Cartoon Saturday - New Year's Edition

Happy New Year!!

Oh, sorry ...

Happy New Year!!

Sorry about the headache. Big party last night, eh? Okay, let's tiptoe quietly through the first Cartoon Saturday of 2011 while your Excedrin starts to work, shall we?

At least 21 people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked services at a church in Egypt; inmates rioted at a prison in southern England, setting fire to buildings and smashing windows; a line of tornadoes ripped through the American Midwest, killing at least six people and devastating homes and businesses; the ongoing cholera epidemic in Haiti has killed more than 3,000 people and sickened another 140,000; and in Washington the Republican Party intends to start the legislative new year by reading the Constitution aloud on the floor of the House of Representatives. This is not a bad thing ... it will prove that at least some of them can read, and they may learn something about what the Constitution actually says.

Welcome to 2011. As always, Cartoon Saturday is back to help you cope.

Millions of Americans were forced out of their homes in 2010 by bank foreclosures, many of them of questionable legality, if not morality. It's hard to put a good face on such economic treachery, but these two cartoons make an attempt ...

And,

Speaking of banks, isn't it amazing how many new fees they can come up with to compensate for losses in other areas ...?

If Facebook had existed way back when, how might things have been different...?

What would Cartoon Saturday be without a real groaner ...?

I remember the good old days, when people fired up with their religious beliefs just annoyed you instead of believing they had a god-given right to murder you if your beliefs didn't match theirs ...

The Republicans tell us they're going to fix all our problems by cutting spending and reducing taxes. Of course, they've put all the places spending ought to be reduced off limits, so we'll see how that works out. Here are a pair of economic cartoons that apply ...

And this one, which speaks right to me ...

This one was too cute ... and too obvious ... to pass up ...

And finally, as we say adios, sayonara, do svidanya, adieu, and good riddance to 2010 in the forlorn hope that 2011 will be better, here's a final take on New Year's ...

So, Dear Readers, welcome to the New Year 2011 BCE ... or whatever you call it with the calendar you use. There were good and bad aspects to 2010, as there are with every year, but we all made it through and are ready to march steadfastly into the new year. Or be dragged kicking and screaming into it, whichever applies.

No matter. Good ol' Bilbo (and, occasionally, Nessa) will be here with more cantankerous observations on life to help you through it all. Have a safe, healthy, and happy new year!

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

P.S. - Is it just me, or does anyone else have a problem with Blogger sticking all sorts of extraneous html coding into your posts? It takes me about twice as long as it should to compose each post (especially when I have embedded images like today) because I have to keep going back and editing the html to remove all sorts of off-the-wall format coding that screws everything up. What a waste of time. Any ideas?

B.