Cartoon Saturday

As my dad would have said, if this week had been a fish, I'd have thrown it back.

Former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was overthrown and has been granted political asylum in Russia; Der Furor announced his intention to eliminate birthright citizenship at the same time that wealthy Russians are purchasing or renting his properties so their wives can have children with US citizenship; FBI Director Christopher Wray announced he would resign his post three years early, clearing the way for Der Furor to nominate sycophantic loyalist and conspiracy theorist Kash Patel to the position; more than 75 Nobel Prize winners in medicine, chemistry, physics and economics have signed a letter urging senators not to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services - the first such united opposition in history; and in Philadelphia, a man who received a $4.1million settlement from city officials after serving 24 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit is headed back to jail after admitting to a different murder. 

This week, because they seen to be more popular than my carefully-themed editions, here's another randomly-selected Cartoon Saturday.

When King Arthur goes high-tech ...

It's good to be the king. Usually ...

Paging Mr Kennedy, Junior ... Mr R F Kennedy, Junior ...

I can sympathize ...

I'm familiar with all of them ...

I wonder if this was one of the things that made the Notre Dame cathedral restoration take so long ...

I found this under "karma" in the dictionary ...

As a guy with wonky color vision (can't tell pastel shades or dark shades apart), I can relate to this ...

Translation: "Mrs Benting shouldn't have complained about her artist neighbor's hedge" ...

I'd have a hard time with it, too ...

And that's it for another Cartoon Saturday - I hope you enjoyed it. Have a good day and a great weekend, and come back tomorrow when we go to (Charlotte) Church. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for December, 2024

We are down to the last month of 2024 and the last two opportunities to recognize superior ass clownery for the year. With this in mind, Der Furor's selection of billionaires, know-nothings, and petty, vengeful creatures for senior positions in and around his new administration offer what we used to call in the Air Force a target-rich environment. And so it is that the award for 

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for December, 2024

is presented to

Elon Musk

Elon Musk, the world's richest man and an entrepreneur with deep financial ties to the federal government because of his provision of Starlink Internet services and, through his SpaceX company, launch services for NASA, cemented his increasing control over your government by spending over a quarter of a billion dollars during the fall to help Der Furor win the presidency. According to reporting by the New York Times,

"Over the course of the race, he gave America PAC [his main Super PAC] a staggering $239 million in both cash and in-kind contributions. In total, Mr. Musk and entities he controls disclosed about $277 million in donations to federal groups this cycle."

Musk spent another $20 million on a super PAC named after late liberal Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, designed to make Der Furor more electorally palatable by minimizing his anti-abortion positions. Justice Ginsburg was well known to despise Der Furor, and a spokesman for her family said that 

“The use of her name and image to support Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, and specifically to suggest that she would approve of his position on abortion, is nothing short of appalling.”

Mr Musk also drew scrutiny by spending $40.5 million on legally questionable checks to voters who signed a petition in support of the Constitution.

And the dollar totals do not include the value of the tsunami of free political advertising and support from X (formerly Twitter), the social media platform owned and controlled by Mr Musk.

Since the election, Musk has been a near-permanent fixture at Mar-a-Lago, all but acting as a shadow president by taking part in Der Furor's discussions with foreign leaders. He has also issued brazenly inappropriate threats to political opponents, threatening criminal sanctions against critics of the new administration. 

Oh, and by the way - under US law it is illegal for Elon Musk to make campaign contributions. Check it out: 53 USC 30119a(1). 

If you are a fan of oligarchy, if you are one of those people who believes that billionaires are best suited to make decisions that affect us all, Elon Musk is your guy. If you are an American citizen concerned over the degree of influence a single ultra-wealthy individual exerts over your government, you should worry.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the Right-Cheek Ass Clown for December, 2024, is Elon Musk - a man whose deep pockets have bought himself a government with the willing acquiescence of the GOP and an American electorate blithely ignorant of the danger.

Have a good day, and watch carefully what happens as your government falls more and more under the influence of an unelected megalomaniac ... who has the support of the duly-elected megalomaniac. 

And hope that the 2026 midterm elections are not too late to begin reversing the decay.

Have a good day and be sure to come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday, because we all need a laugh nowadays. 

