Musical Sunday

One of my favorite musical artists, going back many years, is English singer/songwriter Charlie Dore, perhaps best remembered for her 1979 hit "Pilot of the Airwaves," which I used as my theme song back when I was doing my radio show shortly after Marconi invented the medium. 

I've always loved her lyrics, and her voice has mellowed beautifully over the years. Today, I offer one of her newer tracks from her wonderful CD "Like Animals." It's appropriate for this moment in our history, when we all feel ... damaged.

And here are the lyrics, by Charlie Dore and Julian Littman - 

There was a man who didn’t care, he didn’t care

as long as there were rules to defy

And so, unfettered by self doubt

with confidence with confidence he rose high

And he could sense the deference in leaden-footed duffers

when they realised

he feared no-one

And he remembered drinking games

in college days, in college days

they wish he’d forgotten

But when a man can hold his drink

while others duck

he doesn’t blink

at men gone rotten

And when the climate is of fear

it’s fun to be the puppeteer

behind the curtain

just pulling the strings

No matter how strong

They always fall

He flicks off the dust

They’re just collateral

He loved to make the dials spin

Adrenaline, adrenaline

from the beginning

He had a wife, he had a child

but nothing made his pulse go wild

like winning

And when the herd is slow and thick

It’s fun to be the maverick

and watch them turning

Just cracking the whip

No matter how strong

They always fall

He flicks off the dust

They’re just collateral

Oh my children, wait for me

I’m only breaking the glass

so you can see

He wrote his book on strategy

Now just a curiosity

A mark of his time

His words, once so inspiring

now have a kind of hollow ring

But one thing still chimes

As sure as bankers hide their wealth

A younger version of yourself

Will soon be waiting

‘Cause you’re collateral

Just collateral.

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. Try not to become anyone's collateral damage.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

January sucked. February sucked. March is trying very hard to suck more.

Der Furor's war of choice and distraction with Iran was off to a flying start as three United States fighter aircraft were shot down ... by Kuwaiti air defenses; the Justice Department wants to intervene in state bar associations’ disciplinary proceedings against its lawyers, afraid that attorneys who follow questionable orders of  administration officials could be punished by legal ethics organizations and lose their ability to practice law; Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was fired by Der Furor and eased into a previously nonexistent job as "Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas," whatever that is; the House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi over her role in releasing files related to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his associates; and in a meeting at what's left of the White House on Wednesday, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and several artificial intelligence companies signed a pledge to bear the cost of new electricity generation to power their data centers ... in a related development, pigs flew.

Because it would take a magician to sort out the wreckage Der Furor and his cronies have made of the government and the nation (not to mention the world), I thought a collection of cartoons about magicians would be in order. And better yet, a collection of cartoons about magicians who specialize in sawing people in half, without necessarily planning for how to put them back together ...

At least it's a job unlikely to be replaced by AI any time soon ...

Stat!! ...

&%#$! paywalls ...

Solomon would approve ...

What gave it away? ...

I can relate ...

Uh, oh ...

This is going to complicate the therapy ...

Abracadabra, YAAAAHHHH! ...

Perhaps she should have suggested it sooner ...

Wouldn't it be nice if there were some magical incantation that would restore competence to our government ... or, at least, if there were magicians who fix failed tricks?

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when one of my favorite singers offers a timely tune about collateral damage. See you then.

Bilbo

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for March, 2026

It grieves me to say, friends, that I am near to giving up on the Augean stable-level task of separating the chaff from the chaff to select these Ass Clown Awards. The sheer number of eligible recipients, coupled with the staggering level of ass clownery they represent and the damage they do every day, makes both my brain and my heart hurt.

At the moment, it strikes me that many of the most eligible ass clowns in the upper levels of our government combine the worst features of two classic measures of misanthropy and ill will: the Seven Deadly Sins and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and so I have decided to combine the two for purposes of this award.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, I have decided to designate as 

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for March, 2026

The Seven Deadly Horse's Asses*

of the Political Apocalypse

I have written several times on the topic of the Seven Deadly Sins (one example here) and how they manifest themselves in today's political class, and I've also riffed on the fascinating topic of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (here). But I thought it would be interesting to combine them as a larger posse that encompasses more of the ugliness that has come to characterize our sad excuse for a government ...

Der Furor, the most proudly and ostentatiously corrupt president in my lifetime (if not our entire history), clearly is The Horse's Ass of Greed.

Hysterically bellicose, angrily chest-thumping Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is clearly The Horse's Ass of War.

Former Secretary of Homeland Security and new "Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas" (I am not making that up) Kristi Noem, famous for shooting her dog and for the brutal and unconstitutional treatment of illegal aliens (and anyone else who got in the way), is a shoo-in for The Horse's Ass of Cruelty.

Attorney General Pam Bondi's embarrassingly disrespectful and vituperative treatment of Members of Congress** at her most recent hearing puts her clearly in the saddle as The Horse's Ass of Wrath.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, who has done more to undermine public health than anyone since Typhoid Mary, gallops in as The Horse's Ass of Pestilence.

Although a strong case could be made for his boss, the Attorney General, to fill this slot, I believe that morally and ethically pliable FBI Director Kash Patel has earned the title of The Horse's Ass of Injustice.

And finally, rounding out our expanded Deadly Posse,

Proudly racist White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, relentless implementer of Project 2025's assault on immigration, both legal and illegal, is the runaway choice for The Horse's Ass of Intolerance.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, we have finally done it to ourselves by electing and enabling an administration of Biblical-level incompetence and casual evil, embodied by today's award-winning Seven Deadly Horse's Asses of the Political Apocalypse.

It's time to divert the electoral rivers to clean out a stable that would embarrass even Augeas.

Have a good day and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday, when we'll look at the trials and tribulations of bisected magicians' assistants. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

* The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a "horse's ass" as "a stupid or incompetent person." If the shoe fits ...

** Who, granted, have worked hard to earn a great deal of contempt on their own.

The True Foundation of the American Economy

It occurs to me, as we view the smoldering wreckage of what was once a thriving economy, that it's not only Der Furor who has no clue of the actual granite foundation of the American economy. It is not manufacturing, which was long ago offshored* in an attempt to increase profitability by reducing labor costs. It is not small businesses, which are routinely driven out of business by giant competitors. It is not trade, which is being strangled by Der Furor's fever dream of prosperity through tariffs. It is not agriculture, which is no longer profitable for individual farms.

The true foundation of the American economy is lawsuits. 

Consider just the number of lawsuits filed against Der Furor's administration. At the time of this writing, the Litigation Tracker of the online law and policy journal Just Security is following 673 (!) lawsuits opposing various actions taken by the GOP-led government**. In the words of opinion writer Jill Lawrence, writing in The Bulwark,

These lawsuits and legal complaints are a sinkhole of time and money that we’ll never get back. But they are essential, as are the countless lawyers, watchdog groups and others flooding the courts to defend—even save—American rights, freedoms, laws, values, science, and modernity itself.

According to a January, 2026 article in Reuters, the average hourly rate for attorneys arguing complex cases in federal courts can range from $400 to over $1,000 for experienced partners, while rates charged by top attorneys for high-stakes federal litigation can quickly exceed $3,000 per hour***. 

I don't think anyone is trying to - or even could - calculate the full cost to you and I (as taxpayers^† and as  consumers^††) of this towering mountain of litigation, but it must run to the tens of millions of dollars, with no end in sight. How much better could this staggering amount of money have been spent? How many schools and hospitals might have been funded? How many items of crumbling infrastructure could be repaired? How many new immigration judges could be hired to help adjudicate asylum cases?

Lawsuits. They're the true foundation of the economy, but you have to be a lawyer to really benefit from them.

Have a good day, and try to avoid being sued, as difficult as that is nowadays.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* An awful term, indeed.

** A similar compilation and tracking done by the New York Times follows 650 lawsuits ... 20 fewer than the Just Security number, but still "respectable."

*** These are, of course, "billable hours," each of which can be a lot shorter than the traditional 60 minutes, depending on how the individual attorney calculates them. 

† You do realize that we're paying the tab for the government to respond to all these lawsuits, don't you?

†† Of course, you pay twice for the lawsuits - in your taxes that pay for the government's lawyers, and in higher consumer prices that pay for the lawyers on the other side.

Poetry Sunday

Every morning when I get up and see the image that glares back at me from the bathroom mirror, I wonder what it was that my wife saw in me. Unshaven, foul of breath, tousled of hair, and considerably bulkier than the manly stud I was 44 years ago, I thank the powers that installed the compensating filters in my beloved's eyes.

This poem by Ada Limón says it all ...

Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance

by Ada Limón

Sometimes, I think you get the worst

of me. The much-loved loose forest green 

sweat pants, the long bra-less days, hair 

knotted and uncivilized, a shadowed brow 

where the devilish thoughts do their hoofed 

dance on the brain. I'd like to say this means 

I love you, the stained white cotton t-shirt, 

the tears, pistachio shells, the mess of orange 

peels on my desk, but it's different than that.

I move in this house with you, the way I move 

in my mind, unencumbered by beauty's cage.

I do like I do in the tall grass, more animal-me 

than much else. I'm wrong, it is that I love you, 

but it's more that when you say it back, lights 

out, a cold wind through curtains, for maybe 

the first time in my life, I believe it.

Happily, I think that devilish thoughts do their hoofed dance on her brain as well.

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

As glad as I was to be done with January, I'm even happier to be done with February ...

"The President of Peace" launched Operation "Epic Fury," his latest distraction from other bad news, executing widespread attacks on Iran; continuing his tradition of nominating utterly unqualified individuals to key positions, Der Furor has nominated for Surgeon General Casey Means, an "influencer" who has never completed a residency or  practiced medicine, and refused to endorse measles vaccination in a time the disease is raging; the Cuban government says that the 10 passengers on a boat that opened fire on its soldiers were armed Cubans living in the U.S. who were trying to infiltrate the island and unleash terrorism; FBI Director Kash Patel has fired agents who helped investigate Der Furor's hoarding of classified documents after leaving office; and in Laporte, Pennsylvania, a husband and wife were both taken into custody and each was charged with simple assault and harassment after hitting each other over the head with frying pans during a domestic dispute.

This week, we acknowledge the administration's latest ploy to divert attention from the Epstein Files - the release of government files on UFOs and extraterrestrial visits.   

I think there's a strong possibility that this is how it started ...

I wouldn't doubt it ...

It's a reasonable conclusion ...

One wonders ...

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!! ...

Me, too ...

This is definitely how first contact would go down nowadays ...

The morning after can sometimes be worse than usual ...

This would be me ...

Mr Hegseth rallies the leadership to oppose the alien invasion ...

Somehow, I doubt Mexico will pay for a wall to keep these aliens out.

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when Poetry Sunday returns. See you then.

Bilbo

Great Moments in Editing and Signage

It's the last collection of the month ... get 'em while they're hot!

When even the dogs are worried, it's time to check in with my broker ...

The gold and myrrh must be in the next aisle ...

Well, that makes it much clearer ...

I like majestic ass biscuits and I cannot lie ...

We'll get to the bottom of who made this sign ...

I guess it's a dead end ...

He was a good man, and delicious to the end ...

What you can eat when you run out of pastors ...

What the "alpha males" eat ...

Given how many shots police tend to fire once they draw their weapons, I wonder if they carry Swiss Army knives to have enough blades ...

Hope you enjoyed the collection, and the month.

Have a good day and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday, when we take a look at the real alien problem ... more thoughts then.

Bilbo

Assessing Democratic Chances

This year's midterm elections will give us an early idea of how the 2028 presidential race will shape up. At the moment, Der Furor's abysmal ratings hint at the possibility of a blue tsunami ... unless, of course, the Democrats manage once again to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

As you know, Dear Readers, I have nothing but disdain and disgust for today's Republican Party, which long ago jettisoned any rational social, economic, and diplomatic policies in exchange for a parade of the most proudly ignorant leaders in our history. For a sadly entertaining history of the party's relentless intellectual decline*, read Andy Borowitz's brilliant Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber. 

Yes, the midterms and the 2028 presidential elections are the Democrats' to lose ... unfortunately, past history indicates that they will try hard to do it, in any number of ways. Here are the four big ones I see:

1. Choosing an unelectable candidate. As much as we might wish it were otherwise, a majority of Americans will not vote for a candidate - no matter how spectacularly qualified - who is: (1) female; (2) gay**; (3) not "Christian***;" (4) not white; (5) too old; or (6) any combination of these. The unfortunate truth is that most of the obvious potential Democratic candidates fall into one or more of these categories ... think Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris (female), Pete Buttigieg (gay), Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro (Jewish), Senator Cory Booker (black), and Senator Bernie Sanders (overly long in the tooth).

2. Overexplaining. Most American voters have the attention span of a two-year-old. They are not interested either in detailed histories and explanations of why problems exist or the complicated details of the policies that will fix them. They want simple, comforting slogans - think "Make America Great Again" - and just assume that the desired solutions will follow. Republicans learned long ago that a message that doesn't fit on a foot-wide bumper sticker in a huge and colorful font doesn't sell; Democrats make the mistake of trying to squeeze the finest of fine print onto a smaller sticker. Learn to explain complicated issues in brief terms your audience understands.

3. Ignoring the obvious. It didn't work for Biden and it's not working for Der Furor. Don't deny the truth of what people can see in their daily lives. Affordability is a crisis. Housing (availability and affordability) is a crisis. Health care (availability and affordability) is a crisis. Energy is a crisis, particularly as it's been aggravated by a foolish GOP campaign against renewable sources. Don't tell us everything's fine, tell us what you're going to do to fix the problems we all can see ... and do it in plain, non-wonky English.

4. Advocating programs while ignoring their costs. The answer to a stubborn problem is not always a new program, especially if that program has a hefty price tag and no clear source of funding. Democrats historically have a "tax and spend" approach to issues, as opposed to Republicans, whose approach is "don't tax, but spend anyway." Don't advocate anything without a realistic plan for how you'll fund it, and don't rely simply on new or higher taxes as the basis of that plan. Accept that painful tradeoffs are as  necessary for governments as they are for working class couples at the kitchen table trying to pay the bills.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Republicans (whatever that label means any more) have clearly demonstrated the bankruptcy of their ideas. Democrats must do better. The upcoming elections are theirs to lose.

Have a good day, and think carefully about what sort of future you want to vote for in the midterms and in the presidential election.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Don't get your panties in a wad, MAGAts - he roasts the Democrats, too, but for being too intellectual.

** I understand that "gay" does not cover the vast range of sexual self-identification terms that are piling up around us, but it's less cumbersome than "LGBTQIA+. I think you understand my meaning.

*** We can quibble about how much of a "Christian" Der Furor is, but he appeals to MAGA "Christians" because he hates the same people they do.

Musical Sunday

No matter how crazy things get, there are those who can find fun in the lunacy. The Parody Project nails it once again with "Monkeys on a Big, Blue, Spinning Ball," their takeoff on the tune "Faniculi, Fanicula" ...

"We're just a bunch of monkeys on a big, blue spinning ball." Got that right ...

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Well, we've survived another week of Der Furor's destructive chaos ... more or less.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed by Der Furor under the aegis of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, enraging the President who said he will impose an alternative global 10% tariff by executive order while seeking other means to unilaterally usurp Congress's authority; civil rights icon Reverend Jesse Jackson and famed actor Robert Duvall both passed away this week; fallout from the release of some of the Epstein files continues (but not in the US) as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew of the UK, was arrested on charges of using his position as a UK trade envoy to pass confidential information to Jeffrey Epstein; the first meeting of Der Furor's "Board of Peace" took place in Washington, DC, on Thursday, with member nations pledging $7 billion toward Gaza reconstruction and Der Furor promising $10 billion of US taxpayer money (not approved by Congress) for unspecified purposes; and in California, a Fresno man was arrested for the 36th time (!) on charges of evading police, reckless driving and probation violations, not to mention outstanding warrants connected to robbery, domestic violence, violating a protection order, and dissuading a victim from testifying ... oddly enough, he appears to be a United States citizen and not a criminal alien.

This week, because I love to cook, a collection of cartoons about cooking ... 

The time estimates on most recipes assume you have a reinforced platoon of assistants to get your mise en place* ready before you even enter the kitchen ... 

I know everyone has a cupboard like this ...

As I suspected ...

Well, why not? ...

Been there, done that, got the apron ...

I think I know ...

This is precisely how it feels! Escher would have understood ...

It doesn't work exactly like this at our house ... when I cook, my wife hovers and provides advice that usually starts with "why didn't you (fill in the blank)?" ...

He left out the taster ...

I feel the same way ...

And that's it for today's cooking-centered Cartoon Saturday ... are you hungry yet?

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when Musical Sunday once again visits the Parody Project. See you then.

Bilbo

* "Mise en place" is French for "get your shit together."