Nice Snowing You

Yes, this is real

Our nation has recently been rocked with the twin tragedies of a Hollywood writers' strike and, as of last week, a Hollywood actors' strike. Fortunately, this seems unlikely to impact Disney Studios' latest live-action remake of a classic film, because we see no hint that either writers or actual actors will be involved.

"Snow White" has gone before the cameras, albeit with a Hispanic heroine and no potentially offensive dwarves. Rather, in this version Snow White will be shacking up with one height-challenged individual and six beautifully-diverse homeless drug addicts who were enticed to join the production when offered clean needles and unblemished sidewalks to sh*t on. 

Seriously, this looks more like a production of Snow White Meets the Manson Family, which suddenly is a project I want to seriously think about making after seeing the recent success of the slasher film "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey."

And you can forget all of that Sleepy, Sneezy, Doc, Dopey, Comet, Blitzen, and Garfunkel nonsense. No, this outfit is Mr. Big, Rolando, They/Them, Pud, Glory Hole, LaQueefa, and Flatline. The jolly songs practically write themselves! And it seems way more likely that they'll be mining for crystal meth instead of diamonds.

While I wish Disney every success for this very, very socially responsible updating of a bigoted fairytale that cruelly stereotyped Little People as hardworking heroes with big hearts, I can't help but worry that the box office may be negatively impacted by the impending Hollywood audience strike scheduled for opening day.

UPDATE: After receiving considerable backlash online, Disney issued a statement that the cast photo seen above is "fake." They wish. They have since had to admit that the photo is 100% accurate, but that its release wasn't official.

SERVICING SECRETS

• So the Secret Service has announced that they've ended their investigation into the cocaine found at the White House because there are no clues other than video footage, sign-in logs, a multitude of guards executing tight security protocols, access to unlimited forensic technology, and the presence of at least one notable drug addict in the mix.

The Secret Service miraculously brought the list of suspects down to 500 people, but decided it wasn't worth the time and effort of interviewing anyone because the amount of cocaine would only be a misdemeanor offense anyway. Which I find hard to believe.

Would it have been a misdemeanor for someone who is currently not in jail only because of his last name and a sworn oath to a judge to keep his nose clean (literally)? Is it really just a misdemeanor to bring controlled substances into the frickin' White House? Does the Secret Service have no concerns about one or more of their agents being high on cocaine on the job? Should no one be worried about White House staffers with pinpoint pupils and powdered nostrils in close proximity to a fragile 80-year-old president?

Sadly, it now appears that the only purpose of the Secret Service is to protect the secrets of the corrupt.

WOULD YOU LIKE FAVA BEANS WITH THAT?

• There's certainly nothing wrong with Joe Biden lasciviously nibbling on a terrified tot before going in for a grandfatherly French kiss, right? Right...?

Nose for News

 I wish I could say that the cartoon above is some kind of a clever joke, but it actually amounts to straight-up reporting. In what should be the most secure location on Earth, alleged "authorities" are still struggling to agree on where cocaine was found in the White House. A conundrum that you'd think could be answered by asking the person who found it, "where was it?"

But no. We've been told, quite definitively and officially, that it was found in a White House library that is open to thousands of tourists. Until that was changed to the blow being found in a more secure area that ordinary tourists can't get to and just happens to be close to the parking area where Kamala "Inexplicable Laughter" Harris has her vice-presidential limo parked.

Wait! There has subsequently been a new report that the cocaine was actually found in a construction area where security cameras had been conveniently disabled, leaving open the possibility (if not downright likelihood) that the cocaine belonged to Jeffrey Epstein.

BOMB-BOMBS

Joe Biden recently made the very, very difficult decision to send so-called "cluster bombs" to Ukraine because Vladimir Putin still hasn't taken the bait to deploy nukes. 

Cluster bombs are big bombs that pop open on the way down and shower hundreds of little bombs on anything unfortunate enough to be on the ground below. And while most of those little bombs go off, as many as 40% don't - and just sit there on the ground, potentially for years, until some curious soul (frequently a child) tries to pick it up and is maimed or killed.