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo 

Qualifications for Election

Back in January of 2023, I wrote a post lamenting the dearth of detailed qualifications for those who would serve in our nation's highest offices. The Constitution contains only minimal qualifications for federal officers: age, citizenship status, and (for Senators and Representatives) residency. As I noted at the time, they represent a pretty low bar under which the unqualified can limbo, and we need some better guidelines to prevent (or, at the very least, hinder) the venal, the incompetent, the traitorous, the criminal, and the just-plain-crazy from occupying the nation's highest offices.

In that post, I offered a proposed Constitutional amendment to fix this lamentable situation, and I also sent copies of it to the President, both my Senators, and my Representative ... all of whom thanked me for my interest and went on to the next fund-raising event.

Well ...

Now we've had an election which has resulted in Der Furor, a vengeful and incompetent buffoon, being elected for a second time. He is now busily nominating for positions of great responsibility a scrum of oddballs, conspiracy theorists, criminals, billionaires, and various combinations thereof, whose main qualifications are slavish devotion to Der Furor and looking good on Fox News. It's horrifying to think that the only thing standing between some of these people and the maiming of the republic is a Senate and a House full of drooling sycophants afraid of Der Furor and of their base.

It's probably too late to fix the problem now, but I thought I'd go ahead and update my proposed Constitutional amendment just in case the nation survives the next four years and we want to prevent future electoral catastrophes ...

A Proposed Constitutional Amendment on Qualifications for Election to the Presidency/Vice Presidency, Senate, and House of Representatives, and for Appointment to Positions of Responsibility Under the Executive Branch

Amendment XXVIII

Section 1.

Article 1, Section 2, Clause 2, is deleted in its entirety and replaced with the following:

No person under twenty-five years of age and a citizen of the United States for less than ten years at the time of election shall be eligible for election to the House of Representatives. A person elected to the House of Representatives must have been a legal permanent resident of the district in which elected for at least five years prior to the date of election.

No person who is ineligible for award of a Top Secret security clearance, according to the requirements defined by the the Department of Defense as of the date of election, shall be eligible to serve as a Representative. 

Section 2.

Article I, Section 3, Clause 3, is deleted in its entirety and replaced with the following:

No person under thirty years of age and a citizen of the United States for less than fifteen years at the time of election shall be eligible for election to the Senate. A person elected to the Senate must have been a legal permanent resident of the state in which elected for at least five years prior to the date of election.

No person who is ineligible for award of a Top Secret security clearance, according to the requirements defined by the the Department of Defense as of the date of election, shall be eligible to serve as a Senator.

Section 3.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, is deleted in its entirety and replaced with the following:

No person under thirty-five years of age and a citizen of the United States, whether native-born or naturalized, for less than twenty years at the time of election shall be eligible for election to the office of President or Vice President of the United States.

No person who is ineligible for award of a Top Secret security clearance, according to the requirements defined by the the Department of Defense as of the date of election, shall be eligible for election to the Presidency or Vice-Presidency.

Any person seeking election to the Presidency or Vice-Presidency shall submit to the Judiciary Committees of both Houses of Congress and, through such mechanism as the Department of the Treasury may direct, to the people, full and complete copies of federal and state tax returns, both business and personal, for the ten years preceding the date of election, this action to be completed a minimum of six months before the date of election.

Section 4.

The following is added as Article II, Section 2, Clause 3:

Individuals nominated by the President for positions of public trust requiring confirmation by the Senate shall submit to the Judiciary Committees of both Houses of Congress and, through such mechanism as the Department of the Treasury may direct, to the people, full and complete copies of federal and state tax returns, both business and personal, for the ten years preceding the date of appointment, this action to be completed not later than one month before the start of confirmation hearings. 

Individuals nominated by the President for positions of public trust requiring confirmation by the Senate must be successfully adjudicated for award of a security clearance at the level designated for the position, according to the requirements defined by the Department of Defense. This adjudication must be completed prior to the individual's assumption of the position.

Section 5.

The current Article II, Section 2, Claus 3, dealing with recess appointments, is deleted in its entirety.

Section 6.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

*****

Of course, this has not the slightest chance of ever being adopted, but a guy can dream, can't he?

