Intravenous Caffeine

Totally Unfair and Completely Unbalanced

Revolutionary Grrl 6-Back to the Eye Candy … and please go out and vote tomorrow

The Grrl shoots a crossbow bolt carrying a rope into the building's overhang

Hey, isn't that a Big Joe 5 crossbow, designed for the OSS?

In our new installment, Revolutionary Grrl, having taken out the security cameras with … PAINTBALLS! … takes out a foldable crossbow from her pack and shoots a rope-and-pulley bearing bolt into the 1st International Megabank Building’s overhang and starts to pull herself up.

That crossbow is based on the Big Joe 5, a downsized, foldable crossbow designed for the OSS in World War II for possible use in assassinations. It is powered by special rubber bands which gives it several hundred pounds of shooting force. I couldn’t really show the rubber bands without confusing the picture too much, but they’re there in the second shot 🙂 The crossbow bolt is a modification of one that’s designed for “alligator fishing”. It is designed to be shot into the alligator’s tough hide. It has a hole in its rear through which a double-loop-ended cable is inserted to carry the line to “reel in” the massive reptile. Our girl has fastened a small pulley-and-rope system to allow her to pull herself up. For what purpose? See us next week!

In the meantime, an article in the NY Times described the availability of “No Premium” insurance plans that the Affordable Care Act has made possible. Naturally, these are NOT being overly advertised by insurance companies. These so-called Bronze plans will fit clients who really cannot afford any other kind of health care and also will appeal to younger clients who don’t have any health issues and having come smack up against the notion of mortality yet. These will not be available in states where they aren’t administering Obamacare, despite them being some of the poorest states in the Union, because, well, socialism, Kenyan, atheist, Muslim …

Tomorrow is voting day. The new restrictive Voter ID law in Texas has prevented former Speaker of the House, Jim Wright, from registering. Way to go, Texas! BTW, “Sure, I know him,” doesn’t count as a voter ID, so make sure all them good ol’ boys actually have non-suspended driver’s licenses. Meanwhile in Virginia, voters will decide if they really want to vote for a Republican, Ken Cuccinelli, who wants to outlaw oral sex (New Slogan: Virginia is NOT for lovers) or if they’ll vote for the Democrat, Terry McAuliffe, who doesn’t. I’ve decided to vote for the Democrat so his campaign will stop sending me notices about how the campaign can’t afford to be outspent…

Whoever you decide to vote, go out and do it.

See you next week.

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Revolutionary Grrl–Page 3–The Fanservice continues

Revolutionary Grrl is stopped by the sound of an approaching police car.

Page 3--Revolutionary Grrl hides from a prowling patrol car.

Ordinarily, I do not post on the Tuesday after a Monday holiday, but as Revolutionary Grrl is just beginning, I don’t want the momentum of the story to drop.

We see that the Tea Party has continued to hold the debt ceiling, and by extension, the U.S. economy, hostage. Speaker of the House Boehner is unwilling to call for a vote. The answer to the question of who he’s more afraid of, the Tea Party or his corporate masters, is settled–he’s more afraid of his own shadow. Something tells me that that man will never appear in Profiles in Courage, the Sequel–except maybe as one of the antagonists in the chapter honoring Harry Reid.

But surprise, surprise–the deck had been stacked. While normally ANY member of Congress could have called for a vote–a Saturday Night Special committee vote limited THIS issue to being called by the majority leader of the House.

President Obama is still holding steady–which is a good thing–but which is something he should have done a couple of years ago. The main reason we’re in this predicament is that Barry has wanted so much to be reasonable, to negotiate, to be the adult in the room, that he let the miscreants run wild over the good kids. It’s only now that his legacy, the so-called Obamacare that enshrines business as usual for the insurance companies with a few exceptions, excoriated as socialism by people who have no idea what the term even MEANS, has been threatened that he shows some backbone.

This week, the Congress of the United States might commit collective treason and deliberately trash the full faith and credit of the United States. Was Plato right? Does democracy always devolve into demagoguery? A few days will tell.

In the meantime, we will continue with the story of Revolutionary Grrl–a NEAR FUTURE tale that takes place in the world we are condemning ourselves to.

And, my (deleted by censor) birthday was October 12. Thanks to all for your birthday wishes and happy birthdays to all who share my date as well!

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Revolutionary Grrl–Page 2! The fanservice begins…

Revolutionary Grrl Page 2

Revolutionary Grrl mysteriously appears in front of the 1st International Megabank Building--and the fanservice begins

DISCLAIMER: This comic strip takes place in an alternative near future world that in no way should be confused with our present world. BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Not YET anyway, but which our present world WILL become if the worst decisions continue to be made.

