Havin' Some Fun With Bruce "Mallard" Tinsley

[Bark Bark Bark]

Bruce Tinsley is pompous enough to thank his loyal readers for supporting him in his quest "to speak truth to power" with his idiotic strip, "Mallard Fillmore."

Here's the text of his Saturday (April 23) strip:

At the request of some of our readers, we're considering providing you with a series of sweet, treacly, warm, fuzzy cartoons "more suitable for the comics page"...which we'll do as soon as we figure out how to incorportate those things into our concerns about a culture that starves its weakest members to death. Stay tuned...

"Prickly City" isn't THIS stupid. And it's pretty damn stupid.

ANYWAY. Poor Widdle Brucie thinks he's smart, but he left himself wide open. Because "a culture that starves its weakest members to death" is open to more than one interpretation.

I wrote to Bruce ([e-mail]) and thanked him. Thanked him for being brave enough to stand up for the millions of Americans below the poverty level who are starving while Halliburton lives high on the hog.

I smile as I imagine Bruce reading that.

If you'd like to have some fun too, I have some alternative suggestions. Remember, it's more fun to pretend you're a fan:

(1) Ask him why he suddenly hates America--the "culture" he disdains.
(2) Tell him you'll be printing the strip in your Communist newsletter, and thanks.
(3) Beg him to keep on the subject. Ask him to draw Terri Schiavo at least once a week; when he doesn't, ask him why he's chickened out.
(4) Ask him why he suddenly supports Big Government (or "the nanny state" as he likes to call it) over state's rights. "Yew ain't turnin' liberul, is yew?"
(5) See if he'll burn Delay for pulling the plug on Poppy.

Don't forget to cite or quote the strip mentioned above. And if you have more suggestions, post, please.

Maybe Brucie will defecate himself to death. Now THAT would be comical.

http://salmonriver.com/issues/mallard/ It doesn't have the actual strip--that's probably what got Boss-Tweed.com burned when it dissected "Mallard"--but if you're interested...

[DIKB]

1. Wrote

a VERY angry letter. I follow his strip, simply in an ATTEMPT to understand the fascist views of this country.

I really hope he writes back, doubt he will though. I don't think he has the balls to really confront an opposing opinion.

[dbt]

2. How DELICIOUSLY evil!

I like the way your mind works, Bark Bark Bark. GOOD Dawg!

[Clark2008]

3. Couldn't figure out his strip from yesterday

It had that damn duck calling up NOW and telling them that studies show that, "apples to apples, women make as much as men, if not more," and then had the NOW women hanging up on him.

However, the statement in quotes above had an asterick after it, with no cooresponding asterick at the end or bottom of the strip explaining itself and/or pointing to whatever small line he gleaned out of some obsure article somewhere.

Every woman I know, on average, makes less money than males in my area. I'm betting that asterick was SUPPOSED to say something like, "* in Boston" or "* in New York City," or "* in most blue states, but never in red states and it certainly not indicative of the whole."

I should write him and ask him why he hates women - the vessels of the "culture of life."

Thanks for the email. I've always wanted to write and ask him if he every listens to anything besides Faux News for his alleged info.

[JHB]

6. It's in the third panel (the one with the click), sideways...

...pointing to a John Leo column of 3/21:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/050321/21john.htm
Oh, really? The Census Bureau did find that women earned 76 cents for every dollar paid to a male (now up to 80 cents on the dollar), but that was a raw number, not adjusted for comparable jobs and responsibility. A new book, Why Men Earn More by Warren Farrell, goes further, examining a broad array of wage statistics. His conclusion: When reasonable adjustments are made, women earn just as much as men, and sometimes more.

Naturally, the scribbler for the Lame Duck sees no irony in taking someone else's second-hand interpretation of statistics as holy writ.

See my other post below for more.

[JHB]

4. The Lame Duck has moved on to other talking points

This week he's doing his usual "I'm waiting for Liberals to apologize...and waiting...and waiting..." bit, this time over the "Women make 70-odd% as much as men for the same work" claim.

As it happens, I have my doubts about that claim too, and whether those statistics really compare (I hate to repeat the quack here) apples and apples, rather than apples and oranges (or at least Macintosh and granny apples).

Tinsley, of course, doesn't merely question, he quotes as gospel a John Leo column, which in turn quotes a Warren Farrell book.

I haven't read this particular book by Farrell, but I have read a few of his previous ones. My own thought is that Farrell has a tendency to be right up to a point, but he just about always overblows it. Which is not a good thing to do when you're claiming someone else is overblowing their rhetoric.

Excuse me while while I start a strip about a crabby old hermit searching for an honest Republican activist...

[HughBeaumont]

5. Isn't that the guy who draws everyone's face like a human foot?

Someone needs to take his Sharpie away. Leave the comedy and metaphor to people who know what they're doing.