The Millage of God Grinds Slowly

John Auchter, 5/10/11:

For those of us not living in that bustling center of commerce that is Grand Rapids, Michigan, a "millage" is a dedicated piece of the property tax that goes to a local mass transit system. A popular vote recently increased that tax.

I'm sorry, I'll read that again: a popular vote recently increased that tax, which is not particularly popular with the car-driving suburbanites who voted against the measure.

From All According to Their Gas-Tanks, To All According to Their Voting Shares

John Sherffius, 5/12/11:

Plus five points for attempting a clever pun on "oil" and "socialism".

Minus seven hundred for the word "socoilism."

Is This One of the Four Boxes Used to Defend Liberty?

Lisa Benson, 5/12/11:

Those rascally Democrats have locked up Immigration Reform in a giant Ballot Box, and are using it to lure unsuspecting citizens in so that they can...do what, exactly?

And are the people being lured supposed to represent Latinos -- that first guy's mustache, maybe? -- or the kind of upstanding Orange County Republicans Benson usually aims her cartoons at?

And what kind of Immigration reform is it that we would have had without a ballot box? Is Benson advocating for some undemocratic diktat?

Good editorial cartoons don't leave the reader guessing as to the cartoonist's intentions. Nice labels, though.

Save the Whales; Feed them bin Laden

Scott Stantis, 5/12/11:

There's a deep philosophical argument that could be had about Americans growing tolerance for torture -- even though we all pretty much know it doesn't work in real life the way it does on 24 -- and how that correlates with our off-and-on love affair with quick and easy, "bullet through the brain" solutions to geopolitical problems.

This cartoon, on the other hand, is happy just to snicker, "Even hippies wanted bin Laden dead," and call it a day.