You know, like destroying the full faith and credit of the United States, ostensibly over HEALTH CARE? Well, I got news for you, it’s all a sleight-of-hand trick. Anyone who believes this is about health care is looking where the magician is pointing, not at what he’s doing with his hands.

Look at it this way. We’re all watching Congress in this battle about not passing the budget unless the Affordable Care Act is defunded. We’re worried about what this might do to the economy. Well, guess what it’s REALLY about, boys and girls.

How much you want to bet the money behind the tea party is being wagered in the markets on the U.S. default? Seems to me, there’s an untidily huge profit to be made if you knew that the U.S. will or will not turn deadbeat. The longer the drama continues, the greater the seismic effect on the markets will be.

Now if I was paranoid, I’d think this was a conspiracy to subvert the U.S. for financial gain. Whew! Thank heavens, it’s only for that! If it was to subvert the country to benefit our enemies, it’d be treason. But this–it’s just shrewd business strategy, isn’t it?

I wonder which way the Koch brothers are betting…

In any case, to reiterate my disclaimer, we’re not in the world of Revolutionary Grrl–yet!

More fanservice next week.

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The No-Compromise Compromise, or, 3-D Chess finally works out

Spock/Obama wins a 3-D chess match

Chief Science Officer Obama's 3-D chess playing pays off -- Fascinating.

How often have we heard the following statement about President Obama: “Oh, you don’t understand–he’s playing a 3-D chess game. You couldn’t possibly follow his strategy!” If you were a progressive (or, in hushed whispered tones, a “l-i-b-e-r-a-l”), probably a lot. Why was single payer health insurance taken off the table before the negotiations even began? 3-D chess move! Why no public option? 3-D chess move! Why no investigation into the Bush era torture policies? 3-D chess move! Bank investigations? 3-D chess move! Fascinating!

An astute observer might have noticed that all these 3-D chess moves appeared to variations on the Nimzovich strategies–instead of fighting for the center of the chess board, you concede it and allow your opponent to get overconfident so you can rush in and take advantage of his over-extended supply lines! Of course, it’s hard to overextend your supply lines on an 8×8 chess board so these openings seem to have fallen into obscurity. Nonetheless, our chessplayer-in-chief appears to be devoted to showing that they can work.

The only problem was, while Spock was playing 3-D chess, the Klingons were playing poker. Ah-HAH! I take your knight! Big deal, Full House beats one of a kind! Whoopsies!

However, we’ve finally had a situation where Obama’s chess playing has finally paid off. The brouhaha about Obamacare forcing poor religious zealots from denying women the choice of contraception. Why that’s against the freedom of religions to force their moral standards on people who need not even be members of said religions. Specifically, Catholics, the largest single church in the US–who usually vote Democratic. How quickly the Republicans rushed to their defense! I wonder how quickly they’d rush to the defense of Muslims objecting to universal health care based on Shariah law?

So Obama compromised. The church run hospitals would not have to provide contraception coverage. The health care companies would do it instead. GREET! Oops, many Catholic hospitals are self-insured! Too bad!

Mitch McConnell is furious and threatens a vote … on something. Problem is–the Catholic BISHOPS are against the idea, but Catholic women seem to applaud it. Oh, well. It gets interesting, don’t it?

On personal notes: I will be running an artists alley table at Katsucon at the Gaylord at National Harbor Friday through Sunday this coming weekend. And being as it’s a Monday holiday, there will be no cartoon until the next week. My dental problem is in the middle of recovery (I needed an extraction and implant) and it’s good not to feel the pain that has been with me for many months now. And finally, there is a very sweet kitty cat who is very ill and needs your best wishes. Thanks 🙂

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We’re Back (Hopefully) And Watching the Bill-Barry Sparring Match

A diminutive Bill O'Reilly tries to

Lilliputian Attack Dogs

Well, it’s been an interesting couple of weeks. I took off Martin Luther King Day weekend and the following weekend because I was going to be doing Artist Alley at Setsucon in State College PA, but I was also in the middle of finishing a manga parody that I wanted to have printed so I could sell it at Katsucon down here at Washington Harbor in February. Now, if you’ve ever done a publication, you KNOW that in the last week or so you’re doing nothing else but finishing things you forgot you hadn’t finished or had left for the end and FINDING PROBLEMS with the pages you thought you were already done with before you commit the whole damn thing to posterity. So, I’m running on 3 hours of sleep every night and get the mess to Ka-Blam in time to pack for Setsucon, when (ahem) KA-BLAM! another attack of whatever stomach ailment laid me up in December threw me onto a bed of pain for the day I was supposed to drive up to State College. Although the con lasted two days, it wouldn’t make much sense to drive up the next day since I’d get there in time for maybe 2 hours before I had to close the table for the day, so I sadly cancelled my plans.

