Cartoon Saturday

And another week goes down the drain of history ...

91 people have been killed and hundreds injured in apparent terrorist attacks in Norway; Republicans have once again walked out of debt reduction negotiations with President Obama ... and House Speaker John Boehner will not even return the President's phone calls; bail has been set at $1 million for a California woman accused of cutting off her husband's manly part and tossing it into the garbage disposal; 41 persons are believed to have been killed in a bus fire in China; and the National Zoo in Washington, DC, has announced that giant panda Mei Xiang is not pregnant. In a related story, House Republicans immediately added "confirmed panda pregnancy" to their list of demands for a deal to increase the debt ceiling.

Yes, another week in the whirling cesspool of Disneyland-on-the-Potomac comes to an end. Aren't you glad we have Cartoon Saturday to help you get over it?

On top of everything else, the weather has been extraordinarily hot here in Northern Virginia. How hot was it ...?

The Borders Bookstore chain finally went out of business this week, having been unable either to develop a good business model for the print-vs-digital economy or find a buyer for the company. Which leads us to a series of cartoons about books ...

And ...

And, for reading in those locations where you may not want to risk dropping your book or your electronic reader into an unfortunate spot ...

We can't let a week go by without a few cartoons featuring awful puns ...

And ...

The search for a compromise debt reduction agreement between Congress and the White House has been complicated by the need to find a way that doesn't anger any political constituency, and that allows everyone involved to avoid any personal responsibility for the action or its consequences. This may be an accurate picture of the behind-closed-doors negotiations...

There are probably going to be job openings on Capitol Hill sooner than we think, but who would be the right choices to fill them? Hmmm ...

There are many ways to interpret the old expression, "It's a dog's life." Nessa asked me to post this one ...

And finally, we have yet another cartoon going out to everyone's favorite 14th-century maiden, craziequeen ...

And so it goes for another week. It's still miserably hot and humid outside, which isn't conducive to doing any work in the yard (which, nevertheless, desperately needs it), so I may try to spend the day in the air-conditioned house trying to convince my new iPad to talk to my old wireless keyboard. Geeks on Parade! - film at 11.

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo