Archive for July, 2006

Amen, Sister…

Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 by Abell Smith

Molly Ivins nominates Bill Moyers for President.

I’ll drink to that…

More on the “Worst President in History”…

Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 by Abell Smith

Aside from some general factual data that can be found anywhere, really my only source this week was Sean Wilentz’s recent article in Rolling Stone, “The Worst President in History?” Wilentz notes that a distinguishing characteristic of Bush’s abuse of power that sets it apart from previous presidential abuses of power is that the Bush administration openly seeks to overturn our balanced system of government as it was envisioned by the Framers, as demonstrated by their pushing of the “unitary executive” theory and Cheney’s stated ambitions to fulfill “the legitimate authority of the president.”

Los Angeles Radio Interview I’ll be discussing my…

Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 by Ted Rall

Los Angeles Radio Interview

I’ll be discussing my new book Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East? Wednesday morning at 10:45 am local (West Coast) time on the Bill Handel Show on KFI Radio. You can listen online or at AM 640 in southern California.

Enough With the Ironic Mustaches Already!

Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 by Jen Sorensen

Following up on my “Mustache Suicides” cartoon of a few weeks ago, I would just like to point out that Colin Farrell’s cheesy handlebar mustache in the new Miami Vice movie is completely gratuitous and, I would posit, an abomination to those of us who admired Don Johnson’s stubble back in the day.

This Week’s Strip: “Memebusters!”

Monday, July 24th, 2006 by Jen Sorensen



Molly Ivins recently called Joe Lieberman “the most annoyingly sanctimonious person in politics.” I’d say that’s about right. Nearly as sanctimonious are the establishment pundits pooh-poohing the supporters of his challenger in the Democratic primary, Ned Lamont. The pundits blubber wrongly that progressives are creating a “litmus test” for Democratic candidates by opposing candidates solely because they support the Iraq war. Given that misconception, I regret that I only mentioned Iraq in this cartoon. I very much wanted to mention the fact that Joe sleeps with a pharmaceutical lobbyist (see Joe Conason’s article from July 12), and that Lieberman led the fight in 1994 against expensing stock options on corporate balance sheets, thus paving the way for the accounting scandals that followed a few years later.

And yes, when memes are extracted from the brains of the misinformed, they really do look like blobs of glowing green energy.

7/24/06 Cartoon

Monday, July 24th, 2006 by Abell Smith


History Machine: Great Presidential Moments

Ask a Carny

Friday, July 21st, 2006 by Kevin Moore

Ask a Carny
click for comic

I originally wanted every bit of advice the carny gave to be “join the carnival,” but decided that wasn’t much of a joke to waste eight panels on. After I wrote this, I felt like a dick for picking on poor defenseless carnies. But then I remembered all the times they wouldn’t let me on rides because I was too short. So fuck ‘em.

I’m not sure if it works in comic strip form, but I think “Ask a Carny” could thrive as a regular feature of this blog. I’m fortunate enough to have a friend who works in the carnival arts and he’s willing to answer your questions. He doesn’t have email, so if you send them to me (whale [at] bigfatwhale.com) I will pass them along through the CB. I’ll post his responses the next time he drifts through town.

Next Week: I attempt to wrestle the serious issues of the day while wearing a singlet of hilarity.

New Cartoons: “Failed Recruiting Slogans” and Mr. …

Thursday, July 20th, 2006 by Mikhaela Reid

New Cartoons: “Failed Recruiting Slogans” and Mr. Bush’s Cryogenically Frozen Friendship Hour!

Plus Masheka’s new cartoon, “Summer Movie Hell!”

This first cartoon is of course in response to reports that recruiters are knowingly letting more neo-Nazis into the service. The recruiters’ goal? To meet their quotas. The neo-Nazi goal? To kill brown people and get professional training for a coming “race war”. As if troops of color didn’t already have enough problems…

As for the second, I am just deeply pissed off that Bush can even try to claim with a straight face that he has respect for life (see previous cartoon by that name) considering his track record–executing death row inmates, bombing the crap out of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, letting people drown in Katrina, handicapping AIDS prevention with his abstinence-only nonsense, cutting funding for health care and poverty programs and so on. The embryos get discarded from fertility clinics anyway, but are apparently still more precious to our crapmaster-in-chief than the lives of people who are living with cancer and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Way to go.

Also, Masheka has a guide to Summer Movie Hell:

P.S. Join my weekly mailing list by sending a blank message to newtoons-subscribe@mikhaela.net!

Summer Movie Hell

Wednesday, July 19th, 2006 by Masheka Wood

On second thought, I’d probably pay to see “Axe Fight”.

Summer Movie Hell

Wednesday, July 19th, 2006 by Masheka Wood

On second thought, I’d probably pay to see “Axe Fight”.