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Political Cartoons by
Rob Davis & Jack Curtin

Political Art with a Smile

Artists and designers have been having a field day with this dumbass election. We've put together a little gallery of some of our favorites. Start here and click your way through our collection of election funnies.

Just Too Damn Funny...

Sebastian Banker, aka Sebbo, was thinking about the election fiasco the other morning as he was on his way to a job interview - that it was beginning to look more and more like a Marx Brothers routine. Didn't take him long to turn that idle observation into The Marx Brothers Run For President, one of the funniest election spoofs we've seen yet.

He posted it on one of our two favorite discussion lists and as soon as we cleaned up the coffee we blew all over the keyboard, we asked him for permission to publish it.

He gave us the green light and here it is.

Al, Dubya Caught in Web of Satire
Wired

Ever seen Dubya dance? Want to take a closer look at that confusing Florida ballot? Web cartoonists and animators are having a field day with all the political fodder, and their work is traveling at light- speed through e-mail. By Katie Dean.

Gathering for Laughs
at the Online Watercooler
The Washington Post

In the election's messy aftermath, a torrent of underground wit, if not wisdom, has been flowing through the world's computer networks.

Here are some of the best election funnies we've seen:

The George W. Bush Chad Game

You'll need Flash 4 plugin to play this hilarious game. Your mission: Collect all the chads to increase Al's vote count and disable the GWB 9000. If you win, the GWB 9000 sings a little song just for you.

The Florida Election Recount Game

Here's another cool Flash game that will help you pass the time while you wait to see who we get stuck with for our President.

"The game begins with George W. Bush having a 309-vote lead over Al Gore in the Florida voting," John writes. "The counties that went for Gore are colored blue and counties that went for Bush are colored red. The goal of the game is to complete 20 recounts that result in your candidate winning."

A Little Warped Fun

While you're waiting for the election brouhaha to be sorted out, this is a great site where you can vent your frustration on the candidates.

And while we're on the subject of warping, check out this picture of Little George and his pal, Dick.

Shall we dance?

The Bush-Gore TV Dance

The Dubya Dance

Be sure to check out Amazon's new Florida ballot-inspired interface. Made yer Ed-in-Chief blow coffee out of his nose.

And finally, here are a few more reasons why Florida is the best argument we've heard in favor of global warming:

Florida, Graphic Design Capitol

More Florida Election Funnies

Rumor has it that, in light of the lack of a clear winner in this election, Bill Clinton has declared himself Emperor for Life.

In the absence of any new developments that actually matter, we're going to enlighten and entertain you by sharing some editorial opinions on this silly election.

Will Pitt: Nader's Bloody Foot

Michael Moore: The Presidency - Just Another Perk

And what does it all mean in the fishy eyes of the rest of the world? Stratfor, an unequalled resource for global intelligence, offers a spin-free analysis from their Global Intelligence Update: US Election results in Foreign Policy Concerns

The following report has been circulating on the Web for the past couple of days. We think it's well worth reading and passing along.

13 Myths About the Results of the 2000 Election

Robert Anton Wilson is one of our literary heroes. Go read his Thought for the Week and you'll see why.

"My perennial candidate, Nobody, scored another stunning victory. The majority of citizens simply ignored the Gush/Bore/TSOG Control Machine, and "voted for Nobody," i.e. didn't vote at all. Unlike alienated artists of the past, I belong to the majority party -- the millions who looked over the candidates and decided they trusted Nobody".

FWIW:

Counties won by Gore: 677
Counties won by Bush: 2,434

Population of counties won by Gore: 127 million Population of counties won by Bush: 143 million

Square miles of country won by Gore: 580,000
Square miles of country won by Bush: 2,427,000

States won by Gore: 19
States won by Bush:
29

Average Murder per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore: 13.2
Average Murder per 100,000 residents in counties won by Bush: 2.1

Al Gore carried the most regions ranked highest in percentage of sex movie rentals.

Bush won 20 of the 25 states with the highest percentage of births to teen mothers.