BUT THE GOOD NEWS–BLECCH! Part One, will be on sale at Katsucon (manga and anime lovers can probably guess which manga/anime is the main focus of my parody 😀 ) Along with my book of reprints from my Bush era cartoons: BUSHWHACKED–The Wurst of HAIL DUBYUS! For those who aren’t going to be at Katsucon, you can get both of these at IndyPlanett, or rather BUSHWHACKED now and BLECCH! when it is finished printing.

However, it looks as if I have a LOT of catching up to do. Tea party representatives coming to free us from socialist government health care at the same time as demanding their socialist government health care. A state of the union address with Republican/Democratic mixed seating (oh, the shame! what will their parents say!). Keith Olbermann–quitting or fired? An uprising in Tunisia and *drumroll* another one in EGYPT! We’re really caught between a pillow and a mattress there–on the one hand, we have our favorite Middle Eastern dictator, the only person the US has been able to trust near not-so-shrinking violet Israel for the past 30 years, and on the other, a populist democratic uprising against the tyranny he’s unleashed against his own people. Wow, smothered with kindness–do we back the devil or the deep blue sea?

As much as we want to plant democracy in the rest of the world to make the world safe for democracy, we’ve discovered that unless we’re sitting in a country with an army of 100,000 or so, elections don’t always go the way we’d like them to. The “soon to be canonized in honor of his 100th birthday” Ronald Reagan found that out in South America where people actually voted in governments that were interested in people instead of profits–so he ignored the elections and sent in the CIA to provide money and other care packages to right wing goon squads to protect American commercial interests. More recently, we found that out in Palestine and Lebanon. And right now, Fox News is creaming in their jeans about the possibility of The Islamic Brotherhood–their current bugaboo version of the Si-Fan–turning Egypt into an anti-American/anti-Israel haven, delaying the apocalypse for a few more weeks. Or bringing it forward. Or something. In any case, as always on Fox News, it’s Obama’s fault.

With that in mind, and trying to start out to slowly figure out where the world is after my illness and publication cramola, I turned to Bill O’Reilly’s interview with our President before the that icon to American excess, the SuperBowl. Barry grants an interview to whatever network is hosting the game, so this year was Fox’s turn, so they sent over the only potty-trained member of their attack dog squad to perform the interrogation. Bill O started off by playing nice and thanking Obama for helping to get Fox News’s reporters out of perilous peril in Egypt and Obama replied that that was his job. Then the gloves came off. O’Reilly came in with, not fair but tough questions, but questions worded and designed to tempt Obama into pique or anger, for example, when O’Reilly called the Health Care package by the politically loaded monicker Obamacare. This maneuvering didn’t do O’Reilly much good against the King of Cool. Trying to bait Obama by practically being insulting to his face–at several points, O’Reilly literally tried to shut Barry up by cutting him off (I thought he was going to yell at his engineers, “I’ve had it with this pinhead, shut off his mike.”)–but the President kept it together and brought things back to what he was saying like a patient parent faced with a child who hadn’t taken his Ritalin. For Several Days.

Big O almost lost control of his narrative at one point. Explaining that he was faced with a disaster in the first two years of office, he described those years AS a disaster. One can imagine what the RW blogosphere is doing with that one! But beyond that, Bill never managed to nudge him into a shouting match, despite trying to play gotcha on health care, on the fact that people HATE YOU (They don’t hate me, Bill, they hate a funhouse mirror image of me–a nice way to describe the workings of Roger Ailes’ pet network). Finally, Bill got to the SuperBowl and asked who Obama wanted to win–of course, since the Chicago Bears weren’t playing, Obama really couldn’t care less, but he phrased it nicer. “AH-HAH!” cried O’Reilly, “you don’t care who wins the SUPERBOWL?” Finally he had it on record, Obama saying the most un-American thing short of “Jesus Christ’s mom made lousy apple pie.” Could he really be Kenyan? But Barry brought it back and said that there were two great teams and he wanted to see a great game. Offered to let Bill come and watch with him. But Bill said no, “I wouldn’t want to spoil anyone’s fun,” as he thought:

“The way you just spoiled mine.”

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