Duck Goes Moo!

This is the first official issue of “Strange Bedfellows” I have the characters down pat and the drawing style is about how I wanted it too.

Dora (the progressive donkey) “wins” in this one, but I promise that the next on Ed (the conservative elephant) will “win”. I want to try to keep it pretty even between the two who gets the last laugh in the final panel.

It’s beginning to look like an actual political cartoon!

Okay, well maybe this lady is a bad example, but it does remind me of a recent SNL skit:

NBC Site

BTW, in case you do not know, The delegate issue has been decided. It netted Hillary a bit of a boost but not so much. The exact decision:

Michigan Delegates Awarded: Clinton: 34.5 Obama: 29.5

Florida Delegates Awarded: Clinton: 52.5 Obama: 33.5

Of course, the “winning number” has been moved higher as well. It is now 2,118 and Obama has 2,051 delegates and Hillary has 1,877 delegates. Seemingly a winning race for Obama, and in 14 hours or so we will find out how they did in Puerto Rico with 55 delegates at stake (Hillary leading in polls by around 10%) and on Tuesday night we get the results for Montana and South Dakota with 30 delegates collectively (Obama leading by around 10% in both states).

Obama needs around 70 delegates to cinch the nomination with around 80 pledged delegates left and around 200 super delegates left, meaning Obama needs less than 1/4 of the remaining vote to win.

Unless there is some other major deal Obama will be our next President.. er, Democratic nominee.

I hate this commercial. It’s yet another perpetuation of some memes I hate:

“Congress is corrupt and useless.”

“Working men are smarter and wiser than those sneaky, educated elitists.”

“Nothing is complex or requires any deep thought, it’s just that some people make things more difficult than they really are.”

Once again I acknowledge that anti-intellectualism has been a major part of American culture since it’s founding, but I still grow tired of it. I’ve also grown tired of the persistent view that Congress impedes democracy and does nothing but get in the way of good government.

Yes, it is true that Congress slows down government, but that is the idea. The whole point of democracy is to counterbalance the inequities of the human spirit by making sure that just one person is not able to pass any laws or immediately take action out of emotion or short-term thinking. Otherwise we have a despotism or monarchy, not a democracy.

When Congress “fails” to pass laws or takes a long time to decide to enact a law, Congress is not broken, Congress is functioning as planned. Debates and deliberations are not signs of dysfunction in a government, a lack of it is.

There a those out there who love to perpetuate the idea that Congress “doesn’t do a damn thing” or “is full of crooks and liars”. Admittedly, there is corruption and other problems, but the nation would not be a better place without Congress as some believe.

The people in this commercial are just saying, “This should get done”, without stating how they should get it done, who should do it, and for how much. There’s more to laws and bills than this and it is not because Congress is corrupt or a bunch of eggheads, it’s because any law or decree or budgeting involves very, very complex issues.

The next time you hear someone complaining about “Oh, that stupid Congress is always stuck in gridlock”, or “Congress is too slow to respond to our modern world and modern threats”, please take time to remember that Congress is supposed to prevent immediate actions and is not meant to be a magnifier for a single person’s decisions.

Another reason I hate this commercial is because it is very patronizing to firefighters and other blue collar workers. It’s essentially saying that those sorts of people are dirty, grimy men who have no understanding of politics and no concept about the complexities of civics, economics and anything else that requires deep thoughts and study. Sprint is saying that firefighters are stupid, unwashed, unread simpletons.

Still, those phones do look cool.

Did you know that just last Friday a new socio-economic bloc was formed out of almost all the nations of South America?

It is called the Union of South American Nations, or more accurately the Unión de Naciones Suramericanas. It is modeled much after the EU and hopes to have as good of a union as the EU by 2019.

Of course, not all of the nations of South America have gone along with it all, most notably French Guiana, Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands as they are already part of the EU since they are territories of England and France.

What is with all the political unions? Well, many would say it is a reaction to globalism to ensure that smaller nations do not get thrashed by the new world economy, but others might say is not meant to fight globalism but the hasten it by creating unified economic areas to lessen the number of heads of state that would oppose further globalist and neo-liberal reforms.

The latest national polls show Hillary in a virtual free-fall and Obama rising higher than ever. Is this a sign that America is finally losing faith in Hillary?

She doesn’t seem ready to concede and is now is 31 million dollars in debt. It was thought that she was perhaps staying in to raise enough money to pay off her debts, but now it looks like she is trying to break into the White House and the poor house at the same time.

