the Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda have some significant differences in their agendas, which has culminated in hostilities between the two groups. Of course, the administration has known this for a while, but has refused to pursue this option because it would take away their ability to blame Democrats for being "defeatist."
  
  Ned Parker agrees that supporting the Sunni insurgents is indeed a viable option, but he also seems to think that the administration is actually pursuing this now. However, Carpetbagger noted as recently as December of '06 that Dick Cheney was vigorously supporting the "80 percent solution," which essentially involved the U.S. supporting the Shiite majority's efforts to wipe out the Sunnis (which apparently is bordering on ethnic cleansing in some areas).


• Here's something I wanted to work into the 'toon, but it was kind of off the subject a little. Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg answer the question of why there was no exit plan from Iraq: obviously, cuz we never planned on leaving. They quote Jimmy Carter, who agrees that "there are people in Washington... who never intend to withdraw military forces from Iraq... the reason that we went into Iraq was to establish a permanent military base in the Gulf region."
  
  As we know, President Dipshit has made it clear that we will not withdraw from Iraq "so long as ah'm the prez-uh-dint." Why is anybody buying this crap about "evaluating the surge in September?" David Peck wonders what "standard of failure" they're going to use when they do this evaluation. Also, Noam Chomsky (in a rare joint-interview with Howard Zinn) says: sure we can "win" in Iraq... if by "winning" you mean wiping out the entire country.
  
  See also a column by the great Helen Thomas on Bush's efforts to "run out the clock and pass the war on to his successor at the White House."


• Check out Joseph Galloway on the damn Democrats trying to substitute their opinions for the judgment of the decider-guy.
  
  Also, Yossi Melman gives a bit of a schizophrenic assessment of the situation in Iraq, which tends to be the case with many such assessments. He argues that our withdrawal from Iraq will create a "domino" effect (nice choice of words, dude) that will totally destabilize the region. However, he also says that "to remain in Iraq is the worst decision possible."

Fighting Words: 5/14/07 Cartoon

"The World Cup of Poker"...

More on Bush's veto, Democratic response...

This is one of those cartoons on which I may very well have gone too far. It's hard to tell at this point exactly where the Dems are going with this whole "bringing the war to an end" thing they swear they're gonna do... but their history and some ominous rumblings tell me that they're already looking for a way to chicken out.

Let's call it a "premonition"...

• Are the Democrats backing down on the timetable for withdrawal? Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray say yes, and quote Pelosi as saying "We made our position clear. He made his position clear. Now it is time for us to try to work together." However, Weisman also produced a rather snotty piece of journalism in which he maintains that the Dems will be courting disaster if they try to confront Bush.
  
  Greg Sargent calls him on this, and correctly points out that the polls clearly show that the public is aching for someone to stand up to Bush on the war. Sargent also seems to think that it's too early to pass judgment on the Dems quite yet, as he reports that Pelosi is denying that they are backing down on the withdrawal language.
  
  Noam N. Levey and Janet Hook note that Republicans are starting to peel away from Bush on the war, but also say that the Dems will indeed drop the withdrawal timelines from the next spending bill.
  
  Jonathan Singer doesn't like the noises he's hearing from Democrats. Dick Pohlman also thinks they may have peaked.


• Here's a good one: the first Weisman article above says that White House officials may be willing to accede to "benchmarks" instead of a "timetable," but that "they want them to be tied to rewards for achievement, not penalties for failure [my emphasis]." This is extremely funny to me... the Bush administration is like a bratty teenager who habitually brings home F's on his report card, but if he barely passes with a D, he wants a new car.


• OK, so what exactly should the Democrats do on the supplemental spending bill? Send that sucker back to him. If he vetoes it, send it back to him again. Make little technical adjustments if you have to, but do not weaken it.
  
  David Sirota argues that "each volley will drive Bush further into isolation and consequently bring the war closer to an end. The less power a pro-war president has, the more we will be able to end the war."


• Marcus Mabry has more on Bush's showing of 28% in the Newsweek poll, and Sheryl Gay Stolberg has Bush's "Commander Guy" quote. Eric Kleefeld also has these two stories, but points out that Dana Perino claims that President Numbnuts never called himself "The Commander Guy," only "A Commander Guy" (according to a revised White House transcript).
  
  How unfair. I'm sure he sounded much less stupid than he is being portrayed...

Fighting Words: 5/7/07 Cartoon

"The W-Files"...

Some more T.V. parodies:

Dear God, I Hate the Yankees

And Clemens...

That is all.

More on VA Tech, Gun Control...

Articles for this week's 'toon:

• Personally, I respect the opinions of responsible, sensible hunters and gun owners, but it is logically clear to me that the "right to bear arms" is not a vital constitutional right... on par with, say, the right to free speech. It is a serious public safety issue, and guns are extremely dangerous tools that need to be heavily regulated.
  
  The Brady Campaign's Dennis Henigan debates gun control online, and makes an obvious point:
  

  The innocent victims at Va. Tech. did not die because a young person was deranged. They died because a deranged young person had access to guns. If he had been armed with a knife, or baseball bat, or shampoo bottle, 32 people would not have died.

  See also Alex Koppelman in Salon on why the Democrats dumped gun control from their agenda.


• The 'toon was partially inspired by a quote from an early West Wing episode, my favorite argument that I've ever heard on the gun control debate. It comes after the first season, when white supremacists try to kill Charlie Young and end up hitting Bartlett, and press secretary C.J. is giving a briefing to the White House Press Corps. It underscores perfectly just how preposterous that aspect of the pro-gun argument is:

  There were 36 homicides last night. 480 sexual assaults. 3411 robberies. 3685 aggravated assaults, all at gun point. And if anyone thinks those crimes could have been prevented if the victims themselves had been carrying guns, I only remind you that the President of the United States was shot last night while surrounded by the best-trained armed guards in the history of the world.



• A lot of the rhetoric in the 'toon was drawn from the "Facts" pages for the Brady Campaign and the NRA... the Brady page makes this excellent point:

  Ironically, the NRA forbids its own members from carrying guns into the NRA's national convention, but they want to force the rest of us to let those people carry guns into our schools, restaurants, parks, sports stadiums, streets, and anywhere else they want.

  However, the most valuable thing I read was this priceless "editorial" on the CNN site by Ted Nugent. Reads like it was written by a 5 year-old...