Such weapons are considered so heinous and dangerous to civilians that most countries have banned them outright, including Germany - a country with so little regard for human life that they formerly made an industry of turning people into Pop-tarts. 

Still, what are a few war crimes when the deployment of such weapons can help assure the safety and security of the Biden family against the release of whatever blackmail Ukraine has on them?

Burned on the Fraud of July

Eye bleach is available in the White House gift shop

I'm usually pretty enthusiastic about Independence Day, but this year I'm just not feeling it. I look at our nation and increasingly get the feeling that we red, white, and blew it.

Are we still the greatest country on Earth? Yes, but it helps that so many of the other countries are, in the timeless words of Donald Trump, "third-world sh*tholes."

"Oh look!" you and your holiday guests might exclaim, "there's a talking turd in our punchbowl!" And I don't mean to be that guy but honesty prevents me from much else this year. The Biden Crime Family is running rampant while the FBI and DOJ, both enemies of the people, spend their time harassing Donald Trump for imaginary crimes to make sure that, once again, our votes won't count in the next presidential election. 

Many on the Left are currently melting down over the Supreme Court's opinions that racial discrimination is a bad thing and that loans, student or otherwise, are supposed to be paid back. Not that the United States itself has any ability to pay back even a fraction of the money it's borrowed. 

Our southern border has fallen; federal agents are currently cutting razor wire on private properties to make sure that illegal immigrants (and sex traffickers, drug mules, and terrorists) aren't inconvenienced on their way in.

And don't even start me on Covid. Our government paid to create it, lied about it, ripped our freedoms away with nonsensical policies to fight it, then leaned heavily on us to make sure we received "vaccines" that didn't vaccinate but, oh yeah, caused a raft of serious and potentially lethal complications in otherwise healthy people. And did I mention that over one million Americans died from the Fauci/Wuhan lab leak? In the America I thought I lived in, there would be consequences for that.

But as is so frequently the case, our Constitution offers a ray of hope for making many of these situations right again by meting out justice to those who need it with (ahem) meaningful punishments to discourage future shenanigans. And by "meaningful," I mean punishments that will make people say "yikes!" 

Fortunately, the Constitution tells us how...

The 8th Amendment forbids "cruel and unusual" punishment. But let's read that the way any good lawyer (sorry for the oxymoron) would: cruel AND unusual punishment is prohibited, not cruel OR unusual punishment. So cruel punishment is okay and unusual punishment is okay, just so long as you don't do both at the same time. 

This opens the door for many colorful and likely effective ways of putting our country back on its proper course. Woodchippers, DIY submersibles, guillotines, iron maidens, Spanish donkeys, and the classic combo of honey and anthills could all play a valuable role in our nation's revitalization. Heads stuck on pikes could make a major comeback and bring visitors back to Washington, DC. Boiling tar would certainly be a legitimate infrastructure expense, and feathers are free for the taking at the base of every Green New Deal wind turbine in America.

Again, I truly apologize for my lack of holiday cheer this time around. And I sincerely hope that you and yours will enjoy the fireworks you can see, even if they're not yet the fireworks we should see.

A Fool And His Money Are Soon Departed

According to news reports, "presumed human remains" from the imploded Titan submersible have been brought to the surface, where they will presumably be examined by people who are expert in unwinding jelly rolls.

This made me wonder if there's actually an exclusive travel agency for billionaires that helps arrange idiotic, life-threatening adventures that allow the wealthy to die in spectacular ways that envious paupers just can't afford. How about volcano surfing on allegedly heat-resistant surfboards? A grizzly bear tickling trek? Year-round inside-and-out tanning opportunities at the Chernobyl reactor? Or maybe hang-gliding into an F5 tornado would be a fun way to drop a few hundred thousand dollars and perhaps visit the land of Oz.

These are apparently the deadly perils of having too much money. Perils that you and I are safe from thanks to Bidenomics.