The Render Unto Department

Libertarian candidate Harry Browne wanted to eliminate income taxes and on that point alone, voters should have beaten a path to the polls to cast their support. Since it looks like we're gonna be stuck with taxes for awhile, we should at least know something about them. Everything you wanted to know about the income tax but were afraid to ask is in Scientific American's in-depth but eminently readable article on the U.S. tax system in this month's online edition.

DarkHorse2000 Endorsed R.U. Sirius -
(Fat Lot of Good It Did)

We've spent the past year keeping a fishy eye on the plethora of presidential candidates, and out of the madding crowd one man stands tall, one voice rings clear and true, one spirit soars above the rabble.

That man is R.U. Sirius, writer, cyberculture demigod, and founder of The Revolution™, the new political party that promises "Victory Over Horseshit".

We were honored that R.U. Sirius was willing to take time from his busy campaign schedule and grant us a lengthy interview. Read the interview, then pay a visit to The Revolution™ website and you'll see why we are throwing the full weight of a DarkHorse2000 endorsement behind this visionary political leader.

Alas, our hopes for a Better America were dashed when R.U. Sirius lost the election to the two bozos who are now fighting over the electoral bone. When 2004 rolls around, just remember what not voting for R.U. Sirius got us...

History 101

An Historical Analysis of the Electoral College

The Origin of the Republican Elephant

The Origin of the Democratic Donkey

Reprints Worth Reprinting

Every now and then, something arrives in our email that's just too good not to share with our readers.

Here are leads to some of the latest additions:

An Open Letter to George W. Bush
from Michael Moore

There are a lot of reasons to worry about the possibility of Little George becoming President. Michael Moore points out some of the most disturbing reasons we've heard yet.

Let's Retire the Drug War

Jacob Hornberger, founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation, takes a fishy-eyed look at the Drug War and the real meaning of freedom.

A Reply to the Declaration of Independence

What if George III's Parliament had management consultants? Something like this might have been sent in response to the American's Declaration of Independence.

BTW - This was sent to us without an author's credit. If you know who wrote it, please let us know.

Political Quote of the Day

Cheap Humor

Top 10 Ways to Tell You're at a Republican Party Party

20 Signs You're a Democrat

Our Favorite Political Word is still:

KAKISTOCRACY

Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.

Our Second Favorite Political Word:

THROTTLEBOTTOM

A harmless incompetent in public office.
(From Alexander Throttlebottom, the Vice President in Of Thee I Sing (1931), a musical comedy by George S. Kaufman and Morris Ryskind.)

Bet you can't wait to casually slip the the phrase, "a Kakistocracy of Throttlebottoms" into a conversation...

Matter of fact, when we write our best-selling analysis of American Politics, that's going to be the title. We're officially declaring dibs on it right here and now. Neener, neener.

Coming soon...

A Kakistocracy of Throttlebottoms
Copyright©2000 • Robert Arnold

Yessss!

President Bush?

"He who casts the vote decides nothing. He who counts the vote decides everything".

- Joseph Stalin

The Dubya Chronicles

Jack Curtin and Rob Davis are responsible for some of the best new political cartoons on the editorial scene. Their most recent effort pretty much sums up the current scene in Washington.

Jack was one of our favorite political commentators here on DarkHorse2000. Now he and Rob are putting together The Dubya Chronicles, a new website that will follow the adventures of Little George as he stumbles through the next four years in the White House.

The Dubya Chronicles will feature "The Great Disconnect," Jack's commentary on what's happening in Washington and elsewhere, a weekly cartoon series, "W (The Cartoon Presidency)", as well as other features as they develop. They'll also guide you to the best news and commentary sites around the web.

The new site isn't up yet, but you can get a preview of The Dubya Chronicles on Jack's website, www.jackcurtin.com. Go there.

How the U.S. Election Looks
to the Developing World

Read this and you'll begin to see our election follies with different eyes. It's the best summation of the election we've seen so far.

What if Americans had enough sense not to vote for either Bush or Gore and instead elected Libertarian candidate Harry Browne? Here's what he'd do on his first day in office:

The President's First Day in Office

David E. Ortman has written a definitive scientific explanation of the forces behind this bizarre electon and we recommend it highly. We feel much better now that we know...

Quantum Elections
perpetual election.com

At the point of election, these multiple possible states in an elector collapse into a single physical form known as a ballot. However, the mere process of measuring (counting) these ballots introduces uncertainty (also known as the Heisenberg Election Uncertainty Principle). Paradoxically, the more intently you measure an election, the less certain the outcome becomes.

(PerpetualElection.com is the only website devoted exclusively to news about the first perpetual presidential election in U.S. history. )

Someone else explained to us that all this election weirdness is happening because Mercury is in retrograde (the worst retrograde in years, they say) - so chill out and let the cosmos do its thing.

Other pundits on the fringes of metaphysics claim the blame should go to Tecumseh's Curse.

No sense fighting the cosmic forces.

And speaking of cosmic woo-woo, did you know that psychic Sean David Morton predicted this election mess nearly two years ago?

"On December 27, 1997, in front of an audience of millions on the ART BELL Coast to Coast radio program, I said emphaticly that the presidential race in 2000 would be between Al Gore, Jr. and George W. Bush...I believe my exact words were that "the 2000 race will be between George W. Bush of Texas (nobody knew who he was back then!) and Al Gore. Bush will win, but not survive his presidency".

He went on to predict that Bush would be killed in a terrorist explosion and that Cheney would become president - and we might see him running against Hillary Clinton in 2004.

America in the grip of Bush's 'Iron Triangle'
The Observer (UK)

Ed Vulliamy in Washington reveals the network of big business interests that is now waiting to reap its rewards from an administration that may stand for little but revenge and greed.

If there was ever a President defined by his donors and patrons, it is Bush. Like a player in a baroque allegorical drama, he is not really a person, more a personification of interests.

This is a must-read for anyone who wants a view of the Bush machine without the bias of the mainstream U.S. media. Very creepy, very scary.

The Rules of Law
The Industry Standard

The poison of these past weeks is a process that pretends to be acting under the rule of law, but with actors who are in no way constrained by the principle of rule of law. The vice is the gaggle of squawking politicians, making pronouncements about what the law requires, and what is or is not "illegal," while they themselves are (yet again) exempt from the very rules that impose integrity on the law Ð consistency, and a commitment to reason.

The Fix Is In
Hunter Thompson/ESPN

"The old man was the real tip-off. The leer on his face was almost frightening. It was like looking into the eyes of a tall hyena with a living sheep in its mouth. The sheep's fate was sealed, and so was Al Gore's. ... Everything since then has been political flotsam & Gibberish. The whole Presidential election, in fact, was rigged and fixed from the start. It was a gigantic Media Event, scripted & staged for TV. It happens every four years, at an ever-increasing cost & 90 percent of the money always goes for TV commercials."

Site Encourages Mind Change
The New York Post

Citizens for True Democracy, a site started by an undergraduate at California's Claremont McKenna College, lists contact information for 189 presidential electors in 19 Bush states that allow electors to vote their conscience. The site, which encourages people to contact electors and try to get them to change their votes, has upset some Republican electors who feel pressured and a little too exposed, the story said.

U.S. Inquiry Into Claims Black Voters Were Stripped of Rights
The Guardian (UK)

The US justice department announced that it had launched an inquiry into claims that thousands of black Floridians were stripped of their right to vote by a state government run by Governor Jeb Bush, the Republican presidential candidate's brother.

How Florida Played the Race Card
The Guardian (UK)

As the struggle over dimpled chads and voting machines grinds on in the courts, evidence is emerging that the US presidential race was irrevocably tainted before a single ballot was cast - by the systematic and unconstitutional denial of voting rights to thousands of black Floridians.

Lie Test: Bush 57, Gore 23
Wired

The Handy Truster, a portable lie detector that measures vocal stress levels and gives results using apple icons in varying stages of consumption, claims to have caught Bush and Gore in multiple lies during the presidential debates.

Meanwhile, Canadians are having a little fun with their elections...

