Stripping Away the Arguments ... So To Speak

As you know, Dear Readers, one of the current burning issues in this country is that of illegal immigration. This is one of those topics which inspires passionate arguments on all sides, some of which actually make sense. Usually lost in the discussion, though, is the operative adjective illegal - which, when last I looked, means contrary to law and not racist, unfair, anti-immigrant, or anything else. People who use those other adjectives to apply to those who oppose illegal immigration are, in my humble and correct opinion, stupid.

But let's talk about immigration issues somewhere else for a moment. Like Canada ... where, if you are a stripper, you will no longer be able to get a visa to enter the country to ply your trade.

Yes, according to this article in Time Magazine, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has announced that starting in August, Canada will no longer renew visas for foreigners working as strippers. The Canadian government had already cut back on the number of new visas it had been granting to ecdysiasts, granting only 12 visas last year, although it had been continuing to renew visas which had been previously granted. Sadly though, gainfully-employed strippers will no longer have their visas automatically renewed.

The visa decision is based not on issues of morality, but on the alleged relationship between stripping and illegal human trafficking - according to the Time article, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the "Mounties") have repeatedly expressed concern over the link between Canadian escort services, brothels and massage parlors and cases of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Sexual exploitation is, of course, a dreadful thing and it behooves us to take such measures as are necessary to protect persons from it. But we must also not lose sight of the impact on politics and on the economy of preventing strippers from obtaining visas ...

Were such a move to be taken here in the United States, the GOP would probably implode from the cognitive dissonance of trying to take a stand on the issue: on the one hand, it would be required to decry the impact of such a job-killing^TM move on manufacturers of stripper poles, pasties, and diaphanous outfits, not to mention the severe impact on related businesses such as bars, restaurants, and the security firms which provide bouncers. On the other hand, the religious right would hysterically argue in favor of the move as a way of helping to preserve its image of public morality.  The party would run screaming from the issue with smoke pouring from its ears.

Or not, as cognitive dissonance has not heretofore appeared to be an impediment to being a hardshell conservative Republican.

Anyhow ...

It occurs to me that we have an opportunity here to help boost large segments of the American economy - the manufacturing, entertainment, and garment* industries to name a few - by welcoming the strippers who are no longer being granted visas in Canada. We could really see the economy ... uh ... take off if we play this right.

Hug a stripper today. Carefully.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Yes, I know that the garment part is a bit of a stretch, but work with me here, okay?

Bull, Here and There

I notice in the news this morning that a 73 year-old man - who surely is old enough to know better - has been gored in the leg during the annual "Running of the Bulls" in Pamplona, Spain. This event, for those of you who may have spent your prior lives deep in caves trying to avoid the blazing sun, is an annual festival dating back more than 400 years during which a number of irritated bulls are released to run a cordoned-off course through the town of Pamplona, chasing a larger number of brain-dead, often drunken dumbasses who think it's fun to attempt to outrun large animals fully capable of killing them quickly and messily.

There are other festivals involving bulls that are much less dangerous, at least if you are not the bull. Heidi has written eloquently about the Montana Testicle Festival which features, for the expansion of your epicurean horizons, "Rocky Mountain Oysters" (deep-fried bull testicles), as well as events and customs dedicated to convincing comely ladies to reveal their breasts. This, of course, beats getting gored in the leg (or worse) by an angry bull who may have heard about that Rocky Mountain Oyster thing.

Here in the National Capital Region, we have our own bull-related events, notably when Congress is in session and when major elections are scheduled ... both of which are occurring this year. In comparison to the events in Pamplona, the danger you run from trying to avoid the bull in DC is mental rather than physical - your poor brain is so constantly pummeled with outright lies, half-truths, distortions, cooked statistics, and outright balderdash that it's hard to know what or who to believe at any given time. Think of it as being gored in the head ... and Al Gore isn't even involved.

Sometimes, I think I'd rather deal with the Pamplona bulls rather than the GOP/Tea Party and Democratic ones. After all, the Pamplona bull can only kill you once, whereas listening to the endless bovine feces pumped out by crass politicians kills you a little bit at a time, every day.

Have a good day. Protect yourself from the bulls ... and the bull manure.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Here we are at the end of the first week of July ... 2012 is more than half over! Given how the first half has gone, we're going to need a lot of cartoons to get through the second, so let's get moving ...

Four people have been shot dead in the small Ohio town of Newton Falls; a jockey in California was killed during a race when his horse stumbled and threw him to the ground, where another horse stepped on his head; international donors will meet in Tokyo on Sunday and be asked to donate funds to the economic development of Afghanistan in exchange for that government's promise to clean up corruption, respect the rule of law, and ensure the rights of women and minorities (cue the laugh track); a mysterious disease which causes severe neurological and respiratory complications has killed 61 children in Cambodia; and temperatures in the nation's capital could reach 106 degrees today, tying an all-time record set in 1918.

Time to cool off with a few cartoons, eh?

We lead off with the semi-traditional awful pun cartoon ...

This cartoon appeared earlier this week on the Fourth of July, and I thought it was a marvelous combination of humorous elements to mark a historical date ...

With the cost of health care being what it is, and Congress racing ahead with brilliant statesmanship, principled compromise, and glacial speed to address the problem, people are looking for alternative treatment options ... like acupuncture. Here are three cartoons that take a look at this somewhat unusual procedure ...

and ...

and ...

Another sore topic of late is the proliferation of fees businesses charge for services that were once free. The airlines are the acknowledged masters of coming up with creative nuisance fees, but banks are right up there with them, as these two cartoons point out ...

and ...

"You Are Here" notations on maps are a staple of helpful directions in strange places. They are also useful as a takeoff point for cartoons ...

and ...

and, of course, there are the twists on the theme as well ...

And here YOU are, at the end of another edition of Cartoon Saturday. It's going to be a brutal scorcher of a weekend around much of the country, so try to stay indoors where it's cool and be sure to drink plenty of fluids. This afternoon, Agnes and I are going to go to the Arena Stage to see the latest production of The Music Man - not only is it one of my favorite shows, but the theater is air conditioned.

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

Bilbo

Ass Clown of the Month Award - Special Edition

It's a little early in the month to be designating our Ass Clown of the Month, but we have such a standout candidate that I feel justified in making this special award. Ladies and Gentlemen, as the July Ass Clown of the Month ...

I give you Representative Joe Walsh (Republican from Illinois) ...

Representative Walsh has repeatedly insulted his opponent Tammy Duckworth, a double amputee who lost her legs while serving as a Black Hawk helicopter pilot in Iraq, accusing her of using her military service to score political points. One might note in this context that Representative Walsh has never served in the military. You can read the whole sordid tale here.

At a time when intemperate speech and baseless political insults are common, Mr Walsh's comments reach new depths of despicable behavior that deserve condemnation by anyone who values service to the nation. Ms Duckworth may or may not be the best candidate for the Illinois Congressional seat, but if nothing else, her sacrifice in the military service Mr Walsh has declined to perform warrants better than her opponent's cheap insults.

Representative Walsh's disgusting behavior represents the reason why so many people are turned off by our current poisonous political atmosphere. He is clearly deserving of the Ass Clown of the Month Award, and ... if I may say so ... he is well out in front in the race for designation as Ass Clown of the Year.

Have a good day. Demand more from your elected representatives than the shameful behavior of the gentleman individual from Illinois - July's exceptionally well-qualified Ass Clown of the Month.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Of Electricity and Small Towns

Two things came together this past week to get me thinking ...

First was the huge derecho storm that powered through Northern Virginia last Friday night, leaving severe damage and widespread power outages in its wake; in fact, there are still a fairly large number of people in the Virginia-Maryland region still without electricity.

No electricity! No air conditioning! No cell phones! AAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!!

Oddly enough, though, we survived for many thousands of years without electricity and the comforts and conveniences it has delivered ... most of which are now regarded as necessities. The ancient Egyptians built a vast and complex civilization and built the pyramids some 5,000 years ago, without a single lawsuit against the Nile Basin Electric Cooperative because the a/c went out. The Napoleonic Wars were won and lost (depending on your preferred side) without electricity. Yours truly grew up in a comfortable home in Pittsburgh without air conditioning ... and somehow survived with fans (granted, it wasn't quite this hot in Western Pennsylvania in the 50's and 60's, but still ...). Not having cable TV and a good Internet connection is a pain ... but people have been reading printed books and playing cards and board games by candlelight for a long, long time.

Somehow, we survived. I think we may need a refresher course in what we define as essentials. A pain in the neck - to be sure. The end of life as we know it - probably not.

The other thing on my mind is the death of Andy Griffith.

For those of you reading this outside the US, Andy Griffith was one of our most beloved television actors, famous for his portrayal of folksy sheriff Andy Taylor in the long-running series set in the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina. He was also an accomplished dramatic actor and a fine comedian ... one of his most popular and well-known routines was the story of the country bumpkin who stumbles into a football game and tries to make sense of what he's seeing in "What It Was, Was Football" ...

But much of what has been written about Andy Griffith in the wake of his death has dealt with why we need a place like his fictional town of Mayberry - a sort of bucolic, peaceful, friendly town that we like to think is the "real" America, a place that makes us feel better about ourselves in a time of political and social turmoil. This article from Atlantic Monthly sums it up - Why People Still Watch The Andy Griffith Show. Who wouldn't want to live in a place like Mayberry ... or Willoughby, in the classic Twilight Zone episode A Stop at Willoughby?

We need a chance to slow down and take life a bit easier. To read more and surf the web less. To live in a place where we know our neighbors and enjoy the sort of life that may never really have existed here in America.

It may be too late, given our dependence on a high-tech environment cooled and powered by electricity and our descent into the politics of extremism and bitter dispute ... but wouldn't it be nice to make a bit of a start?

Have a good day, and stay cool - with our without a/c. See you tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday.

More thoughts then.

Bilbo

Thinking in Time

The title of today's post comes from the book Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers, by Richard Neustadt and Ernest May ... a brilliant analysis of how people in positions of leadership carefully study history to help guide their actions, and then draw the wrong lessons and end up making abysmally bad decisions.

Rather like today's extreme right wing politicians and shouting heads, but that's a topic we'll take up in a different post. Today, I'm thinking in terms of my own place in time.

As you know if you've been visiting this little corner of cyberspace for very long, I have a deep love of history. I like to think of history not as a dry recitation of events that took place long ago, but as a collection of events caused by real people who had real lives and families and relationships and day-to-day cares (as my mother was fond of saying, even Hitler had a mommy). We think of history in terms of the grand events that are documented in the books our teachers make us read, but not in terms of the mundane things that happened around those great events. We know about Napoleon's great military victories, but we never think that he was a fellow who had to go to the bathroom just like the rest of us. The Egyptian pharaohs built the pyramids, but what did they do to kick back and relax in the evenings, after a long day of flogging slaves and playing god?

What about our individual places in the endless timeline of history? I've always found it fascinating that I was born in 1951 - less than 100 years after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House to end the Civil War, 33 years after the end of the First World War, and a mere ten years after Pearl Harbor. During my lifetime, man landed on the moon for the first (and, so far, last) time, and I've looked in wonder at brilliant photographs of distant planets and galaxies taken by spacecraft that were undreamed of when I was born.

We tend to remember where we were and what we were doing when historical events happened. When Sister Eileen, the principal of my grade school back in Pittsburgh, announced that President Kennedy had been shot, I remember sitting at my desk and looking out the window, expecting to see Russian paratroopers falling out of the sky. When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, I was hiking in the middle of the Sangre de Cristo mountains of Colorado ... I learned of the feat about a week after the fact. When the First Gulf War broke out, I was sitting in the parking lot of the local high school, waiting for my daughter to come out after some school event or another.

Think about your place in history. Most of us probably will never be remembered for our role in major, world-shaking events, but each of us has an impact on the future - if only in the way we raise our children. And as for what lessons we draw from the past, let's be careful about what we think we've learned from history ... as Neustadt and May have shown, wrong interpretations can lead to terrible policies and decisions.

As Mark Twain once famously said (and many others have quoted later), "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

Have a good day. Think about your place, however humble, in history. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The God Particle

One of the big news stories of the last week or so, providing a bit of a distraction from blazing heat, wildfires, and Congressional ineptitude, was the claim by scientists to have discovered evidence of the existence of the so-called Higgs Boson*, also known colloquially as "The God Particle." This tiny particle, theory has it, is what allows other atomic particles to have mass, without which there would be no gravity, without which there would be no universe ... which would probably be a bad thing. You can read lots about the Higgs Boson - most of which is unintelligible to those without advanced degrees in subjects requiring the use of extreme mathematics and many Greek letters - at various locations online. This summary is a fairly good one ... if you are unable to make it bigger, you can find the original here ...

You can also read Andy Borowitz's interview with the newly-discovered Higgs Boson here.

The Higgs Boson obviously is pretty important, but it seems to me that it cannot exist everywhere. Scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) are searching for it using the Large Hadron Collider, an enormous and very expensive scientific device located deep underground on the border between Switzerland and France. Scientists are searching there because hardline Islamic governments do not permit the observation of mass in theologically enlightened garden spots like Pakistan, Iran, or Saudi Arabia.

You probably can't find Higgs Bosons in Washington, either, where many subatomic particles noticeably lacking in intellectual mass swirl aimlessly around Capitol Hill. These are referred to as morons.

Because the Higgs Boson allows other particles to have mass, it allows them to aggregate together to form elements, which are the building blocks of everything else. Thus, finding proof of the existence of the Higgs Boson may help limit other scientific surprises ...

So, join me today in celebrating the discovery of the Higgs Boson. It can be done indoors where there is air conditioning, as opposed to celebrating the Fourth of July outdoors in the sweltering heat. But happy Fourth, anyhow ... the fireworks and hot dogs - and even the bikinis on the pretty girls - you will enjoy today are made possible by the humble Higgs Boson.

Don't leave home without it.

Have a good day and a safe, happy Fourth of July holiday. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Not to be confused with the Higgs Bosun, which helps to organize activities on board ships.

Things You'd Never Know If It Weren't for the Movies

As we grow older, we learn our lessons from many sources - our parents, our friends, our enemies, and ... oddly enough ... the movies. I don't remember if I've ever pulled this out of my humor file before, but it seemed appropriate for a day (hell, week) when most of the news is generally bad. Here is a list of things you'd never know if it weren't for the movies ...

All telephone numbers in America begin with the digits 555.

If being chased through town, you can usually take cover in passing St. Patrick's Day parade - at any time of the year.

All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets which reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.

All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French Bread.

Anyone can land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk him down.

The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without difficulty.

You're very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.

Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German official, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.

If your town is threatened by an imminent natural disaster or killer beast, the mayor's first concern will be the tourist trade or his forthcoming art exhibition.

The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.

All single women have at least one cat.

A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating, but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.

The Chief of Police is always black.

When paying for a taxi, don't look at your wallet as you take out a bill -- just grab one at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.

If you lose a hand, it will cause the stump of your arm to grow by six inches.

Interbreeding is genetically possible with any creature from elsewhere in the universe.

If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear.

Mothers routinely cook eggs, bacon and waffles for their family every morning even though their husband and children never have time to eat it.

Cars that crash will almost always burst into flames.

If you find yourself caught up in a misunderstanding that could be cleared up quickly with a simple explanation, for goodness sake, keep your mouth shut.

The Chief of Police will always either suspend his star detective or give him 48 hours to find the real killer.
Corollary: A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.

During all police investigations it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.

If a killer is lurking in your house, it's easy to find him. Just relax and run a bath - even if it's the middle of the afternoon - then look in your bathroom mirror and he will suddenly appear behind you.

Medieval peasants had perfect teeth, and medieval women always had cleanly shaven legs and underarms.
Corollary: In the Middle Ages, long before sunbathing became fashionable, men and women already had tan lines and white bottoms.

Any person waking from a nightmare will sit bolt upright and pant.

A person being pursued will always stop and throw something at the person chasing them - even though it takes three times longer to stop and throw the objects than it does for the person chasing to duck or jump over them.

Even when driving down a perfectly straight road it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.

Newborn babies can babble, crawl and hold their heads steady.

All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they're going to go off.

It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are visiting.

When looking through binoculars, you will always see everything through a figure-eight shape.

One of every pair of identical twins is born evil.

In the event of a car chase, there will be two men carrying a large pane of glass through the streets. Someone will drive through it.
Corollary: If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long.

Make-up can safely be worn to bed without fear of smudging.

If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.

When confronted by an evil international terrorist, sarcasm and wisecracks are your best weapons.

One man shooting at 20 men has a better chance of killing them than 20 men firing at 1 man.

Creepy music coming from a cemetery should always be investigated more closely.

A gang of highly-trained terrorists will always separate and search for an intruder on their own - so they can be killed one by one.

If trying to defuse a bomb, don't worry about which wire to cut. You will always choose the right one.

Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communication systems of any invading alien civilization.

Extremely beautiful and intelligent women are likely to become either prostitutes or welders.
Corollary #1: A high class stripper with a heart of gold can operate most heavy machinery.
Corollary #2: If you are blonde and pretty, it is possible to become a world expert in nuclear fission at age 22.

If the person you are chasing has just taken the elevator down from the 20th floor, you will be able to get to the street quicker than he can by running down the stairs.

The person you trust most at work is probably the one who is trying to kill you.

Most people keep a scrapbook of newspaper clippings - especially if any of their family or friends have died in strange accidents.

It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts - your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.

When you turn off the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible, just slightly blurred.

Dogs always know who's bad, and will bark at them.

A person knocked unconscious by a blow to the head will never suffer a concussion or brain damage.

A slight blow to the head is usually enough to cause amnesia.

If you think there is an intruder in your house, your cat will choose the precise moment to leap out at you from inside a cupboard.

Police Departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite.

Action heroes never face charges for manslaughter or criminal damage despite laying entire cities to waste by their actions.

Any lock can be picked by a credit card or a paper clip in seconds - unless it's the door to a burning building with a child trapped inside.

When driving a car it is normal to look not at the road but at the person sitting beside you or in the back seat for the entire journey.

An electric fence powerful enough to kill a dinosaur will cause no lasting damage to an eight year old child.

Radiation causes interesting mutations - not to your future children but to you, there and then.

Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their arch enemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gases, lasers and man-eating sharks which will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.
Corollary: Megalomaniacs intent on world domination won't be able to resist telling their arch nemesis every detail of their evil plans.

The more a man and a woman hate each other, the more likely they will fall in love.

Guns are like disposable razors - if you run out of bullets just throw the gun away. You can always buy a new one.
Corollary: If you need to reload your gun, you will always have more ammunition - even if you haven't been carrying any before now.

That's my list. Do you have any other lessons from the movies? Add a comment.

Have a good day. Go to the movies, where they have air conditioning. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Payment for Results?

One of the very best opinion pieces I've read in a long time is this one by CNN contributor Bob Greene - Why Do We Pay Politicians for No Results?

What an excellent question!

Mr Greene puts it this way:

"Whether, individually, we are conservatives or liberals or somewhere in the middle, we have a right to expect the people who have been hired to solve the country's problems to do just that, and to spare us the name-calling and blame-shifting. We wouldn't accept that from electricians or auto mechanics; there is no reason to accept it from men and women with federal titles."

What a novel concept ... expecting results rather than complaints and finger-pointing! Of course, the apologists for each side don't see it that way. They sanctimoniously shake their heads and spout political bromides and twisted statistics that "prove" every problem would be solved if only the other guy wasn't so stupid and would just see the light and do things their way. And so, of course, nothing worthwhile ever gets done, except we get lots of post offices named and motions in honor of National Coal Tar Appreciation Month passed.