DEAL OF THE CENSURE-Y

It's an old cartoon but once again timely, thanks to the news that Adam Schiff has recently been "censured" for being a lying load of excrement who has cost our country millions of dollars, done irreparable damage, and was instrumental in a successful presidential coup. Still, all of that has been made right thanks to the hard justice of "censure," right? A punishment so severe that there are no repercussions whatsoever and Schiff has declared it to be a "badge of honor."

Which makes me think that we're overdue to update the nature of censure. As a purely rhetorical example, after reviewing Schiff's misdeeds a jury of his peers might declare, "we've arrived at a unanimous decision and censure ass to a firing squad."

A ROGUE IS A ROGUE IS A ROGUE

It has recently been discovered that the smoke choking many American cities is not, after all, coming from Canadian wildfires but is in fact just the residual off-gassing from all of the smoking gun evidence of Biden family corruption that the FBI and DOJ are trying to contain.

Still, the occasional Biden story manages to find its way to the press, including the recent item that Hunter Biden has successfully slashed the child support payments going to the daughter he had with a stripper, and the child will only get that money on the condition that she not take the name "Biden."

Hunter was able to cut his payments (from $20,000 to $5,000) based on his claims of financial hardship. Mind you, this is a guy who snorts Kool-aid powder, blows his nose on a canvas, and sells the result for $250,000 to foreign "art collectors" who have no interest whatsoever in influencing Joe Biden's policies. 

Still, I'm rather glad that his little girl won't be burdened with the name "Biden" going forward.  It's tough enough to be the daughter of a stripper without also being labeled as a descendant of a family of political whores.

Room For Rant

Even though I'm doing my best to avoid the news these days, enough of it still seeps in to annoy me. Which is why today I feel like venting. Fair warning: I may have stories completely wrong because I don't really bother to read them. I do this both to preserve what little mental health I have and also because why the heck would I believe anything the (ahem) "news" media is reporting these days? So the following topics simply reflect my ill-informed opinions which are still more likely to be right than anything else out there. Hey, it's my snug-fitting mountaintop so I get to make the rules!

TRUMP INDICTMENT - Complete BS and yet another crime against civilization in general and our nation in particular. Did Trump have a bunch of documents in boxes in a bathroom? Sure seems like it. Do I care? No. Should ANYone care? Again, no.

News outlets are having a lot of fun noting that Trump stored records in a bathroom, apparently forgetting that Hillary Clinton kept her illegal private server in the crapper too. And it's worth noting that foreign agents can't hack paper documents, but can (and surely did) hack Hillary's computer. And the Justice Department didn't care. Nor did they care about Hillary and her minions smashing phones with hammers or erasing computer files with Bleachbit software to prevent damaging evidence from being collected.

Another angle I've been thinking about is this: Trump is being charged with obstruction for not handing these documents over to law enforcement agencies right away...but who was it who waged the campaign of lies against Trump and rigged the last election by concealing Hunter Biden's laptop? The same law enforcement agencies. In my mind, handing classified documents to these enemies of the state would be a helluva lot worse than having Trump keep an eye on them while dropping a deuce at Mar a Lago.

BIDEN BRIBERY - So the FBI finally had to cough up a document they'd been hiding (!) that shows Joe Biden took a $5 million bribe from Ukraine while serving as vice-president. Which was one helluva good deal for Ukraine, because after that they owned Joe's corrupt withered ass. Which is why Joe has been so goldarn helpful about giving billions in blackmail payments (my money and yours, by the way) to theoretically bolster Ukraine's war efforts. Where the money is really going, nobody knows.

As a bonus, we've been dragged into a proxy war against Vladimir Putin that could go nuclear at any time. And it was purely the corruption of the Bidens and their Deep State enablers that has put us here.

(UPDATE: As promised, I've displayed some ignorance here that should be corrected. The person on the Burisma board who allegedly bribed Biden is thought to be a Russian agent. Although it's possible that Ukraine's Zelensky found out about the dirty dealing and has subsequently used that knowledge to blackmail Biden for additional support. Or not - what the hell do I know?)

WUHAN BIO-WEAPONS PROGRAM - It sounds like there's more evidence coming out that the Wuhan Virus Lab really was working on turning Covid 19 into a bioweapon for the Chinese military when it slipped out one of the lab's screen doors and killed 10 million innocent people, incapacitated many more, and brought the world to a halt for two years. 

