By the Comics Curmudgeon
As your Comics Curmudgeon demonstrated earlier this year, political cartoonists love butts. Just love ’em! The ass is the most polysemous of images, representing everything from sex appeal to debasement and humiliation to an actual butt. So we’re presenting a panoply of ass shots this week, with a greater emphasis on sodomy. But those of you who aren’t butt fans (even though such a person is scarcely imaginable), fear not! There will also be severed limbs. MORE »

By the Comics Curmudgeon
Generally speaking, most Americans can barely be bothered to vote during important elections — you know, the ones with years divisible by four! It’s even harder getting them off of their Dorito-stained couches to cast their ballots when it’s a year that’s an even number that isn’t divisible by four, and when we’re talking odd-numbered years, well, you can just totally forget about that. I realize that all this math is way, way beyond what most Americans can handle, and yet through some instinct, they can distinguish; my theory is that they can tell how important an election is by the volume of the shouting from the glowing picture-box in the living room. Anyway, despite widespread apathy, there were several elections yesterday, and so, by Journalism Law, a few unlucky cartoonists were forced to briefly stop drawing insightful Balloon Boy cartoons to deal with them. After the jump: the goriest political cartoon in human history. MORE »

By the Comics Curmudgeon
What is the most amusing part of the human anatomy? While there are a lot to choose from, I’d have to say the butt, mostly because asses and humor occupy the exact same overlap in the Venn diagram between “sexy” and “gross.” Because our dying media establishment is still clinging to antiquated concepts like “dignity” and “morals” and “for Christ’s sake people don’t want to see naked asses in the newspaper,” most political cartoons do not feature naked asses per se (though there are horrifying exceptions). Nevertheless, political cartoons cannot resist the laugh riot that even the fully clothed booty brings to the table. MORE »

FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST STOP WRITING TO US ABOUT THIS. STOP IT. RIGHT NOW. [ABC News via TPMtv]

The scary thing is, Angela Merkel’s thinking of George Bush’s butt too. It’s a mutual gluteal admiration society. MORE »

Dick and Condi were, too. Photos from last week, when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the White House:

Sorry for not blogging about this earlier! Guess we were asleep at the blogging wheel. Or maybe we were just “looking at our notes.”

(The Condi photo, by the way, lends support to the rumor that our superwoman Secretary of State occasionally naps at her desk.)

Also in the “we-meant-to-blog-about-this-last-week” file: the paparazzi shots of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bare butt (or, as the British tabloid The Sun referred to it, her “Bumdestag”). Photographers grabbed the shot while Chancellor Merkel changed into her bathing suit.

(After the jump, a not-safe-for-the-workplace photo of the German rump parliament. WARNING: Before clicking on the “More” button below, make sure your boss isn’t around.)

President Hu’s White House Visit [AFP/Getty Images]
ASSleep with the Fishes [PerezHilton]
Should Cheney Be Next? [Froomkin!]
Merkel’s Long, Strange Honeymoon [Newsweek]

MORE »