Have a good day, and come back on Friday for the announcement of the Right Cheek Ass Clown for December ... the next-to-last Ass Clown Award for 2024. You won't want to miss it!

More thoughts then.

Bilbo

"Alpha Males"

Back in June of last year, I wrote about the concept of the so-called "alpha male," also known as an "incel," or, to use the proper scientific term, "douchebag." For what it's worth, I still think the whole "alpha male" thing is stupid. As has been frequently noted elsewhere in various forms,

"When men refer to themselves as "alpha males," I hear that in the context of software, where alpha versions are unstable, missing important features, filled with flaws, and not fit for the public."

Indeed.

If you are so insecure in your manhood that you have to pump iron and post it on your X account, grow an enormous beard, wear clothing full of pseudo-manly slogans, drive an enormous pickup truck festooned with giant flags and angry decals, and ostentatiously pack iron and a giant Bowie knife for a visit to the local Dunkin Donuts, your testosterone level is probably insufficient to support reproduction, anyhow.

With this introduction, I call your attention to a recent New York Times guest essay by Sarah Bernstein: How Our Messed-Up Dating Culture Leads to Loneliness, Anger and Donald Trump.

Ms Bernstein writes that 

The manosphere would have us believe that this situation was inevitable, that women have emasculated men with their success and now complain that there aren’t enough real men to go around. In truth, our culture is broken because while we have acknowledged the limiting nature of the peasant-to-princess story line, we have not done the same for the prince. Over the past 60 years, as girls and women have fought their way into classrooms and boardrooms, society has expanded its idea of womanhood accordingly, yet our definition of manhood has failed to evolve alongside it. 

That's a brilliant observation, IMHO. What does it mean to be a man in the 21st Century?

As I'm fond of pointing out to my wife when I manage to get a stubborn lid off a jar, we men don't have much opportunity to rescue damsels in distress since the dragons died out. We don't have to fight off marauding tribes of Mongols and Visigoths, and wild animals don't usually pose a threat to our homes. We don't have to build a crude shelter for our families, leave it every day to hunt and trap game to feed them, and start all over again in a new place when the game runs out. 

Our roles nowadays are different. We commute to office jobs, hunt and gather at the local supermarket, and defend our homes against the threat of raccoons and termites. Warfare is carried out by professional warriors - men (and women, too, Mr Hegseth) recruited, trained, and armed to do it ... not by a levée en masse waving sharpened farm tools and following their lord into battle.

As much as we'd like to fantasize, there's no need for an "alpha male" any more, if there ever was. Today's "alpha male" is the one who can pick out the good stocks, find the bargains, install the software, and change the tire ... all of which can be done every bit as well by any female, with or without a preceding Greek letter. He's the guy who can do the shopping, fix the dinner, change the diapers, and read the bedtime stories. He can cut the grass, take out the garbage, walk the dog in the rain, and wash the car. He defends his home by installing better locks and keeping the insurance up to date.

And if he still needs guidance, there's a website called "The Art of Manliness" (yes, really) that can help.

Men, just accept that times have changed. Change with them. We live in a time when women can do everything we can do, and sometimes better. Don't mansplain and don't make assumptions that you may regret.

And remember that the Golden Rule works for the sexes, too.

Have a good day, and don't spoil it with any "alpha male" crap.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Poetry Sunday

As we move closer to the Christmas holiday, it's only proper that we should have some seasonal poetry. Here's the classic story from Ogden Nash ...

The Boy Who Laughed at Santa Claus

By Ogden Nash

In Baltimore there lived a boy.

He wasn't anybody's joy.

Although his name was Jabez Dawes,

His character was full of flaws.

In school he never led his classes,

He hid old ladies' reading glasses,

His mouth was open when he chewed,

And elbows to the table glued.

He stole the milk of hungry kittens,

And walked through doors marked NO ADMITTANCE.

He said he acted thus because

There wasn't any Santa Claus.

Another trick that tickled Jabez

Was crying 'Boo' at little babies.

He brushed his teeth, they said in town,

Sideways instead of up and down.

Yet people pardoned every sin,

And viewed his antics with a grin,

Till they were told by Jabez Dawes,

'There isn't any Santa Claus!'

Deploring how he did behave,

His parents swiftly sought their grave.

