? Part II

Matt Davis at The Portland Mercury was sent the weirdest health care cartoons, ever.

?

14% of Americans think Fox News is "mostly liberal."

Illustration Friday

I know you come here for cutting-edge humor so I thought I'd post some halloween jokes from the Weekly Woof cartoon I do for a kid's site.

Stewart genuflects

John Stewart must reserve his hard-hitting interview approach exclusively for neo-cons and lousy pundits. When SuperFreakonomics author Steve Levitt was on the last night, Stewart's questions seemed written by the book publisher's PR department.

I don't expect Stewart to rake everyone over the coals like Jim Cramer and I'm all for contrarian opinions, but if a guest says, "I'm of the idea that we don't have to pay the price for polluting" the least you could do is play devil's advocate for a quick second.

The only thing hard-hitting about this interview was the force at which Stewart's lips smacked against Levitt's ass.

The Trickle Down Plot

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." -- John Kenneth Galbraith

Proponents of trickle down employ a curious logic: transfer more and more money to the rich and it will lift up the poor and middle-class. They never seem to be satisfied with decades of tax cuts or exorbitant compensation, always demanding more under the guise that it will help everyone beneath them. Maybe they have a plan...

Toon Poon

This year I started paying a lot more attention to where my traffic is coming from and the like. It's always funny to see the strange search terms that lead people to your site. About a dozen people a month get here by searching "Colonial Porn" because of a comic I drew a few years ago for the The Stranger.

Colonial Porn edges out Confederate Porn by a few searches every month, which is reassuring in some small way.

I thought I'd post them again since the original post has broken links. Although I'm sure at least twelve of you are seriously disappointed right now...

click to make it bigger

Dirty Diaper Theory

Bill Frist famously diagnosed Terri Schiavo as a non-vegetable from the Senate floor via video tape. When he's the most sensible person in a debate about medicine, we have a problem. That was the case when Bill Maher started spouting his superstitious beliefs on health and "western medicine" (known simply as "medicine" by those who practice it) with regards to the H1N1 vaccine.

Maher thinks he is the most reasonable man on the planet, but he employs the same tactics that the creationists and climate change deniers he shouts down on his show use when defending their unscientific nonsense. Which is to say something like, "We shouldn't shut off the debate--after all, there are still a lot of questions!" Sorry, Bill. The science is in. Vaccines work.

Other crazies on this issue include the incredible level of fear-mongering of Rush and Beck along with Farrakhan claiming it was designed to kill people. While Dobbs doesn't appear to be a vaccine skeptic, his use of Swine Flu to stir up anti-immigrant hysteria earned him a place in the comic.

Wednesday: Executive Pay

You might be a cult member if...

you salute a uniformed Beagle that outranks you.

Turns out that members/victims of the cult of Scientology have to salute their leader's dog! From Nightline:

But these former senior Scientologists say as Miscavige's leadership progressed, he became increasingly eccentric.

"He got his beagle and he literally had somebody tailor a blue vest sweater for his beagle dog and made up epaulets, these Sea Org ranks in the Sea Organization," said Rathbun, referring to the religious order within the Church. "And he had four stripes put on, captain, for the dog. And he would bring the dog in. And if those guys didn't salute the dog, he would just viciously berate them and invalidate them."

Excessive Labeling Award

Yes, it's that time again. Let's have a look at today's winner...

(click here to view)

Stroot Hastings Tribune Oct 23, 2009 EditorialCartoonists.com

A fox labeled "fox" and a name badge on Obama. Way to blow away the competition with your admirable devotion to unnecessary labels! You win a personal labeler. Make a name badge for everyone in your family so you don't forget who they are!



Update: Cartoonist Ward Sutton's comment on my Facebook page is too funny not to post here:

How can we be sure it's Obama? The lazy cartoonist only gave him a "B.O." button. Maybe this is a cartoon about Body Odor and it's effects on Foxes? I also wish the cartoonist would have been more specific about the fox. It may be Fox News ... or it may be Foxes, like Foxy Ladies. Is this a cartoon about Body Odor actually rating highly with Foxy Ladies? The only solution for us readers to fully understand the cartoonist's intent would be bigger, more detailed labels.

Bors Blog turns 5

It occurred to me recently that I was approaching five years of blogging (also known as "bolging" around here). That's not a very remarkable feat in this age, but I thought I'd pause for a moment to remark on it anyway.

This blog remains a labor of love, but I've been making a concerted effort over the last two years to update regularly and add all the features you may or may not have come to care about: Illustration Friday, Mailbag Douchebag, Turd Awards, why does Bors never post on Thursdays?, etc. (Not to mention the 650+ cartoons I've posted.) I dare not calculate the man hours wast--invested, but it will pay off the day all revenue models collapse and I have to survive on web ads for gold and anti-aging cream.

Anyway, a quick moment of seriousness: Thanks for coming back week after week to read my work. And my bolg.

Now on to the next post, next cartoon, next deadline...

DADT

You may recognize this as a comic I did a few months ago for the ACLU. I simply reformatted it to be my usual size because I wanted to send it out to my papers. It's a third comic (i.e. extra) for the week so don't gimme no lip!

Monday: Flu Vaccine Conspiracies!

Illustration Friday

This one is for the ACLU on wiretapping and the Patriot Act.

e-mail

If you have sent me an e-mail with an @mattbors.com address in the last month and I haven't got back, hit me up again. There appears to have been a problem with the other addresses that all forwarded to one account.

Today in Yelling

Pennsylvania State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe yells like an insane clown.

On Yelling

As attention spans become more shriveled than Senator Robert Byrd after a long hot bath, the only way to garner name recognition is through outrageous statements. Joe Wilson, Alan Grayson and a host of other recently unremarkable legislators have all discovered this.

Nowadays a politician must compete with incredibly catchy commercials and YouTube clips of witty and/or drugged-up children to find purchase in your memory. Rational discussion is not the way to go about this.

Cable news serves as their vehicle for blather-spreading, as it loves to nurture itself at the teat of nonsense. No news is relayed on these godforsaken shits shows, only the latest controversial statements of politicians and celebrities along with discussions of whether or not there must be a self-serving apology tour. These matters are only interrupted by the most important world events, such as the helium balloon of a lunatic drifting over Colorado.

Friday: Down at the unemployment office

Yelling Tip: a hot oolong tea with a drop of honey readies the throat for hyperbolic nonsense!

Turds Float

Lame editorial cartoons are floating all around while original ideas hide in the attic.

Like that? Maybe I should draw it and slap some labels on it. The poo poo editorial cartoonists are projecting onto their drawing boards this week is so embarrassing I'm not going to even issue turd awards for them. Where would I start?

If we are billing the Heenes for wasting resources on their phony stunt, someone should bill these cartoonists for wasting a beautiful blank piece of bristol board.

Re-post: Trick or Treat

Halloween is approaching, which means editorial cartoonists phone in their work so they can spend a little extra time working on that killer costume. I thought I'd re-post my cartoon from last year explaining how it works.

And on a completely unrelated note, please don't assume a body on a porch is a Halloween decoration and not actually a dead body that has been there for days.

Harrison Bergeron

I wrote here before about conservatives' need to find a dystopian novel to channel their fears of the Obama administration through. During the dark Bush years we found revelation in 1984.

Now Kurt Vonnegut's classic short story Harrison Bergeron has been adapted to a short film titled 2081 and this looks like a winner (trailer here). With the forced equality and the evil Handicapper General slapping masks and weights and headphones on everyone to stifle their potential, I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before Glenn Beck is sobbing on live television, imploring us all to be Harrison Bergerons and ballet dance against the Obama Regime.

I mean, he fucking cries over Coke commercials.

The Reeeeaaaallly Long War

We've been involved in Afghanistan for eight years and will undoubtedly be there longer than than our involvement in Vietnam. Since there is no endpoint our leaders can articulate other than vague platitudes, and since there is no opposition the likes of which we saw in the Vietnam era, we are committing ourselves to quite a long haul.

Wednesday: Old Yeller

Sunday Quote

"This is an administration that's getting very arrogant and slippery in its dealings with people. And if you dare to oppose them, they're going to come hard at you and they're going to cut your legs off." --Karl Rove, not referring to the administration he once worked for but rather the current one, on Fox News Sunday.

2% milquetoast

NYTimes:

Bowing to political pressure from community bankers, the House Financial Services Committee approved an exemption on Thursday for more than 98 percent of the nation’s banks from oversight by a new agency created to protect consumers from abusive or deceptive credit cards, mortgages and other loans.

Democrats are going to regulate the shit out of that 2 percent! To be fair, that 2% represents the largest banks. So who could oppose such weak reforms to an industry that caused the global economy to collapse?

...Republicans are unified against the legislation.

Oh. Right. Perhaps Dems could ease up and exempt another 1.99999% of the banks in hopes of getting some moderates on board.