Even if she wins the democratic nomination, is America ready for its first debtor president?

I guess this could be considered the first “Strange Bedfellows” strip, but it was more about working on the character designs than anything else. The conservative character has come along well, but I am still struggling with his progressive spouse. Her look here is still not what I was looking for, but is getting closer. The glasses help define her character, but I don’t know about the blond hair or her outfit.

As for the content of this comic itself, I did a one-panel comic instead of a multipanel (“Strange Bedfellows” is intended to be a multipanel comic like Doonesbury or Garfield) because, once again, I was just working on the characters and not trying to make a real strip. Still, this one is a bit funny an poignant, though I worry that it makes “Dora” seem stupid and clueless. Really, this is okay as I am going to try to play both sides as a little clueless and missing the point from strip to strip.

Still, a definite step towards an actual comic.

I think I may be done drawing cats for a while, and with drawing teenage mice and cyborgs. I really got to reduce the number of things I am doing at once.

Good thing same-sex marriage has been legalized in another state.

Seriously, though, I would like an Obama/Edwards ticket. Make it so.

Yup, it’s official.

Did you know that Oliver Stone is releasing a movie about George W Bush’s life? And that it’s coming out in October? And that Josh Brolin is playing our current president?

No Fooling

I don’t know why, but I just love this picture. With all the attention of Hillary doing whiskey shots and chugging beers I guess Obama decided he’d give it a try to show he is not so “elistist”, though from this shot it would look like he is not digging the beer too much. I really hope Obama does not start a condescending “I’m part of the proletariat and he’s not” tour like Hillary has been.

Personally, I think Hillary calling Obama elitist is very funny, though I admit it seems to be working with the polls. Is American anti-intellectualism so strong and so gullible that all a rich, elitist person has to do to get votes is slap on an exaggerated southern accent, drink a bud, and call someone else elitist? This whole business with Hillary giving speeches from the back of pickup trucks and talking about how much she loved shooting guns as a kid (even though she has backed gun-control bills) seems really hack, but it does indeed seem to be working in the polls.

Hmm… Maybe because her phony, infantilizing schmaltz doesn’t work on me it means I’m an elitist too.

Wow, take a look at this. Ever since Hillary’s 9 point victory in Pennsylvania she has been climbing in the polls and Obama has been dropping like a rock, his first major drop since the start of the campaign.

Also Obama’s polls in the North Carolina and Indiana have been falling as well.

Is this the moment when Hillary breaks forth and claims the nomination? Her husband was a late bloomer in his 1992 race for the white house, so it might still be possible… but unlikely.

Take a look at this.

If we are to believe these numbers then Obama needs 285 more votes to win and Hillary needs 432 votes to win, and there are about 700 votes left. This means Hillary needs around %60 percent of all future delegates to win while Obama needs only %30.

I get the feeling that Obama will be able to muster %30, save his fall in the polls continues at its current pace.

Is Matt Blunt in some kind of trouble? I saw this political cartoon online but I haven’t heard about Mr. Blunt getting into any legal issues.

Obama is way ahead in national polls, but is still a little behind in Pennsylvania.

Tonight should be an interesting primary to watch.

This is part of a poorly animated but very enthralling series that takes a critical look at our current monetary system and potential doomsday scenarios that may come from it.

Very interesting stuff. I don’t know if it is all true or not, but it does make one think.

The only part I am concerned about is that the narrator proposes that human population must be controlled and that the number of births should equal the number of deaths in a society. This is something only a police state could really enforce.

I recently watch a documentary about the belief that some people have that anyone who is age 50 or under has a chance at immortality due to life extending technologies that are being developed (sorry mom, sorry dad). It was very cool to watch, but they never touched on the issue of what we would do with so many immortal people.

It wouldn’t be a problem if only the rich could afford to never die, but if it became cheap and inexpensive then the human population would skyrocket.

Perhaps technology to house and feed that many people would develop too, but it cannot be guaranteed.

We shall see how it all turns out.

I love a good conspiracy theory and this one is about as good as they come:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173

It’s by Aaron Russo, the now deceased producer and politico, and it details the idea that there is no law allowing the IRS to place an income tax on private citizens and that it’s all part of a plan to conquer the world.

Pretty convincing stuff if you give it the chance … then again, so was “Dianetics”.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/24/AR2008022400481.html

Barack Obama visits John Edwards