Sunday morning toons: Good fences make good neighbors

(Hat-tip to Pat Oliphant, below, for lifting the line from Robert Frost.) Yup, no doubt about it: Nothing makes allies feel like allies like intercepting their leaders' phone calls.

And, I could be wrong about this – and lord knows I'm not in a very forgiving mood about Obama these days – but didn't the NSA hanky-panky with German Chancellor Merkel's phone, as leaked by Edward Snowdon, happen during the wild-west reign of Obama's predecessor? Yeah, thought so.

Today's toons from the pages of McClatchy DC, Cartoon Movement, Go Comics, Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoons, About.com, Politico's Cartoon Carousel, and other fine sources.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Jack Ohman, Steve Breen, Lisa Benson, Matt Davies, Rob Rogers, Clay Bennett, Jeff Danziger, Tom Toles, Lee Judge, Adam Zyglis, Signe Wilkinson, Mario Piperni, Matt Wuerker, Jen Sorenson, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best in Show: Pat Oliphaunt.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (tie): David Fitzsimmons, Pat Bagley, Kevin Seirs and Gary Varvel.

p3 World Toon Review: Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Luojie (China), Petar Pismestrovic (Austria), and Alfredo Martirena (Cuba).


Ann Telnaes has identified a major American health care concern.


Don't tell the Tea Partiers! Mark Fiore has horrifying news: The ACA online rollout for signing up wasn't the first glitch-plagued government start-up.


Taiwan's Next Media Animation may have discovered America's greatest health-care problem.


Tom Tomorrow asks: How is Tea Party logic like a puncture-proof tire? Because they both patch their holes from the inside!


Taking a page from Lex Luthor's playbook, Keith Knight discusses the relationship of plate tectonics and urban housing.


Tom the Dancing Bug presents, among other things, Twist-Ending Funnies. We promise you won't see this one coming!


Red Meat's Ted Johnson has a lesson for the kids.


The Cartoon Curmudgeon discovers the unthinkablein a Lockhorns cartoon.


I dunno, but did you ever have the feelin' you was bein' . . . watched? As a Halloween treat, here's the return to p3 of “Hair-Raising Hare,” directed in 1946 by Chuck Jones, written by Tedd Pierce, with Portland's own Mel Blanc supplying the voices for Bugs, the Peter Lorre-ish evil scientist, and Gossamer the monster (yes, that's his name; you can look it up). Musical director Carl Stalling had a lot of fun with this soundtrack: Bugs sings “Sweet Dreams, Sweetheart,” originally sung by Kitty Carlisle in “Stage Door Canteen” (1944), the packing-to-go music is “California Here I Come,” the lamp-shade exit music is “Shuffle Off to Buffalo,” and of course the theme for the wind-up mechanical rabbit fembot is “Oh, You Beautiful Doll.” (Anyone recognize the music from the manicure scene? Or Bugs' exit song “Oh, I'm headin' for my beddin' where I'll lay down for the night”?)

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The Not as Big as We're Hoping For Oregon Toon Block:

Matt Bors knows when to draw the line.

Jesse Springer looks at the state of play for health care reform in Oregon so far.

Test your toon captioning mojo at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here).