Cartoon Saturday

Welcome to December ... the inauguration is only a month away. And in other bad news ...

Transition amateur hour continues, as President-Elect Trump had a telephone conversation with the president of Taiwan, changing long-standing US policy on the fly without State Department advice and needlessly angering the Chinese government; astronaut Buzz Aldrin has been successfully evacuated from the South Pole after suffering a medical emergency during a visit; nearly 2,000 Iraqi troops and thousands of civilians have been killed in the bitter campaign to rid the country of fighters associated with Daesh, the so-called "Islamic State;" Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, who had claimed he would rule "for a billion years, if God wills it," learned that neither God nor Gambian voters did not will it, voting him out of office after 20 years in power; and 71 people, including most of a popular local football squad, were killed in a plane crash in Colombia.

We all need something to take our minds off the rolling circus of the Trump presidential transition, and so - because President Harry Truman allegedly once said that if you need a friend in Washington, you should get a dog - here is a collection of cartoons about man's best friend ...

We lead off with two riffs on the same joke ...

and,

Elizabethan collars for dogs recovering from surgery are an endless source of cartoon opportunities, at the movies ...

the obvious joke ...

and the orchestral accompaniment to the usual mindless baying ...

Dogs are very intelligent and can adapt well to technology ...

Well, when in France ...

The standard Lassie cartoon, updated ...

Sometimes a dog just wants a pre-nup ...

I'm not sure how funny this one is, as I've actually seen it any number of times ...

I realize that, given the scale of the bad news that keeps pouring in, you could use a double dose of cartoons today, but I don't want to run the risk of running out. Sorry.

Later today, I will be headed down to Manassas for the annual Christmas parade, in which our granddaughters Leya and Elise will be marching along with their friends from the climbing gym. Agnes, sadly, is down for maintenance with a terrible cold and sinus infection and won't be able to make the trip, so I'll have to do double grandparent duty and take lots of pictures.

How is your Christmas shopping coming? If you still need a copy of my wish list, let me know. The first wave of our Christmas letters was mailed yesterday, and my plan for this weekend is to get the rest of the letters done and the cards addressed so they can go into the mail on Monday. The tree is up and decorated, too. I think for once we've got a handle on this ... except for the shopping which, as ever, is still behind schedule. Oh, well ...

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

Bilbo