Online Petition Nails Conservative Leader
Newsbytes

A Canadian TV show launched a petition that demanded Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day change his name to "Doris" after the party said it would pass legislation to put any petition signed by more than 3 percent of voters on a national referendum. Within a week, the petition had 900,000 signatures - - 9 percent of the electorate.

Lawsuits Question Cheney's Residency
The Austin American-Statesman

A civil rights group on Tuesday filed a class action suit in federal court in Austin on behalf of nearly 2,000 voters from all 50 states, saying Cheney is a Texan and constitutionally prohibited from running with Bush in the state.

Best Democracy Money Can Buy
The Observer (UK)

If the guy who lost the vote, George W Bush, nevertheless wins the White House, he'll have surfed in on a crushing wave of nearly half a billion dollars ($447 million), my calculation of the suffocating plurality of cash from corporate America, a good 25 per cent more than Al Gore's take.

George W could not have amassed this pile if his surname were Jones or Smith. The key to Dubya's money empire is Daddy Bush's post-White House work which, incidentally, raised the family's net worth by several hundred per cent.

Electoral Knowledge
Slate

The elements of an electionÑwhich candidate is winning, what the voters think, whom they ultimately decide to vote forÑused to seem definite. But the more closely they're examined, the less solid these elementsÑlike electrons, quarks, and photonsÑturn out to be.

As usual, The Onion is providing superb coverage of the election crisis:

Pro-Bush Rebels Seize West; D.C. In Flames
The Onion

Presidential-election-related violence continued to spread across the nation Tuesday, with Day Seven of the battle for the White House claiming another 1,200 lives. In Bush-controlled Tennessee, news of Gore's call for a sixth recount in the disputed territory of Florida sparked full-scale rioting, with Republican militiamen setting fire to Gore's heavily fortified Nashville compound. It is believed Gore running mate Joseph Lieberman was trapped in the blaze, though his whereabouts and status were unknown as of press time. In Austin, Democrats continued to clash with armed Bush troops outside the Texas capitol. Inside, the Bush family waited for news on the welfare and whereabouts of Dick Cheney, who was carried off by a band of NARAL Reproductive-Freedom Fighters.

Serbia Deploys Peace-Keeping Forces to US
The Onion

Serbian president Vojislav Kostunica deployed more than 30,000 peacekeeping troops to the U.S. Monday, pledging full support to the troubled North American nation as it struggles to establish democracy. "We must do all we can to support free elections in America and allow democracy to gain a foothold there," Kostunica said. "The U.S. is a major player in the Western Hemisphere and its continued stability is vital to Serbian interests in that region."

Confusing Ballots or Voter Stupidity? You Be the Judge.

Kevin Fox presents a design analysis of the Florida ballot.

A Note on the Voting Irregularities in Palm Beach, Florida.

Here's an academic look at the Florida voting mess, complete with some very interesting and enlightening charts and graphs.

May The Best Man Lose
Discover

The presidential election highlights an ugly truth about American politics: The most popular candidates, like John McCain, often don't get elected. The problem, mathematicians say, lies in our voting system itself.

This is an excellent article that explains our voting system in detail and explores alternative voting systems.

OUR PHILOSOPHY : If it ain't interesting, it ain't news.

For reasons that have always been a little unclear to us, the major news media seem compelled to give us the daily news about the top candidates, even if nothing interesting actually happened.

Old time newspapermen* had a word for news items about things that weren't newsworthy. They were called "whogas". It's short for "Who gives a shit?" So the next time you read a news item that leaves you wondering why you should care, you'll know that it's a whogas.

We're not going to give you any whogas. If it ain't interesting, it ain't news. And if nothing worth mentioning happens on a particular day, well, then, there won't be any new news. We'll just tell you that nothing much happened and you can get on with your day.

* We don't want to hear any of that politically correct rhetoric about our use of gender-specific words. Old time newspapermen, for whom we have profound respect, and of which one of whom was the grandfather of our Editor-in-Chief, called themselves newspapermen. If it was good enough for them, it's good enough for us. Neener, neener.