Turdblossom

It's true: A group in San Francisco wants to name their sewage treatment plant after W. It's amusing but isn't it insulting to the people who run that place properly? What if someone named your place of work after Bush? Would it make you proud? It's shitty work but there are people who labor day in and day out to make sure turds don't come out of our faucets--a very important piece of the whole "civilization" thing. Let's not piss these people of.

Monday: The god forsaken Hillary campaign

Mail Bag Douchebag

An Air Force Major at the Pentagon (seriously) writes in:

I realize from the tone of your cartoons, you are not of the belief that those who know how to create wealth should be trusted with the resources to do that.

I have a great idea…please push for the American people to elect socialists to power.

The e-mail then goes on for about 1200 words with a litany of suggestions for my theoretical socialist regime. If I posted the whole thing you'd get bored and go away. Here's some tidbits.

...We can also ban all imports from countries that compete with our own products...we will need to reduce the size of the military by about half...released from the mental institutions...A person's economic success is in their hands...

Then, finally, the point:

When you and your palls [sic] can get this done and after four years of living under a socialist regime, let us know whether you still have your Marxist beliefs about "the rich."

We only get four years? I thought he'd at least grant me the customary Marxist five year plan thing. It's refreshing to know that top brass at the Pentagon spend their mornings composing long e-mails to cartoonists that sound like rants from a FOX News host.

I'm flattered, but isn't he supposed to be doing something important with his time at work? It's almost like he's part of some inefficient big government bureaucracy that needs reform...

Mixed Messages

PAPV (People Against Pixel Violence) are out in full force now that Grand Theft Auto 4 has been released. Crime rates are up, children are dropping out of school and a new generation has been introduced to violence, sex and swear words--things you just can't find anywhere else in the Internet age.

I got news for PAPV. These days kids can type before talk. They're stealing vicodin from you and are on the web watching 2 girls 1 cup and erasing the search history and cookies before you even get home from work. GTA 4 is the least of your worries.

Sometimes people say things that perfectly demonstrate the bizarre moral character of our society. Patrick Lynch, President of the NYC Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, is that person today.

As far as I can tell, I'm the only person who's connected the two quotes, made within a few days of each other. I guess spending my days scouring the web for cartoon fodder has its rewards.

Friday: poop.

Hillary's Latest Qualification

She can drink a senior citizen under the table.

In Heaven as it is on Earth

The Nation just sent out this e-mail:

Imagine this...

Sunday...dinner with The Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Monday...an intimate acoustic concert with Jackson Browne.

Tuesday...Relaxing on the beach in Curacao next to Jeremy Scahill.

Wednesday Night...at the blackjack table with Victor Navasky.

Thursday...cocktails with Katrina vanden Heuvel.

What's going on here? Did you die and go to heaven?

No, that's what you'll find on this year's Nation Magazine Seminar Cruise to the Caribbean.

Sounds heavenly. I know I've had dreams about that exact week long itinerary.

My question: Does everyone on the trip get to relax next to Jeremy Scahill on the beach in Curacao? And will there be an opportunity to rub sun screen all over his muckraking physique? There's only so much Scahill to go around. These lefty mags never get supply and demand, do they?

Grumpy Bear

Pundits are wondering why Obama sat in his church for 20 years listening to this guy. I wonder why anyone sits in a church any amount of time listening to anyone. I'm looking forward to the day when the most media coverage a "Man Of The Cloth™" can get is an item on the local news lamenting the fact that they are still yelling at pedestrians from their street corner pulpit every morning.

I'm just kidding folks! Didn't mean to come off as a crotchety elitist atheist there. I hope religion flourishes, OK?

Of course, asking why a liberal black politician in Chicago attended the largest liberal black church for twenty years is a a question that seems to answer itself. But what if Obama had maintained his status as a non-believer to this day? After all, he was raised in a secular household and only managed to find a reason to believe that Jesus died for his sins around the time he became involved in politics.

Wait--how dare I make that inference!

Conversions happen all the time though and I don't know what's in his heart. Maybe Reverend Wright is really good at convincing Harvard Law School grads that Jesus was born of a virgin. But what if he never was religious and simply replied to questions about his faith by saying that he doesn't believe in a creator?

I think we'd see that in this country trying to get into office with a belief in the Big Bang and a little bit of chance would be more controversial than a pastor hollering about AIDS being created by the government.

Call me crazy.

My previous cartoon with Obama and the Care Bears can be seen here.

Wednesday: Sean Bell outraged over Grand Theft Auto 4

Your Way Right Away

From a recent article in the New Yorker about Gitmo by Jeffery Toobin:

[Guantánamo Task Force Admiral Mark Buzby] noted that the detainees’ interrogation sessions were sometimes catered by the base’s fast-food outlets. “They want those Subway sandwiches!” he said. “Sometimes they just want to talk. Meanwhile, he’s chomping on his Subway B.M.T. It’s all about that give-and-take and that rapport-building. We still get regular questions in for us to ask from the front in the field. We’ll show him a map: ‘Thanks a lot, have a Big Mac.’”

Maybe a detainee could replace Jared as the new Subway spokesman.

Trees Have Rights?

Appearing today in The Oregonian.

Don't let it be said I can't poke fun at environmentalism. A Portland City Commissioner has been lambasted recently, mostly by the right, for suggesting our trees should have rights--most notably, old growth trees having the "right" not to be cut down. While I think it's fine to reasonably preserve old growth trees in city limits, saying it is because they have an inherent right to exist opens it up for some funny extensions of that logic and conflicts with my idea of what rights actually are and where they come from (note: it's not god giving us carte blanche dominion).

The Oregonian's conservative columnist David Reinhard wrote about it today:

If trees have rights, on what philosophical grounds can we deny shrubs, bushes and rocks rights? They can be as "incredible" and "show-stopping" as a mighty oak, a towering elm or a broad maple. If you go in for extending rights to nonhumans, isn't Saltzman guilty a kind of speciesism?

Or some other "isms"? Lookism and ageism? After all, it's hard to believe that Saltzman wants each and every tree to have rights. It's likely that only gorgeous trees will get them. Or heritage trees that, as Saltzman said, "have been there long before us." But shouldn't plain or young trees have rights, too? At least in the moral universe of our Thomas Jefferson of trees?

The punchline refers to a recent dispute about renaming a road after Ceaser Chavez that brought the city to DEFCON 2 levels of confrontation. Talking about which letters get grafted to a tin sign apparently riles folks up. So do trees.

Back To The Issues

So there's that video from the 90s where some campaign guy for Clinton was supposed to say something racist and everybody flipped out for a couple of hours, but now it seems to be fake. I listened to Ed Schultz today and he was ranting and raving about how this is a "shocking revelation" and that Hillary Clinton needs to publicly explain why this guy on her husband's campaign may have said the "n-word" in 1992. A very pressing matter, to be sure. I'm doing some polling on it tonight to see how many people switched to Obama because of it.

Something else in the video struck me as offensive and that was George Stephanopolous's jean jacket. IT'S HORRID. What is Hillary's position on this? I'm no high-paid radio host or pundit but I think she need to distance herself from it. This is very off putting to many Americans. We'd like to put that era behind us. The 90s was not a good time for everything, Mrs. Clinton.


My video analysts tell me this is NOT doctored. 100% real. I think Obama's people dug this up to embarrass George. He looks so boyish.

Let's talk about it non-stop for the next five weeks.

Holy Water

I picked up a bottle of the awesomely named "H2Oregon" water which claims to be the "Best Pure Water On Earth!" It's quite a boast but just look at all the processes they employ to ensure a high quality water drinking experience.



Read it out loud. Pretty impressive. They forgot one thing: infusing it with the blessing of Peter Popoff!