They hurried through the portals pearly,

And Jabez left the funeral early.

Like whooping cough, from child to child,

He sped to spread the rumor wild:

'Sure as my name is Jabez Dawes

There isn't any Santa Claus!'

Slunk like a weasel of a marten

Through nursery and kindergarten,

Whispering low to every tot,

'There isn't any, no there's not!'

The children wept all Christmas eve

And Jabez chortled up his sleeve.

No infant dared hang up his stocking

For fear of Jabez' ribald mocking.

He sprawled on his untidy bed,

Fresh malice dancing in his head,

When presently with scalp-a-tingling,

Jabez heard a distant jingling;

He heard the crunch of sleigh and hoof

Crisply alighting on the roof.

What good to rise and bar the door?

A shower of soot was on the floor.

What was beheld by Jabez Dawes?

The fireplace full of Santa Claus!

Then Jabez fell upon his knees

With cries of 'Don't,' and 'Pretty Please.'

He howled, 'I don't know where you read it,

But anyhow, I never said it!'

'Jabez' replied the angry saint,

'It isn't I, it's you that ain't.

Although there is a Santa Claus,

There isn't any Jabez Dawes!'

Said Jabez then with impudent vim,

'Oh, yes there is, and I am him!

Your magic don't scare me, it doesn't'

And suddenly he found he wasn't!

From grimy feet to grimy locks,

Jabez became a Jack-in-the-box,

An ugly toy with springs unsprung,

Forever sticking out his tongue.

The neighbors heard his mournful squeal;

They searched for him, but not with zeal.

No trace was found of Jabez Dawes,

Which led to thunderous applause,

And people drank a loving cup

And went and hung their stockings up.

All you who sneer at Santa Claus,

Beware the fate of Jabez Dawes,

The saucy boy who mocked the saint.

Donner and Blitzen licked off his paint. 

You'd better believe there's a Santa Claus. Well, not in any Republican administrations, but still ...

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

So you thought December might be better than November? Wanna buy a bridge? 

The head of one of the nation’s largest health insurers was gunned down in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday morning in what the police called a “brazen targeted attack;” two children - aged 5 and 6 - were murdered at their kindergarten school in Oroville, California, although the murder (by gun, of course) didn't receive much coverage because it happened the same day as the murder of a high-profile CEO; billionaire Elon Musk spent $250 million - a quarter of a billion dollars - to support Der Furor's presidential campaign, not counting his transformation of the former Twitter into a fountain of free advertising and promotion for DF's campaign; Pete Hegseth, Der Furor's nominee for Secretary of Defense, appears unlikely be confirmed by the Senate, leaving Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (!) as a possible replacement; and in Texas, a first-grade teacher who revoked bathroom privileges for her students as a lesson in responsibility after a restroom pass went missing is under fire from outraged parents after six children in her care suffered predictable accidents. 

Why not stick with a good thing? Here's another collection of random cartoons ... 

This is how my daughter sees it ...

There's a lot of reliance on it nowadays ...

This is the part that didn't make it into the story of David and Goliath ...

Ah, yes ... memories of my days on the dance floor ...

Hope for the best, plan for the worst and most expensive ...

I'll take the giant beast. How much worse can it be? ...

Interviews for positions in Der Furor's administration ...

Best summary of it that I've seen in a long time ...

It's a feature, not a bug ...

If I ever get my novel-in-progress in front of an editor, I think it'll go something like this ...

And that's it for the first Cartoon Saturday of December. I hope you enjoyed it.

Have a good day and a great weekend, and come back tomorrow for Poetry Sunday, and a cautionary Christmas tale. More thoughts then.

Bilbo
 

Great Moments in Editing and Signage

Here we are, peeking warily around the corner of the first Friday of December at the new month's first collection of Great Moments in Editing and Signage! And away we go ...

Good seasonal advice ...

Well, what do you use it for, then? ...

They're probably easier to hunt ...

I'm sure there's a story here, but I'm not sure I really want to hear it ...

I'm glad we cleared that up ...

I think I'll check out the demonstrations and the free samples ...

Well, I guess you have to find fun where you can now that Der Furor is coming back to power ...

I guess it's what they serve at those old-time tent revivals ...

Must be crappy jobs ...