Recall 2

Running in The Oregonian today.

click to bignify

Let there be controversy

The Telegraph reports that religious groups are upset Robert Crumb illustrated scenes that their own Bible says happened. Lot banging his daughters? The word of god in prose. Offensive if drawn.

Crumb even uses the actual text of the Bible to narrate his illustrations--simply drawing what is in the book of Genesis renders it absurd, offensive and hilarious. That's what's so wonderfully subversive about the project.

The article quotes Mike Judge, (not of Idiocracy fame, but of the Christian Institute) who says, "If you are going to publish your own version of the Bible it must be done with a great deal of sensitivity. The Bible is a very important text to many many people and should be treated with the respect it deserves."

I'd say that Crumb has given the Old Testament the exact amount of respect it deserves.

Non-Turd Awards

I like the clever visuals in these two. This is stuff you can only do in comics.

(click here to view)

Clay Bennett Chattanooga Times Free Press Oct 16, 2009 EditorialCartoonists.com

(click here to view)

Mike Lester Rome News Tribune Oct 16, 2009 EditorialCartoonists.com

Illustration Friday

A guy tries to return return items he's used forever to get cash.

Pulitzer

'nuff said.

Special thanks to Matt, Jack, Joel and Ted for humoring me.

Not So Fierce

Nobel Prize Winner Barack Obama promised to do a lot of things. We're waiting.

Wednesday: The Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning goes to...

My bad!

Newsmax:

A GOP candidate in South Florida says it was a mistake to shoot at a target with a Democratic congresswoman's initials.

Illustration Friday

If you TP a house, use single ply tissue. It's the environmentally responsible way to prank.

Bors Animated!

I've teamed up with animator extraordinaire Mark Fiore this week for a collaboration based on my recent ACORN comic. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Hetero Heroes

A supposedly serious opinion journal is still arguing that gays shouldn't be allowed to serve in the military. Under all the pseudo-intellectualism in the essay is a simple point: fags are sissies. Are you hetero? According to the author there is "honor" in this simple fact.

You can read a more thorough take-down of Bowman's essay at The New Republic or read the whole thing here. Or you could not and go do something else. I'd recommend that.

War Is Boring

Here is a page from the third chapter of War Is Boring, which takes place in America. There's more information on the book here and pages from other chapters here and here.

Mary Todd Exposed

While getting some references photos for the latest comic I ran across a conspiracy site that claims Mary Todd Lincoln was Abe's real assassin! It comes courtesy of "Illuminati News" and is tied in to the whole New World Order/Jew Banker master plan. But a taste:

However Stanton and the Rothschilds underestimated the revenge of a delirious First Lady strung-out on opium who has just discovered that her hubby had popped a secret, illegal yet "royal" family. Now Mary Todd was also going to do some popping.

Butt Bomb

It is very important in the rough and tumble world of opinion making to point out when we got it so right. (Not really, as the most successful pundits are wrong most of the time.) It's been reported that we've seen a suicide butt bomber and I'm going to say I totally called this one.

This Sun article says "astonished experts admitted: 'We've never heard of anything quite like this before.'" Well, yes, except for my 2006 comic urgently warning the world of this imminent threat. I was off by a year, predicting anal assassination by 2008. We'll see how my "Mayan Suicider" prediction pans out.

The Loss Of Civility

I loathe romanticizing the past. With everyone fretting over the loss of civility in political discourse, I'm wondering when it ever existed. Genocide, slavery, civil war, labor struggles, assassinations--when exactly were people who disagreed with each other so nice?

The shrill do seem to dominate the discussion more these days but I put the blame squarely on YouTube and Cable News. If those two things existed in previous eras, who knows what wouldn't have been accomplished. 75% of television news coverage has become pointing out someone's dumb remarks and discussing whether they should apologize or not.

Wednesday: The Honor Of Heterosexuality

Ballsy

Trenchant commentary from John Sherffius on the 2016 Olympics...

(click here to view)

John Sherffius Oct 2, 2009 EditorialCartoonists.com

Obama Justice

Defenders of Roman Polanski say his crime occurred a long time ago and we should let it slide. I'm guessing it wasn't their daughter that went to his private photo shoot. All this "move on" stuff sounds like Obama on Bush and Cheney.

Monday: The Loss Of Civility

Illustration Friday

A car with a fireman's sticker was seen tossing a cigarette butt out on the California highway. Guess they wanted to come back to the scene a little later.