More Great Moments in Editing

Here we go again ...

Be sure to slow down so that they can get access to your tailpipe ...

Well, duh ...

I'm ready to do my part! ...

There must have been a sale on "th's" ...

They must have some pretty overweight employees there ...

I wonder if they resolved the issue, or if they needed another meeting ...

Stop the presses!!! ...

I guess they had to ... uh ... spirit all the residents away ...

I guess you'll be stuck with that possessed dog ... 

And finally, I'll bet I could bench press a lot more online than I ever could in the gym ...

And there you have it - your first set of memorable editorial mishaps for the month of October. Even though they may be irritating, they're often the best thing you'll find in the news nowadays.

Sad, isn't it?

Have a good day. Come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday.

Bilbo 

The Ticket We Need

Election day is coming up on November 4th. For those of you unfamiliar with what that means, Election Day is the day on which we learn which stable of bought-and-paid-for politicians will take its turn to screw up the country and blame the other side. Conventional wisdom for the coming election says that the Republicans are likely to take control of the Senate and keep their control of the House of Representatives. I'm not quite sure this should be so, as ordinary working people ought to be smarter than to vote for a party whose policies are so antithetical to their interests, but as P.T. Barnum once said, there's a sucker born every minute. Or as Henry L. Mencken put it so elegantly, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

I'm afraid that come November 4th, you are likely to find Mr Mencken to be unusually prescient.

My problem with the upcoming election is the same as the problem I had with the last few: who out there is actually worth voting for? Do I vote for Republicans who have no platform other than to slash taxes and viscerally oppose anything the Democrats try to do; or for Democrats who tend to care more about the average American and have grand ideas but no sense of how to pay for them?

Today, though, I learned of a new candidate that looks promising ...

I think an Odin/Thor Ragnarok Party ticket may be just what the country needs right now ... a president who can hurl bolts of lightning and a vice president who can really put the hammer down just might be able to deal with a useless Congress, a surging China, Vladimir Putin, the rabidly vicious "Islamic State," and ebola. Probably all before lunch on inauguration day.

And Chuck Norris is available if they need a Secretary of Defense.

Have a good day. Vote Odin/Thor ... you could do worse.

And, sadly, you probably will.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Paying the Aquatic Piper

I work in a very interesting office, as you know if you read last week's post titled The Great Pentagon Doughnut War. I'm very fortunate to have some extremely intelligent, well-educated, and intellectually stimulating people to work with.

Well, most of the time, anyhow.

You know about the doughnuts vs munchkins issue that has divided our office. Now let me tell you about the water bill.

To fully understand the story, you need to know that the Pentagon was built over a period of 18 months in 1943-1944. At the time, it was a relative architectural and technical marvel, but by the early 1990's it was starting to show its age ... one symptom of which was water lines that were delivering water that was ... well ... not necessarily drinkable. As a result, almost every office in the building took deliveries each month of bottled water for drinking and the brewing of coffee*.

When I came to work in my present office in 1996, I volunteered to take over management of the office water fund ... the incumbent was getting ready to leave, and it seemed like a fairly painless task. It is a job I still have to this day, nobody else being interested in taking it on. As the water fund manager, I monitor usage, place the orders, receive the water deliveries, and pay the bill to the company that delivers the water each month** ...

... and there's the proverbial rub.

You see, I ain't runnin' no charity here. When the bill comes to me for payment, I turn to my colleagues and request a per-capita share of the bad news ... usually anywhere from four to six dollars, depending on the number of five-gallon bottles of water we turn into urine in the course of the month.

You can probably hear the howls of anguish each month from where you are.

For the record, here are a few of the typical conversations that take place each time I ask for those per-capita shares of the bill:

1. I am not taking bread from the mouths of your children.

2. I am not vacationing in Rio (or anywhere else) on the alleged profits I make from the water fund.

3. I'm sorry*** you have to cancel that trip to Disney World you promised your kids because I'm after you for a measley five bucks.

4. I'm really sorry**** your children won't get new shoes or birthday presents this year because you have to pay the water bill.

5. Yes, I know that all the water lines in the Pentagon were replaced during the renovation, and we can now drink from the fountains and taps without getting sterile or growing two heads.

6. Just grit your teeth and pay the %$&@ bill, okay.

Doughnuts and water. Believe it or not, in spite of both, we actually do get along and work well together.

But at the beginning of each month, when the water bill comes due, I always look under my car for devices that don't belong there.

Have a good day. If anyone ever asks you to manage a water fund, just say no. You'll thank me.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* The fuel on which the Department of Defense runs.

** The fellow who delivers the water to our office is huge. If he had lights on his backside, he'd look like a semi. I don't want him pissed off at me for non-payment.

*** Not.

**** Sure, go ahead and blame me, you cheapskate.

The Investments We Choose to Make

An old adage attributed to many authors (including Mark Twain and Benjamin Disraeli) tells us there are three kinds of falsehoods: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Nowadays you have to be wary of the statistics everyone throws around, particularly because a large number of them are actually lies and/or damned lies invented by people who know that we aren't likely to check on their provenance ... either because they agree with our political biases or because we're just too lazy to check. With that in mind, I call your attention to these figures from the website nationalpriorities.org ... which I believe are, if anything, lowballed:

Every hour, the United States is spending about $365,000 in Iraq. That's nearly nine million dollars per day.

Every hour, the United States is spending about $312,500 to fight the murderous religious bigots of the so-called Islamic State. That's roughly 7.5 million dollars per day.

And we won't even talk about what we're spending in Afghanistan.

This is not, as we say, chump change.

Now, one could argue that we have a moral obligation to help Iraq, seeing as how we destroyed the country in a war to rid it of weapons of mass destruction it didn't have and terrorists* who weren't there (but are now flocking there by the thousand, go figure). But at some point, the Iraqis have to take responsibility for their own country. They have to stop fighting each other and rebuild a nation where everyone can live. Unfortunately, this seems to be very unlikely.

What else might we be spending that money on, rather than armies we train and equip that throw away their weapons and run at the sight of the enemy, or on fighting religious fanatics so violent and bigoted that even other religious fanatics can't stand them?

Germany provides a college education for everyone. For free. Don't you think we would benefit from free education for everyone? ... perhaps if we had free public education for all, up to the university level, we wouldn't have as many abysmally stupid people earning a living as politicians and pundits. But we don't even have to make college education free ... the amount spent in a single day in useless wars in the snakepit of the Middle East would tremendously help our struggling public schools, and help ensure that our children's teachers earn a decent wage and don't have to pay school expenses out of their pockets.

Our infrastructure is crumbling around us: bridges collapse, highways are crumbling, the air traffic control system is overloaded, water mains break, etc, etc. And yet we spend billions of dollars to destroy the billions of dollars worth of equipment we gave to Iraqi troops who abandoned it to the forces of the so-called Islamic State.

There's another old adage: charity begins at home.

Let's start spending there.

Have a good day. Think about who your tax dollars are working for.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Overuse and misuse of the loaded words "terrorist" and "terrorism" is an issue for another post.

Of Mars Missions, Toilets, and Investment Choices

If you think there's a lot of crap out there on the Internet, you ain't heard nothing yet ...

Back in May of this year I told you about a public health program in India called "Poo2Loo," which seeks to convince people to not ... um ... defecate in public places. This is a serious problem in India, where there are far too few public toilets and people tend in many places - even the largest cities - to relieve themselves when and wherever the urge takes them.

The other day, I ran across this related report on CNN - Desperate, Disgusted but Proud -- India's Human Waste Removers - about the people who make their living by removing all that ... stuff ... from the streets.

And then I note that India has sent a spacecraft to Mars to send back photographs of the Martian surface.

You might think that the money the Indian government spent on the Mars mission might have been better spent on things like public toilets and sanitation facilities. Or perhaps they might have just used the spacecraft to ship all that excrement to Mars.

We do have odd ways of deciding on the investments we make, don't we?

Have a good day. Enjoy your indoor plumbing.

More thoughts about how we spend our money here at home tomorrow.

Bilbo

Poetry Sunday

I'll be sixty-three years old in another month or so, and with advancing age comes a different way of looking at the world ...

A Difference of Fifty-Three Years

by Noel Peattie

Here is a magazine called Seventeen.
It comes out on the stands every month.
The girl on each cover is welcome
as cherry pie; she's tubbed, pure,
her hair is up, or ribboned.
Her life is all dresses,
parties, and little pink wishes.
She says to the world, Oh hurry,
hurry up, please, and it does.

Here is a man about seventy.
Why isn't there a journal called Seventy?
Because he isn't as welcome;
because nobody wants to be like him.
He says to the world, Slow down;
my flat feet can't keep up with you.
He whispers, I'm still alive.

But it doesn't slow down, the world.
It keeps on hurrying; for, see there,
an impatient virgin is waiting.

(Every day, an old man is buried).
Every month, there's another young girl.


Getting old is a bit of a pain. But I do have to say that it beats the alternative.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Welcome to the first Cartoon Saturday of October. You know you need it ...

The Ebola virus has reached the United States, with one man in Dallas known to be infected and a family in quarantine; the murderous fanatics of the so-called Islamic State have beheaded another captive, this one a British aid worker, and threatened to murder another American; clashes have broken out in Hong Kong, where large crowds have been protesting Chinese interference in their government; former president George W. Bush said this past week that his brother and former Florida governor Jeb wants to be president ... as if the country needs more help from the Bush family; and Secret Service director Julia Pierson resigned after multiple allegations of security breaches that resulted in serious potential threats to the president's life.

I had such high hopes for October, but it seems to be off to a dismal start. We'd better get to the cartoons quickly ...

This week's collection of theme cartoons deals with stick figures ... a topic you probably never thought much about as a subject for cartoons.

Here's some useful guidance for what to do if you're attacked by a stick figure ...

There are other ways to defend yourself, but you need to be a ... 

Prudes generally don't care for stick figures ...

Being a stick figure can mean easier reading of x-rays at the doctor's office ...

And there are fire-breathing fundamentalist preachers for stick figures, too ...

Okay, enough of the stick figures ... let's move on to new topics, like uncertainty. Maybe ... 

I've been to motivational meetings like this one ...

How to look at salads when you don't like salads ...

Emoticons for the married man ...

Finally, it's not just people that get stressed out ...

And there you have it: the first cartoons of October. Hope you enjoyed them.

It looks like it's going to be a nice weekend here weatherwise, with early rain, cooler temperatures and a taste of autumn. Later this morning, we'll be having a FaceTime call with our grandchildren in Germany (oh, and their parents, too). Tomorrow we'll be visiting our daughter. I should have known better than to answer too quickly when she called earlier in the week and asked I was going to be doing anything on Sunday ... turns out she needs help moving topsoil and rocks for her landscaping projects. I hope it comes with lunch.

Have a good day. See you back here tomorrow for Poetry Sunday.

Bilbo

The First Ass Clown of the Month for October, 2014

The vagaries of the calendar have resulted in an October that will give us the opportunity to name not two, but three Ass Clowns of the Month. An embarrassment of riches, as it were. Luckily, there's no shortage of worthy candidates.

Our first Ass Clown for October is an easy choice ...

Alex Jones

Mr Jones recently weighed in on the combined dangers posed by the so-called Islamic State, America-hating liberals, and President Obama when he claimed that the U.S. government plans to unleash ISIS militants across America as part of a plot to “overthrow what’s left of Western civilization” and seize everyone's guns. According to Mr Jones, the so-called "Islamic State" (also known as ISIS, ISIL, and "those crazy, murderous bastards") secretly works for the US government, being in the pay of the dastardly CIA, and has as many as five thousand "sleepers" in the US, ready to rise up and seize control of the nation, murdering hundreds of children in Democratic strongholds to provide President Obama with an excuse to implement gun control.

Wow.

For his consistent striving to reach new heights of utter stupidity, political paranoia, and religious bigotry, Alex Jones is named as our first Ass Clown of the Month for October, 2014.

Have a good day. Come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday ... after this, you know you need it.

More thoughts then.

Bilbo

Retirement Options

It's getting close to that time when Agnes and I will need to really retire and decide where we want to live out the remainder of our allotted years. The Northern Virginia area has a lot to recommend it (including proximity to one-third of our grandchildren, lots of history, and plenty of great restaurants), but it's also got horrendous traffic, high cost of living, and has been poisoned by its proximity to the swirling vortex of greed and stupidity where Congress used to be. My friend Bob, himself long retired, has tried to help us make our decision by providing some commentary on a few potential retirement locations ...

We could retire to Phoenix, Arizona where ...

1. You park 3 blocks away from your house because it's the closest parking space in the shade.
2. You experience condensation on your butt from the hot water in the toilet bowl.
3. You can drive for 4 hours in any direction and never leave town.
4. You have over 100 recipes for Mexican food.
5. You know that "dry heat" is comparable to what hits you in the face when you open your oven door.
6. The four seasons are: tolerable, hot, really hot, and ARE YOU KIDDING ME??

or ..

We could retire to California where ...

1. You can have an income of over $450,000 and still can't afford to buy a house.
2. The fastest part of your commute is going down the driveway.
3. You need to know how to eat an artichoke.
4. You drive your rented Mercedes to the neighborhood block party.
5. When someone asks how far something is, you tell them how long it will take to get there rather than how many miles away it is (heck, we do that already here in NoVa).
6. The four seasons are: Fire, Flood, Mud, and Drought.

or ...

We could retire to New York City where ...

1. When you say "the city" you expect everyone to know you mean Manhattan ....
2. You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Columbus Circle to Battery Park, but can't find Wisconsin on a map.
3. You think Central Park is "nature."
4. You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual.
5. You've worn out a car horn (if you have a car).
6. You think eye contact is an act of aggression.
7. The four seasons are #$@%! snow, #$@%! rain, #$@%! heat, and #$@%! snow's almost here again.

or...

We could retire to Minnesota where ...

1. You only have three spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup.
2. Halloween costumes have to fit over parkas.
3. You have seventeen recipes for casserole.
4. Sexy lingerie is anything flannel with less than eight buttons.
5. The highest level of criticism is "he is different," "she is different," or "it was different."
6. The four seasons are: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road repair.

or...

We could retire to the Deep South where ...

1. You can rent a movie and buy bait in the same store.
2. "Y'all" is singular and "all y'all" is plural.
3. "He needed killin'" is a valid defense.
4. Everyone has 2 first names: Billy Bob, Jimmy Bob, Joe Bob, Betty Jean, Mary Beth, etc.
5. Everywhere is either: "in yonder," "over yonder" or "out yonder."

or...

We could retire to Colorado where ...

1. You carry your $3,000 mountain bike atop your $500 car.
2. You tell your husband to pick up Granola on his way home, so he stops at the day care center.
3. A pass does not involve a football or dating.
4. The top of your head is bald, but you still have a pony tail.

or ...

We could retire to the Nebraska where ...

1. You never meet any celebrities, but the mayor knows your name.
2. Your idea of a traffic jam is three cars waiting to pass a tractor.
3. You've had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" on the same day.
4. You end sentences with a preposition: "Where's my coat at?"

or ...

We could retire to Florida where ...

1. You eat dinner at 3:15 in the afternoon.
2. All purchases include a coupon of some kind -- even houses and cars.
3. Everyone can recommend an excellent cardiologist, dermatologist, proctologist, podiatrist, or orthopedist.
4. Road construction never ends anywhere in the state.
5. Cars in front of you often appear to be driven by headless people.

Decisions, decisions.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Great Pentagon Doughnut War

At a time when the nation is at war with murderous religious bigots; when the federal budget is a mess; when members of Congress refuse to work with each other, half of them despise the President, and both parties despise each other; at a time when ebola is ravaging West Africa, volcanoes are erupting all over the place, earthquakes are causing devastation and loss of life, and the nation's capital is tied up in knots over whether or not the local football team should be called the "Redskins" or something less inflammatory, you'd think we have enough to worry about.

You'd think wrong.

The really critical issue of the day is this: what constitutes a doughnut?

This is a matter of no small concern to my coworkers and I, because it comes to the heart of one of our very serious office traditions. You see, we work in the Pentagon. To enter the Pentagon, one must have a Pentagon access badge which features a magnetic stripe that allows one to swipe into the building itself and then into the various individual rooms to which one is authorized access. If you forget your badge, you can get a temporary visitor's badge, but it doesn't have the magnetic stripe, and so you can't enter your office unless someone already inside comes and opens the door for you.

In our office, the tradition is that if you inconvenience your coworkers by forcing them to get up and open the door to let you in each time you come back from a meeting, the bathroom, lunch, etc, you are required to buy a box of doughnuts as payment for the disruption to routine.

Now, a few weeks ago one of my coworkers ... we'll call him "John" ... forgot his badge. In due respect for tradition, he stopped by the Dunkin Donuts shop on the way up to the office and picked up a box of "Munchkins" - donut holes:

When John opened the box of Munchkins, another of my coworkers ... we'll call him "Mike" ... objected vociferously that John had not followed the rules, because he hadn't bought doughnuts, he'd brought Munchkins. These, Mike insisted, are doughnuts ...

Ridiculous, responded John. Munchkins are doughnuts, just in a different form.

Not so!, insisted Mike ... the rules say doughnuts, and Munchkins aren't doughnuts.

It went downhill from there, with the folks in the office lining up on both sides of the argument. John turned to the Eternal Source of All Questionable and Unverified Knowledge*, Wikipedia, and printed out the entire file on doughnuts - including pictures - to prove that Munchkins were, in fact, doughnuts. That file hangs on the office bulletin board to this day, ignored by partisans on both sides of the argument who believe with nearly religious fervor that Munchkins either are, or are not, real doughnuts**.

Me, I'm agnostic about the whole thing. Who cares about the shape, as long as they're free?

So, Dear Readers, what's your opinion? Is Mike right, or is John right? Does it matter? Or should we try something else? ...

Leave a comment and let me know.

Have a good day. And have a doughnut while you're at it. And a nice cup of coffee, too.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Sing halleluja!

** At least nobody has cut any heads off, yet.