I wonder what base they're counting in ...

And that's it for our first collection of Great Moments for December ... I hope you enjoyed it, and that you'll come back tomorrow for the month's first Cartoon Saturday. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

Of "Brain Rot" and "Dynamic Pricing"

The Oxford University Press - arguably the most prestigious observer and documenter of the English language - has announced its "Word of the Year" each year since 2004. The chosen word for this year, marking the 20th anniversary of the designation, was brain rot*, defined as

“the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration.”

Given the bubbling cesspool of of Fox News, X (formerly Twitter), and the rest of the right-wing hysteriosphere ... not to mention TikTok, Instagram, and the like, I'm not surprised. The OUP citation goes on to inform us that

"[the term refers] to low-quality, low-value content found on social media and the internet, as well as the subsequent negative impact that consuming this type of content is perceived to have on an individual or society."

One notices the truth of this observation in the results of the recent presidential election.

I also noted that one of the shortlisted alternate WOTY suggestions was dynamic pricing,** defined as 

"The practice of varying the price for a product or service to reflect changing market conditions; in particular, the charging of a higher price at a time of greater demand."

Dynamic Pricing is more polite, less pejorative term for what we used to call price gouging. It does not reflect increased value for the amount charged, but the maximization of profit at the expense of the consumer ... which is, of course, the whole point of an unrestricted capitalist system. After all, when was the last time you saw a price go down as a result of dynamic pricing, eh? Insult is added to injury, of course, when dynamic pricing is combined with shrinkflation to result in higher prices for less product ... with the blame falling on inflation ... the convenient bugbear for whom no one is ever responsible.

If you voted for cheaper eggs last November, well, good luck with that. I think you're going to get a hard lesson in dynamic pricing on top of your brain rot.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow, when Great Moments in Editing and Signage returns for a new month.

Bilbo

* Yes, it's two words ... but who am I to argue with the Oxford University Press?

** Yes, yes, again it's two words ... inflation hits language, too.

The New Calendar for Der Furor's America

Because Der Furor has promised to take so many actions on his first day in office, his staff and advisors have decided to replace the Gregorian Calendar that has been in use in the US since 1752 with the new "Trump Calendar," which will have the following features:

1. To accommodate the number of actions planned for the first day in office, the Trump Calendar for 2025 will contain six January 20ths. January 21st through 25th will all be redesignated as January 20th, January 26th will be become January 21st, and all subsequent January days will be renumbered, so that the month will end on January 25th.

2. The eleven federal legal holidays will be revised as follows:

* New Year's Day will remain unchanged; 
 

* Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr, will be replaced by "White Pride Day;" 

* Washington's Birthday (aka "Presidents Day") will be replaced by "Unitary Executive Day;" 

* Memorial Day will be replaced by "Suckers and Losers Day;" 

* Juneteenth National Independence Day will be replaced by "Trump's Birthday," and celebrated on June 14th; 

* Independence Day will be replaced by "America First Day;" 

* Labor Day will be replaced by "CEO Donor Appreciation Day;" 

* Columbus Day will be replaced by "Immigrant Denunciation and Deportation Day;" 

* Veterans Day will be replaced by "Commander-in-Chief Day;" 

* Thanksgiving Day will be replaced by "Trump Appreciation Day;"
and,

* Christmas Day will remain unchanged. 

3. Other popular, though not federally-recognized, holidays will be revised as follows:

* April Fools Day will be changed to "MAGA Appreciation Day;" 

* Flag Day, because it falls on the same date as the Trump's Birthday holiday, will be renamed "Fly Gigantic Trump Flags from Your Pickup Day;" and, 

* Cinco de Mayo will be changed to "May 5th."

Other changes are possible and will be hammered out among the various factions of Der Furor's administration in coordination with the authors of Project 2025.

Have a good day, and count the days until sanity returns to the nation.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Musical Sunday

As I wrote in the introduction to the last Musical Sunday, I'm through with musical satire and dread (at least for a while), and am digging back into my collection for some of my favorite, most soothing and uplifting songs. I have featured this wonderful tune from Judy Collins here before, but it remains as cheerful and inspiring as ever. Let's open the door and come on in ...

Have a good day. Be someone's rainbow coming around the bend.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo