Cartoon Saturday

Oh, geez, just make it stop ...

In a speech in Nebraska, Der Furor ignited a firestorm when he suggested that Iran could "take out" US cities if it developed a nuclear weapon, saying "Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego,” and that "it would be a small price to pay; Margaret Hamilton, the math genius whose programming helped land astronauts safely on the moon, has died at the age of 90; Der Furor immediately a new round of tariffs against Canadian literature after Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson won the Nobel Prize in literature; Secretary of Defense (not War) Pete Hegseth announced that the execution by firing squad of convicted murderer and former Army Major Nidal Hasan will be and live-streamed and "public" - details to be announced; in the Peruvian town of Queropalca, voters chose Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores as their new mayor; and in (where else?) California, nine people were arrested for poaching huge numbers of Pismo Beach clams ... prosecution will likely be difficult, as the arrested suspects have resisted police interrogation by clamming up.

Our second Halloween season Cartoon Saturday features the quintessential fellow who wishes he could get good head - The Headless Horseman ...

I hope his insurance covers treatment by that specialist ...

I guess it's an understandable mistake ...

'Tis the season ... election, that is ...

Sometimes the technology isn't all it's cracked up to be ...

I can relate ...

Bottoms up! ...

The lab results are in ...

Well, it's one way to deal with junk calls ...

I guess he's graduated to hundreds of horses ...

Oops ...

And that's it for this year's Halloween season Cartoon Saturday salute to the Headless Horseman - I hope you enjoyed it.

Have a good day and a great weekend, and be sure to come back tomorrow for our first Halloween season Poetry Sunday and a visit with the great American poet Carl Sandburg. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

New month, new craziness ...

The Supreme Court has allowed the regime to continue deporting undesirable persons to third countries; Secretary of Defense (not War) Pete Hegseth continued his culture war on the Defense Department with a "no weirdos, no beardos, more testosterone testing" speech to junior officers at Quantico in which he also claimed that “The ideological clowns are out and the patriotic cowboys are in—with testosterone testing on top;” Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt beclowned himself and debased the Senate with a head-spinning attack on Special Prosecutor Jack Smith that went hilariously wrong; convicted murderer Christa Pike, set to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years, survived a botched execution attempt on Wednesday; and in Stretford, England, the cause of repeatedly-failing traffic lights was determined to be slugs that got into the control boxes and shorted out the signal controller ... they are apparently not related to the elected slugs which have shorted out the U.S. Congress.

This week kicks off our annual salute to the Halloween Season, with each Cartoon Saturday devoted to cartoons about a particular Halloween creature. This week, a look under the sheets at ghosts ...

Why just be spooky when you can look classy, too? 

I'm sure you remember the dreaded and hardly-missed "Clippy" ... 

Even the ghosts need to protect themselves from goose bumps ...

Darn those formal events ...

Ghosts Anonymous ...

After all these years, the truth comes out ...

The favorite ride at the ghostly amusement park ...

Things that go crunch in the night ...

Ghostly dating apps ...

The curse of static cling lasts beyond the grave ...

Boo!

That's it for our Cartoon Saturday salute to ghosts and the start of the Halloween season - I hope you enjoyed it.

Have a good day and a great weekend, and come back tomorrow for our first Halloween season Musical Sunday, featuring The Devil's Daughters - see you then.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Oh, for Pete's sake, when is this verkakte month going to end???

Der Furor delivered his usual sober and statesmanlike address at the U.N. General Assembly opening on Tuesday, saying that he needed to decide whether to strike a deal with Iranian leaders or “annihilate the Islamic republic;” the Trump Supreme Court ™ approved the regime to use a database that that combines citizenship information, Social Security numbers and other sensitive data about millions of Americans, to hunt for ineligible voters; Chinese autocrat Xi Jinping was greeted for a state visit to the United States with over-the-top pomp and ceremony by American wannabe autocrat Der Furor; and in (where else?) Florida, a man stopped for speeding (75 in a 65 mph zone) was arrested after police found an AK-47, 77 grams of methamphetamine, a digital scale, a glass pipe, and 11 pounds of illicitly-harvested saw palmetto berries in his vehicle.

This week, I was too lazy to curate a themed collection, so we'll just do a cartoon potpourri. 

You may need to be a history buff to get this one, but I think it's hilarious ...

This one is really clever ...

Mr Hegseth fired a few generals to make room for him ...

It's coming ...

I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was really in the fine print ...

When your chief advisor is a lovelorn creature named Natalie ...

Having spent a lot of game nights with my grandchildren, I can vouch for the accuracy of this cartoon ...

One of the funnier sight gags ...

Ink is about the only thing more expensive than gas and diesel nowadays ...

This isn't as funny as it ought to be ...

Was this enough to help you over the travails of the week? I hope so.

Have a good day and a great weekend, and come back tomorrow for the last Poetry Sunday of the month. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Good Lord, isn't this month over yet?

A Russian businessman with ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to help finance Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding after-party in the Bahamas this year; Der Furor downplayed growing concerns about unrestricted development of AI, claiming that all that is needed is "... a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!*"; the Supreme Court has rejected Der Furor's attempt to add new Postal Service restrictions on mail-in voting, at least for the upcoming midterm elections ... Der Furor is, as you might imagine, enraged; in response to continuing inflation, the Federal Reserve has raised the interest rate by a quarter point ... Der Furor is, as you might imagine, enraged; Der Furor has banned three news organizations - CNN, MS NOW, and Politico - from the White House, a petulant and blatantly unconstitutional action certain to be challenged in court; and in - where else? - Texas, a photo on the state sex offenders' registry of a convicted megachurch pastor shows him with a huge black eye, and his attorney has the world's best explanation of how he got it.

Since the country, under Der Furor's "management" and "leadership" is going to the dogs, I figured we might as well feature them this week ...

This one is a lot funnier than it ought to be ,,,

Uh, oh ...

This is the sort of medical advice I'd expect from RFK, Jr ...

Look closely ... you'll get it ...

Canine inventors work tirelessly on the next great breakthrough ...

Some dogs, like some people, are more trainable than others ...

Smile when you spell that, pardner ...

I wish I could get one of those ...

I think he works part time for the Heritage Foundation on the pet portions of Project 2025 ...

They tend to be very fluffy ...

And that wraps our Cartoon Saturday salute to Man's Best Friend - I hope it helped you get over the craziness of the past week.

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when Musical Sunday returns with a new twist on a Bob Dylan classic. See you then.

Bilbo

* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!

Cartoon Saturday

I think we need to go back to having the news delivered by a town crier, as it usually makes us cry, anyhow.

The Republican Party held a two-day deification rally for Der Furor in Dallas, thinly disguised as a midterm convention, at which Der Furor promised a $5000 payment to every American, but only if the Republicans win* ... he also said that people who don't vote (presumably for Republicans) will literally go to Hell; in a major toughening of its stance toward Israel, the United Kingdom banned trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, accusing "settler terrorists" of carrying out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians; Der Furor's departure from Washington for his deification rally in Dallas on Wednesday was delayed when, prior to takeoff, an emergency slide accidentally deployed from his Qatari-gifted flying palace; and as Halloween approaches, the Brachs Candy company plans to introduce a new seasonal perfume that smells like candy corn.

This week, as the midterm election season kicks into high gear and Der Furor works hard to engineer his desired outcome, I thought I'd feature a collection of cartoons about the election circus ...

How our yo-yo election system works ...

It's the batty signal ...

One of the most accurate Venn Diagrams I've ever seen ...

Slowly, ever so slowly, the light is starting to dawn ...

The "working hard" part is actually optional, except as it applies to fund-raising ...

Equal time, you know ...

I'd always suspected that this is the way it works ...

This reminds me of the old joke about the preacher who says his church accepts all denominations, but prefers the 50 and the hundred ...

I'd be thinking hard at this point, too ...

I think they probably will ...

And that's it for our tongue-deeply-in-cheek Cartoon Saturday look at the election season. You've gotta laugh, because crying doesn't help.

Be sure you've checked to make sure your voter registration is current, and make sure you plan to vote, whether in-person early, by mail, or in person on election day. The challenge is real - the vote is yours. Do it.

Have a good day and a great weekend, and come back tomorrow for Poetry Sunday, when we consider early warnings. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

* A blatantly illegal act under 18 U.S. Code §597: 

"Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate; and

"Whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote—

"Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

Too bad we don't have a functioning Justice Department any more.