Pentagon Fireworks

July 3rd, 2009 by Brian McFadden

Pentagon Fireworks
click for comic

Phantom LogoIf you haven’t traveled across many state lines, you might not recognize the Phantom of Phantom Fireworks. His blank-eyed stare greeted me from atop dozens of billboards throughout my road trip in May.

He’s pretty much a rip-off of Dr. Doom and the Phantom Gourmet. He also shares the same ominous look of the Wessex Fireworks (now Pains Fireworks) Guy Fawkes mascot I encountered while doing research for this cartoon.

Wessex MascotAnd that got me thinking; America needs a Guy Fawkes-esque Night in addition to our regularly scheduled 4th of July patriotic display of ammunition and hot dogs.

That way, we could burn effigies of our enemies and get all our angries out without actually bombing real, living human beings. Poor-ass countries who can’t afford Predator Drones and nukes already do this, even though making effigies of George W. Bush used up the precious few resources they had.

It’s just an idea, but I really want to make Khamenei and Ahmadinejad effigies and shove cherry bombs up their asses. I’ve already got some old sheets and paint, and I can drive 30 miles to New Hampshire (where fireworks are legal) and make it happen for under 20 bucks. That’s much cheaper than starting another $1 Trillion war.

Next Week: Stinking Merit Badges


On the news!

July 3rd, 2009 by Abell Smith

Quite an AAEC convention so far. Had a great panel discussion Thursday, and here’s a video of me on the KING 5 local news in a segment set up by the terrific David Horsey.

Shoulda trimmed the beard, though… I look like friggin’ Grizzly Adams…

This week’s comic

July 2nd, 2009 by Ruben Bolling

The AAN Judges may want to reconsider after seeing…

Bob Figures It Out
#147:  How to Escape From Terrorists

bob

Parker & Lieber Go Underground

July 2nd, 2009 by Kevin Moore

Friends of mine will wonder, “Where were you when all this was going on?” I can only answer, “Well, my head was up my ass, you see….”

Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber have launched their first issue of “Underground,” a comic book mini-series about a woman attempting to preserve an ancient subterranean cave from the tourist industry. Things go bad quickly, thanks to hasty dynamiting by eager developers, putting lives in jeopardy. Parker is a witty and smart writer, and Lieber draws action-packed scenes with a strong attention to details, both geological and human. Highly recommended.

Read a preview online or download a PDF of the first issue. And give Steve some love: He and his brilliant author-librarian wife Sara Ryan were burgled of their laptops recently a loss that I can only imagine feels like a lobotomy.

Originally published at mooreroom.

In Contempt (7/2/2009): Iraqi Liberation Day

July 2nd, 2009 by Kevin Moore

Click the cartoon to read it full size.
Click the cartoon to read it full size.

Unrelated thoughts….
Today I watched several hours of MSNBC and CNN. Don’t ask me why. It might be some masochistic streak in my personality. Or I am secretly addicted to non-stop updates on all things Michael Jackson, Sarah Palin, and the endless speculation about the impact of Al Franken becoming a potential 60th vote for Democrats in the Senate (provided Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd are ever well enough to enter the chamber.) Because that is all I got, despite a new show ever hour featuring a new batch of reporters and personalities and pundits. Any mention that 4,000 U.S. troops initiated a full-on assault against the Taliban in Afghanistan today? Not. A. Peep. But I did hear that Sarah Palin challenged President Obama to a jog-off.

Originally published at mooreroom.

Jonathan Richman on Space Ghost

July 1st, 2009 by Brian McFadden

I was hunting for some hilariously lame patriotic videos, but took a break to see if there was any new Jonathan Richman stuff on YouTube and found this.

I remember watching it when it aired. 1995! So I was 15 or 16. I wasn’t familiar with his music at the time, and it was a few years before “There’s Something About Mary,” but I remember thinking he was the first guest who actually seemed to get what Space Ghost Coast to Coast was all about.

Part 1

Part 2

I think it’s a crime Space Ghost’s name didn’t at least come up when NBC announced Conan was moving to the Tonight Show.


Kill Us To Save Us

July 1st, 2009 by Matt Bors

Um…wow.

(via Tom Tomorrow)

MailBag

July 1st, 2009 by Matt Bors

Maria does not like my comic about PETA’s dead fly outrage:


You know, before you go passing undue judgment towards a rather large organization, you should probably read what was actually said. I don’t really care if the strip wasn’t supposed to be offensive, I’m tired of people portraying Peta members as whiny pussies. I may be sensitive towards animals, but that doesn’t mean any jackass with a tired ass joke and an internet outlet can generalize me and not get a mouthful. Here is Peta’s actual statement. Fact check next time? =]

I admire Maria standing up for herself and I have to own up here: I completely distorted PETA’s response. They did not refer to the fly as “Morty Druckler.” I made that name up along with all of his background information. I’m sorry if anyone was misled.

I think we all have a thing or two to learn about human/fly relations. We should start by following the advice of Peta blog commenter “Alyse”:

I luv Obama. U can’t always be conscious about everything all the time. He had a lapse in judgement. I myself ask flies to leave me alone. If 1 lands on me I ask it “Hey can u find another place to perch Mr. or Ms. Fly?”but I’m a lovey dovey15 yr old.He was in the middle of an ineterview. It must be hard to go from “Mr.Prez mode” to “I luv you fly mode”

Let’s all try to spend more time in “I luv you fly mode”.

Should Joe and Mary be allowed to publish their Harry Potter rip-off?

