Thought I would start a new periodic feature to supplement the traditional Bearman Cartoons.  SFTH or Straight From the Headlines will have me perusing local newspapers from around the globe and posting that which I find interesting or humorous.

Given that I am more popular in Australia than America, my first stop was the Australian papers.  I was going to do something on the Prime Minister being “soft” on immigration violations, but then this article about Aussie men and their underwear habits caught my eye.  (The Friggin Loon also picked up on this story.  I think because she has a google alert on “men’s undies”.)

Australian men were surveyed and half stated that they wait 2 or 3 days (which means 3-7 days) before changing their underwear for a fresh pair.   If that wasn’t funny enough, I went on to read this blurb:

Adelaide stylist Filip Odzak said men should pick flattering and attractive undies over name brands. “What every man needs for the best result is a pair of basic black jocks or jock briefs – they always look great,” he said.

This got me thinking.  Do Australian men all look like Hugh Jackman?  Nope.  Seems over 60% of Aussie men just like their chubby American cousins are overweight or Obese.  So black jocks on heavy men?   I know I long ago switched to boxer-briefs.  It is very slimming.

Follow me via TWITTER updates. or help share the post by clicking below…

I did this editorial cartoon about 2 years ago after an election. In the states, the landscape is cluttered with yard signs that promote candidates and issues in the month leading up to the election. While the volunteers are quick to put up the signs they are slow to remove them.

Locally we have laws that say you can’t put the signs on public property, yet no one pays any attention to that because there really isn’t a penalty for violating it.

So be a good citizen and clean up your campaign yard signs, recycle them and please STOP recycling your campaign promises. I am sure the Tea Party folks would love if I had made the sign an Obama one.

The Beatles started it all when turning to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for spiritual advice. Then came the Dalai Lama. Next was Scientology and Kabbalah. Now it seems when celebrities find themselves in a moral dilemma (or a rather a publicity crisis) the man to turn to is Kosher Sex author, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.

Obviously Michael Jackson and now Jon Gosselin are his higher profile devotees but what other celebs have/will turn to the Rabbi to right their moral compass.

Follow me via TWITTER updates. or help share the post by clicking below…

Webcomic Planet is doing a series of awards to promote the cartoonist that are listed there. Nominations are done and voting has started. You have to be a registered member to vote but you will see several Beartoons regulars that were nominated.

Michelle Billingsley of Joe nominated for Art
George Ford of Addanac City nominated for Art, Author Congeniality Writing, Antagonist, New Comic, Supporting Character and Protagonist
Nate Fakes of Frustrated Cartoonist for Author Congeniality.
Byron Wilkins of 1977 for Art, Author Congeniality, Supporting Character, and Design
Dawn Griffin of Zorphbert and Fred for Art and Design
Dan Long of Edmund Finney for Writing, Protagonist, and New Comic
Dave Lamason of Unbearable Bears for Writing
Scott Hampson of Agent-X for New Comic
DJ Bogtrotter for New Comic

And George Ford played a joke by nominating yours truly, Bearman of Beartoons.com for Author Congeniality. I actually have 4 votes. Definitely not in the running to win but that is OK because I probably wouldn’t be congenial if I did win.

Congrats to all those who were nominated.  Hope I didn’t miss any regulars that were listed.  If so I am sure you aren’t shy and will tell me so.

October 31 around here doesn’t only mean Halloween. It means an election is right around the corner. This is the time the politicians and lobbyists pick it up on the rhetoric, scare tactics and door-to-door visits. I did this one in 2007.

Follow me via TWITTER updates. or share this cartoon by clicking one of the below.

So in my continued quest to show you some kick ass Halloween designs for Totes, t-shirts and the like at WackSack.com, here are the final three.

I am thinking of just making internet comic porn my vocation. My cartoon about Marge Simpson’s Playboy Centerfold still draws more views per day than recent items.  Here are todays search top 8 search terms phrases used in wordpress to find my site:

• marge simpson playboy
• marge simpson playboy pics
• marge simpson centerfold
• marge simpson playboy centerfold
• halloween politcal cartoons 09
• marge simpson centrefold  (I didn’t realize they allowed mispellings)
• halloween cartoons
• the simpson porn

I love that someone was searching for “simpson porn” ewwwww.  Or maybe I’ll just keep doing what I do and tag each item with the word “nude” or “kim jong”.  Either should draw some traffic.

For my out of country readers a little background on the editorial cartoon below.

