Cartoon Saturday

First things first ... Ol' Bilbo is once again a grandfather! Meet my beautiful new as-yet-to-be-named granddaughter. She arrived yesterday afternoon, measuring 7 pounds, 13 ounces and 19.5 inches long:

With any luck, Congress will have managed to pass a budget by the time she graduates from college.

Now, on with the rest of the show ...

Israel and Hamas continue to hammer at each other as the Middle East once again edges closer to all-out war; Congress continues to pick at its Benghazi scab, hoping to find something with which to embarrass the administration; in Egypt, 47 children were reported killed when a school bus crashed through a barrier and was hit by an oncoming train; Apple has been granted a patent on the "virtual page turn" feature used in its iBooks electronic reader function; and China has selected the leaders who will guide the country through the next ten years of arguing with its neighbors over ownership of Tibet, small islands in the South China Sea, and Taiwan.

Maybe we could just convince the Chinese that Palestine is a long-lost part of China, and then let them sort it all out.

But enough of all that ... on with the cartoons!

How about a pair of awful puns to start with? ....

And ...

The GOP is still reeling from its wildly optimistic, yet totally wrong predictions of the outcome of the presidential election. How about a few cartoons dealing with fortune tellers? ...

And ...

And ...

And finally ...

Changes we might expect to see as the health care industry looks for new ways to cut costs ...

Restaurants are also looking for ways to cut costs ...

Mother Goose for the 21st century ...

And we round things off for this week with a look at the sort of work day I usually have ...

And that's it for this issue of Cartoon Saturday. It's time to get started with our first Thanksgiving dinner, which will be served later this afternoon. As you may recall, we usually do two Thanksgivings each year ... the first a week ahead of time for the family, and the second on Thanksgiving Day for our friends. Is it any wonder that I'm a bit more ... uh ... rotund than I used to be?

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo