My Archives: June 2004
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Tom Toles' "A Connection"; Dick Locher's "Whack-a-Terrorist"; Dana Summers' "The Hand Over".
From our unofficial co-blogger Gordon P. "Here's a thought-provoking question: [more]
Posted by mac @ 02:32 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
I love this woman! No, no - I am not outing myself, I'm speaking of Mary Lou Seymour and her Liberty Action of the Week. That woman is indefatigable - a real role model for those on the verge of burning out, a psychological state toward which I drift on occasion. I have frequently included precises of her weekly LATW on McBlog but this week's message about "Guerilla Activism" is too exuberant and well-expressed for me to do anything but reprint it in full. [more]
Posted by mac @ 03:12 AM EST [Link]
Monday, June 28, 2004
In place of cartoons, here's some random bits of scientific humor.
I remain convinced that the threat Nader poses to the Democrats is highly over-rated... [more]
Posted by mac @ 01:09 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Gary Varvel's Private v. Public; Chan Lowe's "Bush Family Values"; Steve Sack's "On the Run"; Tom Toles' "You Break It".
Lee K. provides the following "review" of Fahrenheit 9/11, a movie that has received such mixed reaction - pro and con - that I've decided it is a must see . Lee's comments follow...
[more]Posted by mac @ 03:19 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Cartoon fix: Mark Fiore's "The Torture Team" (a tad heavy handed); Ben Ashcroft's "Lady Liberty; Jeff Danziger's Mr. Wolfowitz's Message to Graduates"; and, Dick Loche's "Hurricanes v. Elections.
Onto police and dogs of the non-police variety.... [more]
Posted by mac @ 11:38 AM EST [Link]
Friday, June 25, 2004
I try not to harp upon the sad state of the economy because I dislike feeling like a doomsayer. But I want people to know that government statistics are lying to them about the "health of the economy" as much as they lied about the decline in terrorism in recent years - a claim that politicians have had to prominently and publicly retract, using no less a personage than Colin Powell as an apologist. (Imagine how badly wrong the data has to be for them to take that step.) Regarding their data on the economy, consider the following report from Reuters... [more]
Posted by mac @ 02:45 PM EST [Link]
News flash from the Onion - "Coalition: Vast Majority of Iraqis Still Alive!" According to Administrator L. Paul Bremer, "Anyone who's taken a minute and actually looked at the figures can tell you, the vast majority of Iraqis are still alive -- as many as 99 percent. While 10,000 or so Iraqi civilians have been killed, pretty much everyone is not dead." Moreover, "according to U.S. Department of Defense statistics, of the approximately 24 million Iraqis who were not killed, nearly all are not in a military prison." The fast-breaking Onion is also on the cutting edge of interviewing the public about the prospect of private space travel. Like Maryann Lahr who states, "Hey, any idea that involves blasting the wealthiest .01 percent of the population into the cold, lifeless vacuum of space is all right by me." [Note: Satire site]
Posted by mac @ 01:22 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Is Ralph Nader the Y2K of the upcoming election? That's the latest wisdom on how the much-ballyhooed Nader will effect the November elections: namely, not at all. So many people are abandoning him that there is now a Repentant Nader Voter site. As an on-site photo indicates, the group's bumper sticker consists of an old "Unrepentant Nader Voter" one with a piece of duct tape over the "Un." I mean, how unpopular among anti-Republicans does a candidate who openly hates Bush have to be for the Congressional Black Caucus to publicly turn against him? Pretty darned. Meanwhile, injecting Zionist conspiracy theories into his election campaign isn't helping him with Jewish vote. Further on the "this guy can't catch a break" theme, people are expressing disappointment in Nader's choice of VP candidate. "Peter Camejo, a former Socialist Workers Party candidate for president who set up a socially responsible investment firm and then ran for governor of California as a Green Party candidate. Camejo's smart, he's of Venezuelan descent and speaks fluent Spanish and he has a history of involvement with worthy political causes." But Camejo isn't a woman - he has been candid about that -- unlike Nader's VP choice for the last election.
Posted by mac @ 11:36 AM EST [Link]
OFFSHORE OUTSOURCING REACHES NEW HEIGHTS!!"Washington D.C. - Congress today announced that the Office of President of the United States will be outsourced to overseas as of June 30th, the end of this fiscal year. The move is being made to save $400K a year in salary, a record $521 billion in deficit expenditures and related overhead. 'The cost savings will be quite significant' says Congressman Adam Smith (D - WA) who, with the aid of Congress' research arm, the General Accounting Office, has studied outsourcing of American jobs extensively. 'We simply can no longer afford this level of outlay and remain competitive on the world stage,' Congressman Smith said. Exporting American jobs has been a popular trend lately, ironically at the urging of the president." Full article.
Posted by mac @ 01:26 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
In place of cartoons, I offer Subservient Chicken!. "Visitors to the site will find a person in a chicken suit, standing in the middle of what looks to be a somewhat ragged-looking living room. Beneath the chicken is a box to type in your request for the chicken, along with the slogan `Get chicken the way you want it. Type in your command here'. Input a suggestion into the box, and then wait to see if the chicken will cooperate. Start off by typing `riverdance' or `throw pillows' and then let your imagination run wild." Type in "chicken sandwich," and the chicken obligingly folds itself between two sofa cushions and lies motionless on the ground. A full list of trigger words is available but asking for the naughty ones will just make the chicken approach the camera and shake its finger at you. (And, yeah, I tried `em.) Even more bizarrely, according to Snopes - an urban legend busting site - Burger King is indeed the hand behind this site.
While we're on the subject of truly bizarre Burger King send-ups, check out "I Work at Burger King" on the Ebaum's World. Of course, McDonald's isn't exempt from parodies such as the one on the song parody site, whose motto is "Making fun of music, one song at a time." [more]
Posted by mac @ 02:16 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
The integrating theme of today's cartoon fix is "The Link" - meaning the incredible (in the literal sense of that word) link between Al Quaida and Saddam... Joel Pett's Links and Relationships ; Steve Sacks' "The Straight Shooter; Matt Davies' "In the Bunker"; and, Ann Telnaes' "The Link.Enjoy!
[more]
Posted by mac @ 03:12 PM EST [Link]
Friday, June 18, 2004
Cartoon fix! Nick Anderson's "Torture Justified"; Stuart Carlson's "Theory of Relativity" (OUCH, that one's close to home!); and, Ted Rall's "Greater Good"
Sometimes news items leap from the page and slip themselves through the transom of my mind. Like a paragraph from The Economist (May 15th, p.23...I know, I know, its dated) that discusses the war in the Sudan. It reads, "A formal deal ending the war is expected in the next few weeks, possibly sooner. Since President George Bush is widely seen as the architect of peace, he is perhaps more popular in southern Sudan than anywhere else on earth. At the Rumbek sub-chief's election one young warrior called Tuapon leaps frenetically in the air, proudly waving a white Barbie-doll in a pink dress. 'This is a new wife for President Bush. May God grant him many fertile women with firm bodies and a election victory without problems in Flordia'."
Best to all,
macPosted by mac @ 12:11 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
For those of you who are interested in definitive background on the e-voting debate and controversy, I am reprinting in full a letter I just received from activist Bev Harris who is bird-dogging the issue. [more]
Posted by mac @ 06:46 PM EST [Link]
Cartoon fix! Stuart Carlson's "Avert Your Eyes"; Steve Sack's "Troop Rotation"; Tom Toles' "Odd Advice"; Dan Wasserman's "In With the New"; and, Drew Sheneman's "Ceremonial Duties".
Applause to Claire Wolf - always and everywhere! - but especially for posting this item. Hilarious! [more]
Posted by mac @ 10:22 AM EST [Link]
Monday, June 14, 2004
So much to say has accumulated during my hiatus from McBlog that, altho' I love Lewis Carroll's advice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland -- "Start at the beginning, and go until you come to the end, then stop" -- I'd be writing `til midnight if I followed it.
Plunging onward?One rakish fellow offers a novel response to the paperless system of e-voting designed by the Diebold Corporation, which is eliciting cries of "rigged election!" even before a Presidential ballot is cast. (See Electronic Freedom Frontier's archive page for background on the issue.) The fellow has created a page of 18 parody ads that sit above a legal disclaimer, "This page and these images are no way no how affiliated with Diebold Inc., and?are not necessarily representative of the opinions of Diebold's executives, shareholders or worker bees, no, not even in their dark malignant hearts, and did I mention that I hold the legal profession in the highest regard?" [more]
Posted by mac @ 03:11 PM EST [Link]