July 1st, 2009 by Barry Deutsch

Cathy Young argues that our current copyright system isn’t working as originally intended:

My argument: copyright law as it currently exists does the opposite of its original intent (as formulated in the U.S. Constitution, which allows Congress to legislate on copyright, and in the very first copyright statute enacted in 1790): to promote arts and letters and encourage learning, by giving authors an incentive to create new works by ensuring that they can fairly profit from their writings. (In olden days, it wasn’t at all uncommon for unauthorized editions of books to be legally sold with no profits going to the writer.) Today, copyright violation claims are commonly invoked to suppress new works — whether it’s 60 Years Later, The Wind Done Gone (the “Gone With the Wind-from-a-slave’s-point-of-view” novel that was finally declared legal after much wrangling in the courts), a production of a James Joyce play, or fan-made Xena: Warrior Princess videos on YouTube.

I agree. But Cathy also writes:

Would it really be perfectly fine, from a libertarian point of view, if, after the huge success of the first Harry Potter book, Joe Smith or Mary Jones quickly popped out a sequel before J.K. Rowling could publish the second one?

Well, I’m not a libertarian. But why not?

I’d suggest that Smith and/or Jones should be legally required to pay Rowling some sort of licensing fee if their book has a print run over a thousand copies in a year; and that the front cover include a clear (”not written or authorized by J.K. Rowling”), so consumers aren’t deceived.

But with that in place, I don’t see what the problem is. Few if any Harry Potter fans would have said “oh, why even bother reading the Rowling versions when they come out, now that quick knock-offs are available,” so it’s not as if allowing the knock-offs would deprive Rowling of her ability to earn a living.

Meanwhile, forbidding Smith and Jones from publishing their Harry Potter knock-off might well deprive them of their ability to make a living as Harry Potter knock-off writers, and it arguably infringes on their freedom of speech.

I can already hear people saying: “Who cares? Smith and Jones don’t have an original thought in their head. They don’t have a right to other people’s speech.” But some artists work best by reimagining works they already love, rather than by creating “from scratch.”1 Sometimes the result is a better work than the original — think of Stephen Sondheim’s great musical Sweeny Todd, which was adapted from a play. I think the culture be richer for it if artists who feel compelled to work with the books and characters they loved as kids, were free to do so, and to do it full-time if there’s enough of a market for their work.

Often, when I make this argument, people ask me how I’d feel if someone out there produced a sleazy porno Hereville comic. Well, obviously, I’d be appalled. But just because I find someone else’s work appalling, doesn’t mean it should be illegal.

  1. Actually, no artist in the world creates from scratch.

“The Real Struggle In Iran”

July 1st, 2009 by Barry Deutsch

I’d highly recommend reading “The Real Struggle In Iran,” George Friedman’s analysis the recent events in Iran. I have no way of knowing if Friedman’s analysis is accurate or not; but it seems a good deal more plausible to me than the narrative I’ve seen from much of the major media.

When Ahmadinejad defeated Mir Hossein Mousavi on the night of the election, the clerical elite saw themselves in serious danger. The margin of victory Ahmadinejad claimed might have given him the political clout to challenge their position. Mousavi immediately claimed fraud, and Rafsanjani backed him up. Whatever the motives of those in the streets, the real action was a knife fight between Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani. By the end of the week, Khamenei decided to end the situation. In essence, he tried to hold things together by ordering the demonstrations to halt while throwing a bone to Rafsanjani and Mousavi by extending a probe into the election irregularities and postponing a partial recount by five days.

The key to understanding the situation in Iran is realizing that the past weeks have seen not an uprising against the regime, but a struggle within the regime. Ahmadinejad is not part of the establishment, but rather has been struggling against it, accusing it of having betrayed the principles of the Islamic Revolution. The post-election unrest in Iran therefore was not a matter of a repressive regime suppressing liberals (as in Prague in 1989), but a struggle between two Islamist factions that are each committed to the regime, but opposed to each other.

The demonstrators certainly included Western-style liberalizing elements, but they also included adherents of senior clerics who wanted to block Ahmadinejad’s re-election. And while Ahmadinejad undoubtedly committed electoral fraud to bulk up his numbers, his ability to commit unlimited fraud was blocked, because very powerful people looking for a chance to bring him down were arrayed against him.

The situation is even more complex because it is not simply a fight between Ahmadinejad and the clerics, but also a fight among the clerical elite regarding perks and privileges — and Ahmadinejad is himself being used within this infighting.

Friedman argues that in terms of foreign policy, there is likely to be no difference to the US, no matter which faction comes out on top.

We do not believe that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, a point we have made frequently. Iran understands that the actual acquisition of a nuclear weapon would lead to immediate U.S. or Israeli attacks. Accordingly, Iran’s ideal position is to be seen as developing nuclear weapons, but not close to having them. This gives Tehran a platform for bargaining without triggering Iran’s destruction, a task at which it has proved sure-footed.

In addition, Iran has maintained capabilities in Iraq and Lebanon. Should the United States or Israel attack, Iran would thus be able to counter by doing everything possible to destabilize Iraq — bogging down U.S. forces there — while simultaneously using Hezbollah’s global reach to carry out terror attacks. After all, Hezbollah is today’s al Qaeda on steroids. The radical Shiite group’s ability, coupled with that of Iranian intelligence, is substantial.

We see no likelihood that any Iranian government would abandon this two-pronged strategy without substantial guarantees and concessions from the West. Those would have to include guarantees of noninterference in Iranian affairs. Obama, of course, has been aware of this bedrock condition, which is why he went out of his way before the election to assure Khamenei in a letter that the United States had no intention of interfering.

I’d recommend reading the whole thing, as well as this earlier piece by Friedman.