Ass clowns.

The next time you hire a plumber to fix your toilet, imagine that you had the same ability to demand good performance from your elected reprehensives as you do from that plumber. Don't you wish you could file a complaint with a Better Government Bureau the way you can with the Better Business Bureau?

Well, in a way you can ... remember this sorry performance come the next election, and be sure to vote for the ineffective dumbass of your choice.

Have a good day. Demand more, expect less*.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* In the words of the immortal Jerry Reed, "He who expected nothin' ain't gonna be deceived!"

Better Late Than Never ... It's Cartoon Saturday!

If you checked this space at your usual time yesterday and were distressed to not find your expected dose of Cartoon Saturday, I am sorry ... but you were a victim, as we were, of the dreaded derecho. What the #%$@! is a derecho, you ask? Well, I'd never heard of it, either, but it is evidently the formal name for the very powerful, fast-moving thunderstorm with near hurricane-force winds that ripped through Northern Virginia on Friday night, leaving widespread destruction in its wake and hundreds of thousands of people without power. We lost our power Friday night about 10:00 as the storm roared through, and it was finally restored last night. Aside from lost sleep we suffered no real damage or injury, and because we spent the day yesterday at Baltimore-Washington International Airport with our son and his family who were leaving for their new home in Germany, we had A/C. We also met up with fellow blogger Kathy and her husband for dinner on the way home, giving the work crews more time to get the lights back on at home ... which, happily, they did. Several hundred thousand people are still without power across the region, and some secondary roads are still impassable because of downed trees and power lines, but at least our little part of the world is back to normal.

And if Mike can celebrate Friday the 13^th as a moveable date, then we can do Cartoon Saturday on Sunday, right?  Let's get to it ...

Wildfires in Colorado have scorched more than 27 square miles and destroyed hundreds of homes in and near Colorado Springs ... and now to make things worse, looters are burglarizing evacuated homes; Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are divorcing (who cares, other than Siri?); the UN has agreed on a plan for ending the violence in Syria ... evidently not realizing that Syrian dictator Bashaar al Asad has a vote, too; Spain and Italy square off against each other today in the 2012 World Cup Soccer finals in Kiev; and the Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited ... and unexpected ... decision when it upheld President Obama's signature health care reform legislation.

It's been a heck of a week, and it's time to get to the cartoons ...

Speaking of health care reform, isn't it wonderful when you actually find something your insurance covers (assuming you're lucky enough to have good insurance)? ...

Technology marches on ... although, as we learned when the derecho came through and shut off the power, it marches pretty slowly if you don't have electricity ...

This is about how it felt Friday night and Saturday ... whether you're a luddite or not ...

Keeping with the technology theme, I can relate to this one, as I've been spending odd moments over the last few years trying to digitize the hundreds of phonograph records that are lined up on shelves around the house ...

I liked this cartoon not just because it was silly, but because it works on a multilingual pun level as well - klein being the German word meaning small ...

The yellow blocks on the chart are a nice touch ...

Bigfoot - often better known by the Indian name sasquatch - made an appearance in two cartoons this week ...

And ...

The low-life thieving ass clowns who are burglarizing evacuated homes in Colorado deserve complete contempt and lengthy jail sentences ... and it's a shame that throughout history we have had to go to such lengths as this to protect things from those who would steal them ...

And finally, the "Occupy (Insert Villain Here)" movement seems to have been pretty quiet lately ... but it hasn't quite gone away ...

So that's it for this week's slightly delayed edition of Cartoon Saturday. Hope you are able to stay cool and dry during the coming week (except for you, Amanda, enjoying winter in the Land Down Under), which promises to start off with more triple-digit temperatures before becoming downright balmy in the low 90's by midweek ... just in time for the Fourth of July festivities. If you are celebrating The Fourth pyrotechnically, please be very careful - we have all the fires we need, not to mention that fact that every year we have large numbers of clueless ass clowns who injure or kill themselves playing with fireworks. Don't be one of them.

Have a good day, a cool weekend, and a safe and happy Fourth of July. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo