“The most specific, persuasive case I’ve seen for more Fed action comes from Joseph Gagnon, a former Fed staffer now at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Basing his analysis on the prior work of none other than Mr. Bernanke himself, in his previous incarnation as an economic researcher, Mr. Gagnon urges the Fed to expand credit by buying a further $2 trillion in assets. Such a program could do a lot to promote faster growth, while having hardly any downside.” -Paul Krugman

Krugmoron.

If you’re in Minneapolis on Friday check out the Big Funny opening reception. I, personally, will be in Chicago cooking pancakes for weary travelers.

Friday August 7, 2009 7pm-11pm
Show runs August 7-29, 2009

Gallery Hours
Saturdays 1pm-5pm
Tuesdays & Thursdays 1pm-7pm

Altered Esthetics
1224 Quincy Street NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413.
612.378.8888

cartoonistconspiracy.com/bigfunny

About Big Funny
(Things about the project you may not know that we think are cool.)

* Big Funny, at 48 ginormous pages, features the work of 47 contributing artists.

* Only 2,000 copies were printed!

* The project was coordinated entirely by volunteers, who have contributed 1,000 hours to the project to date.

* Big Funny was printed locally in Minnesota.

* The newspaper size, (16″ wide by 22-3/4″ tall with an image area of 15″ wide by 21-1/2″), is true to an original newspaper from the 1910-30’s eras.

* Proceeds earned from Big Funny benefit two affiliated groups: Altered Esthetics, a nonprofit arts organization that works to support artists and The International Cartoonist Conspiracy, a community of comic artists.

* Artist submissions were open to all and chosen democratically by the editorial review panel.

* The original Big Funny Logo was designed by editor Steven Stwalley. The Big Funny Logo featured on the cover of the paper was hand drawn by editor Zander Cannon, and features all the characters from inside the paper itself.

* Even the ads in Big Funny are cool! The ads for sponsors on the back of the paper were hand-drawn by editor Kevin Cannon, with the words for “the Source” ad penned by editor Steven Stwalley. The classifieds feature a mix of original limericks, artist bios, vintage ads from old comics and more.

* Big Funny arrived to the gallery on two ginormous pallets and copies were hand-loaded by the editors to a super secret location to be stored until the day of the opening. Copies of Big Funny narrowly avert both floods and theft while they wait to be released this Friday, August 7th.

Big Funny: A celebration of the Newspaper Comic Strip!

The 48-page oversized newspaper will premiere at Altered Esthetics this Friday featuring poster-sized comic artwork from 47 artists.

In addition to having copies of BIG FUNNY for sale ($5 each), the opening reception will include:

* Original artwork from the publication,

* examples of historic comics pages (some over a century old),

* a retrospective of unseen comic artwork by William Ede,

* live music from The Roe Family Singers and

* the little funny sideshow- a vintage cigarette machine repurposed to vend mini-comics and comic art!

I am a grumpy old man, so I am naturally both grumpy and old. To my surprise I found the following strip (Scary Gary) in the Saturday Chicago Tribune (not in color of course, and with each panel about the size of a milk bottle cap):

Are we at the point now where so few children read the funny pages that you can have a character say “Oh, SH**” in a comic strip? Time for a strongly worded letter.

Goldman Sachs (GS Quote) and Morgan Stanley (MS Quote), along with four energy trading firms, have bought equity interests in the Dubai Mercantile Exchange…

TheStreet.com, August 11, 2008

I’m just going to replace “traders” with “rapists” in this passage from the New York Times.

Craig S. Donohue, the chief executive of the CME Group, which owns both the Chicago Merc and the Nymex, denied that the volatility stemmed from financial rapists. He also defended the so-called rape funds that have enjoyed explosive growth in the last several years.

“Blaming rapists for high prices diverts attention from the real causes of rising prices and does not contribute to a solution,” Mr. Donohue told the commission. He warned that federal volume limits on financial rapists could make things worse for consumers.

….

“The market for rape is global,” Mr. Donohue said, “and there is nothing to prevent market activity from migrating to those platforms that are beyond the commission’s and beyond the Congress’s reach.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/business/energy-environment/29oil.html?hp

If you try to stop us, you’ll only hurt yourself because we’ll do the same thing somewhere else. If you put curbs on emissions here, you’ll only hurt yourself because we’ll build a factory somewhere else where they let us pollute freely. If you try to increase the minimum wage, we’ll only go somewhere where there isn’t a minimum wage at all. If you try to unionize, we’ll move to a country where unionizers are imprisoned.

Kurt Froehlich, mandolin man for the Roe Family Singers, moonlighting on Make TV as “Banjo Kurt”:
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/05/make_television_episode_10.html

Julia Vickerman out in HollywoodLand takes time out from her international travels to paint:
http://juliavickerman.tumblr.com/post/144257905/the-orphan-and-the-kingpin
http://juliavickerman.tumblr.com/post/144249669/harley-and-mister-j-one-of-the-two-things-i-did

About those TouchBooks? July’s almost over, don’t pull an OpenPandora.
http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/

Seems like HR 1207 might help. At the least, Ron Paul has a sense of humor:

(a) In General- Subsection (b) of section 714 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking all after ‘shall audit an agency’ and inserting a period.

Good stuff. Subsection (b) of section 714 of title 31 can be found here. It’s basically a list saying you can only audit the FRB/B, FDIC, and Office of Comptroller of the Currency if they let you, and then if they do let you, you can’t ask them any questions. No shit, seriously. There’s a list of questions you can’t ask them. They should have included a list of questions you could ask:

(1) Nice day, eh?

(2) How ’bout them Yankees?

And yes, Michelle Bachmann is a co-sponsor of HR 1207 so it’s final form may include provisions to prevent the government from pulling thoughts out of your head.