- President Obama wants a Healthcare Reform Bill passed
- Many Republicans and some moderate Dems don’t want to include a so called Public Option (whereby people can buy insurance from the government) for fear of the long term costs.
- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced a version of the Healthcare Bill that includes a State by State opt out solution. This caused Olympia Snowe, the lone Republican who supported the commitee plan to publicly back out of her support as well as some others.

The biggest issue IMO is that the two largest areas of concern are those who want insurance who can’t get it at a reasonable rate and those who can’t withstand a major catastrophe. Now I am not economist but couldn’t the government put out a bid much like a large company for insurance companies to offer them group rates. Individuals without a company plan could get this corporate rate rather than expensive COBRA or the like. Then the government could offer a “public option” to those wanting catastrophic insurance such that it would kick in when medical bills reached a certain percent of yearly gross income.

Follow me via TWITTER updates. or help share the post by clicking below…

I know that America exports many things around the world including television series.  I am not sure if the illustrious America’s Funniest Home Video is one of them.  Over here is has been on almost 20 years.  It is essentially a bunch of home videos of men falling off roofs, kids being chased by animals, old women falling at a wedding and other hilarious things.

The show is never destination television for me but when I find myself spending the day on the couch especially after staying up until 3AM cleaning up after a Halloween Party it seems one of those things I flip to.  Now I am not going to say I don’t enjoy the show because I do. I will never tire of a kid in boxing gloves hitting his dad square in the nuts.  I enjoy it at least up until the last 8 minutes of the show.  This is the time they announce the producers pick for the funniest three clips of the show that the studio audience will vote on to win $10,000.

Yet, in all my years of casually watching the show, the “producers” NEVER NEVER NEVER pick the funniest clips.  It’s always the staged things or crap that I am not sure why they find funny enough to have put it in the first 22 minutes.  If my gig with the Simpsons doesn’t work out, I would be happy to pick the top videos for the producers of AFV.

Our friend Jammer is a frequent contributor over at Prairie Populists and Progressives.   A recent post discussed a newer group of atheists who are are “insisting upon aggressively confronting religious ideas, whereas the older group favors working with believers.”  I would contend that this “newer” group is actually the older group offshoot of the teachings of Richard Dawkins (not to be confused with Richard Dawson) and the like who equate religion with a form of mental illness.

In fact a USA Today article says that many atheists no longer want to be associated with those beliefs and actually profess that religion and the religious have a place.

The old atheists said there was no God. The so-called “New Atheists” said there was no God, and they were vocally vicious about it. Now, the new “New Atheists” — call it Atheism 3.0 — say there’s still no God, but maybe religion isn’t all that bad.

Tanner Leah wrote one of his tongue-in-cheek posts about one group, The Coalition for Reason, trying to promote the fact that Atheists shouldn’t feel alone by placing ads all over the NY city Subway system.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with a group promoting the fact that people with like beliefs (or lack thereof) can come together. 

However, you all know I hate bad statistics.  The ad says “A Million New Yorkers are Good Without God.  Are You?” In a NY Times article discussing the stunt, one of the promoters says they got to the “million” number by citing:

“the American Religious Identification Survey, released earlier this year, as evidence of a shift away from organized religion. Those checking “none” for religion rose from 8 percent of the population in 1990 to 15 percent in 2008, effectively making “no religion” the fastest growing religious identification in the United States.

De Dora said that the “million” New York nonbelievers mentioned in the advertisements is the result of an extrapolation based on the survey’s findings. With more than 8 million residents living in New York’s five boroughs, the organization projects more than a million potential atheist New Yorkers.”

Just because 15% of the population list themselves as having no religion, this DOES NOT equate to them being atheist or in fact not believing in some higher power.  In fact looking at the American Religious Identification Survey results, show of the people who wrote “none” as a religion, only 5% of them identified themselves as atheist.

8.3 million New Yorkers x 15% writing “none” x 5% of that group identifying as atheist = 62,250 Atheists in NY City.

In response to my comment on the Prairie Populists that lack of belief in supernatural is still essentially a religion, someone wrote ‘But most atheists aren’t going to bashing on your door on a Saturday morning.”  To which I responded, True and neither are most Christians. Personally I don’t mind either’s belief as long as they respect my own.”

But what if the next step in evolution of atheism is to actively recruit new “non-believers”?

Follow me via TWITTER updates. or help spread the “gospel” (hehe) by clicking below…