Cartoons: Crimea and winter

There's a lot of news about Putin annexing Crimea, and sanctions against it, and who-did-what-and-why.  Even Sergei Khrushchev, son of Nikita Khrushchev, is weighing in--he's writing a series of articles titled "Crimea: Whose land is this?" Note that it's published by Aljazeera (link resolves to the American edition) and that he clearly has a chip on his shoulder for the U.S.:

In Washington DC, the best minds of the Obama administration were feverishly thinking how else to make it more difficult for the recalcitrant citizens of Crimea. They will definitely think of something since they have a lot of experience in doing so. After all, Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians, Libyans and the Lebanese have long stopped celebrating.

Here's what some of the political cartoonists are saying.

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Jimmy Margulies, USA Today

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Walt Handelsman, US News

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Steve Sack, The Week

Meanwhile, on the winter front--

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Bob Englehart, The Week

-- Marge

Cartoons: Extreme weather and El Niño

Believe it or not November 2013 was the warmest year on record globally, according to a TIME magazine article (subscription needed to read the full item), "El Niño Is On Its Way:"

For many Americans, 2013 ended with an unusually bitter cold snap. Late November and December saw early snow and bone-chilling temperatures in much of the country, part of a year when--for the first time in two decades--record-cold days will likely turn out to have outnumbered record-warm ones. But the U.S. was the exception: November was the warmest ever globally, and the provisional data indicates that 2013 is likely to have been the fourth-hottest year on record.

Enjoy the snow now, because chances are good that 2014 will be even hotter--perhaps the hottest year since records have been kept. That's because, scientists are predicting, 2014 will be an El Niño year.

With the coming heat in mind, here are a few cartoon celebrating (sort of) cold and snow.

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Dave Granlund, Cagle

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Jimmy Margulies, Cagle

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Randy Bish, Cagle

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Had enough?

-- Marge

An oily Friday in cartoons

It's been a month now and I still can't believe that Exxon not only fathered yet another oil spill, but they also suppressed reporting on it.  In fact, according to Grist.org, Exxon took or has taken over the town of Mayflower, Arkansas, as reported in the article, "Arkansas town in lockdown after oil spill nightmare."  If you've never heard of the magazine Grist, neither had I -- here's a list of the funders.

Living in Alaska and having seen how the oil companies operate first-hand (did you know that the U.S. still subsidizes them?), the news about Mayflower really chaps my hide. So I'm applying some cartoon vitriol as lubrication.

On second thought, not.  It seems all of the current oil spill cartoons that I saw earlier are gone.  Googling "oil spill editorial cartoons," I see only ones about the BP Gulf of Mexico spill.  Spooky.

Pulling some cartoons from the U.S. News' 2010 archive and making a few changes (my apologies to the artists for altering their works), I offer you the following:

Adapted from a Jack Ohman cartoon,

Adapted from a Gary Markstein cartoon,

One by Michael Ramirez and in its original form,

The next two are from other sites and specifically address the Mayflower spill.  The first is from  Matt Wuerker at Politico:

And this last one is by Jimmy Margulies; it was found at Cagle:

-- Marge