Weekend Cartoons

First, I'm sorry for the relative inactivity these last few days - I just needed a bit of time away - not from the blog, but from politics in general. I was so thoroughly disgusted from the debate last week, I didn't even know where to start. Now that I'm ready to get blogger diarrhea (!), of course I don't have much time to blog this weekend. Anyway, I promise to unleash a flurry of opinion next week, beginning late Sunday and lots next week, especially considering that Tuesday is the Pennsylvania Primary.

Anyway, here's another edition of weekend cartoons, so enjoy. Not the best week for cartoons, but when I have time to look hard enough, I always find some that provoke thought. My comments are below selected cartoons.

I try to never say "I told you so"; no one likes a know it all blogger, but I never thought that ethanol or any sort of fuel that USES OUR FOOD was even remotely a good idea. The entire world already cannot feed itself, and we are already working on our 7th billion in terms of world population. What's worse, food prices are rising at an alarming rate, and an increasing number countries are now passing laws banning any export of any food to other countries.

Just a thought - if Americans think food prices are high now, imagine what would happen if countries refused to export any food to America. For instance, all of those Florida Orange Juice commercials we see on TV, I bet most Americans don't know that we import about 60 percent of our orange juice. Florida cannot possibly grow enough oranges to meet America's demand for it. You think Tropicana and Minute Maid are outrageously expensive now (and they are)? If Mexico and Brazil said, "Screw you, America, no more oranges!" we would have to choose between filling our gas tanks or filling our stomachs with OJ, because we couldn't afford both.

Just one for the "no kidding" file - Bush just wants to hold down the fort until January 20 next year, so when the entire country goes to hell (and it's already on its way - inflation, the price of oil, the real estate and job markets, and last but not least, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) - he can just shrug and say how good things were when he was in office. He just wants his legacy and his library, and the rest (of us) be damned. Oh, and electing John McSame wouldn't be bad for his "legacy," either.

How true, how true it is - I love it when every candidate tries to be the gun totin' candidate when election time rolls around. I'm a pro-gun Democrat, but of course I think we do need reasonable and responsible rules regarding gun safety. Taking assault weapons off the streets, along with some sensible regulations involving handguns, is not bad policy. Hey, I live in Philly, where the only thing more omnipresent than handgun murders is cheese steaks and sports teams that can't win the big one, so I have a little bit of experience in this area.

I meant to blog about this earlier this week, but the idea is so moronic I don't want to waste too much time on it. McSame's idea of a national gas tax holiday is patently absurd and asinine, and it's nearly as dumb and transparent as the tax cut tax deferral checks we are all getting later on this year. What's worse, what rational person doesn't think our already crumbling infrastructure wouldn't suffer more? And another lovely point to ponder - without a doubt, the oil companies would just take up the slack by jacking up gas prices even more. But, McSame would get to jump up and down and say, "Look at my idea! I saved you money!" This idea is on par with something Our National Embarrassment would come up with - window dressing, designed to make a turd smell like a rose, even though it's still a turd. Nice going, Judas John.

No Child Left Behind is a disgrace, a joke, and an abject failure. It needs to be repealed yesterday, and the only way that's going to happen is if a Democrat gets into the White House in 2009. I know many, and I'm yet to meet one educator who has anything good to say about it. NCLB is yet another Bush program with a fancy name and abysmal results.

For the third time in a month, I got another mindless, oversimplified e-mail that compares Bush's tax record to President Clinton's. I will respond to that in kind in the coming days, but the cartoon above illustrates a dramatic point that I'm not hearing much discussion about these days. In fact, I have heard no discussion about it since '04, when John Kerry made the correct point that Bush's economic policies have raised our taxes in different ways, just not the obvious ways, like when you get your paycheck every week, or when you fill out your IRS forms. Funny how Bush is taking virtually no blame about the rate of inflation, which I feel every time I walk into a store or fill up my gas tank. I guess the only reason we aren't hearing much from Bush and GOP sycophants is because they haven't figured out a way to blame Democrats for the tanking economy (yet).

Another mega-merger that's bad for the American consumer. So, that can only mean one thing - the speedy approval by the Bush Justice and Federal Trade Commission departments.





Wow - we're going to do something about global warming in 17 years?!? Way to go, Mr. President! Too bad Bush wasn't our president in 1961, instead of President Kennedy. Imagine how Bush's "moon speech" would have gone had he given it instead of Kennedy:

I believe, that America should commit itself to landing a man safely on the moon and returning him safely to Earth, before this century is out.

Our president - what a "doer!"

I'm seriously not one to excuse China's many excesses and sins, but on the point of global warming, I can see the Chinese perspective - a perspective that many global warming deniers here in America do not. How can the Chinese not view Americans as being hypocritical, when we are whining about their coal use and greenhouse gases, while we had our Industrial Revolution and a booming economy for the last 100+ years? Now that China's and India's economies are booming, they are supposed to curtail their growth because the atmosphere is finally reaching the breaking point, which we played no small part in? I'd be angry if I were them, too.

One solution in getting a handle on global warming - America must take a leadership role, where we lead by example by showing the rest of the world we are taking the initiative. In short, putting our money where our sometimes self-righteous big mouths are with an aggressive plan to cut our carbon emissions would be an excellent start to finding a solution. Seventeen years is not aggressive - it's pathetic. We won't be leaders on the global warming front until we have a new president, to be sure.

Anyone else remember when we had credibility in the world community? When we took a leadership role in anything constructive that didn't involve war or death? Yea, I don't, either. Pathetic and sad.