And who was helping to fund that research? You were. And I was. Because Anthony Fauci was sending our tax money over there - and lying about it - in order to give regular old bat virus new superpowers. And no one appears to be doing anything about any of this. No reparations from China. No punishment for the mass murderers. No apologies for the lies and destruction of our liberties.

 Quite the contrary; Fauci is getting the highest government pension anyone has ever gotten from our increasingly stupid country. Personally, I would like to see Dr. Fauci receive a completely fair trial for crimes against humanity, after which his head should be displayed on a completely fair pike.

UFOs/UAPs - Personally, I believe we've got UFOs from "not around here" galloping happily across our skies and that they've been here a long time. I know people who've seen things. I know people who know things. But what I can't believe is that the government - or whatever body is a lot higher than the government - will let this information come out if they can stop it.

For now, I'm closely watching the whistleblower who is carefully trying to get information about all of this into the hands of the congressional investigatory body that has been charged with getting the real truth about UFO/UAPs without getting access to classified files and programs.

My best guess is that any aliens don't find us especially interesting or useful. If they have been here for a long time, they haven't bothered to blow up the Earth, disintegrate our cities (although Democrats have had a lot of success doing that), or eat us. Perhaps it's only our hubris as a species that makes us think aliens would even want to communicate with us. And maybe that realization could be a helpful reset to all the idiocy and division we've managed to create for ourselves. 

If nothing else, maybe Aliens could bring us the much-needed gift of humility.

Vine Marches On

 Not long ago I shared a selection of items from Amazon Vine - an Amazon service that lets chosen members select free items in return for an honest Amazon review. Most of those items are pretty nice, but some of them just make you stop and scratch your head, wondering "what the hell was the inventor thinking?" 

And so, for some light Friday entertainment, here is yet another collection of oddball items only some of which I genuinely want...  

ROSES ARE RED...

...Violets are blue, I have no idea, what the heck these other flowers are. But aren't they nice? I promised Kathy that I'd take care of her gardens and landscaping as well as I could, and so far things are coming along nicely. However, this Spring I introduced a random element by buying a few packages of wildflower seeds from the Dollar Store (where things are now $1.25 - THANKS, Biden) and casting them about. Surprisingly, there are now flowers appearing on their gangly weed-looking stalks which makes me feel like I have quite the green thumb!

Drawing A Punchline In The Sand

And the hourglass will be sent to Sand Quentin

Will any of us ever forget exactly where we were when we heard the news that Joe Biden, the most beloved president in history, had been attacked by a rogue sandbag that caused him to take a spectacular and potentially lethal pratfall? And the answer is...yes. Most of us will forget, including Joe Biden himself who, only hours later, knocked the bejeezus out of his forehead when exiting a helicopter after mistakenly assuming that the door's height, like the debt ceiling, was an imaginary limit.

To prevent incidents like these from happening in the future, the president's Secret Service detail is receiving additional training to assure that all agents are prepared to throw themselves on any shuffle-disrupting obstacles in the president's path and that when Mr. Biden approaches a low doorway the agents will shout something other than "duck!" since that always causes him to look upward and ask "where?"

The president is now also reconsidering his support of Pride Month, pointing out that "pride goeth before a fall" and that a fall can be especially dangerous "if you go ass-over-teakettle in front of a pride of lions." 

In related news, the sandbag is currently standing at #2 in GOP presidential candidate polls and is considered to be the candidate most likely to decisively beat Joe Biden in a debate.

Take A Stand-Up

News broadcasts are a lot like comedy clubs these days. Not just because the stories are preposterous, but because there's a two-drink minimum just to get through them.

The stories above are true (except for the punchlines) and aren't even the best ones of the week. But complex stories just don't want to fit into those itty-bitty word balloons. One I would have liked to play with is that Hillary Clinton is increasingly hinting to the media that she would be available to run for president if there was a need. It's actually pretty funny to hear Hillary damn Joe Biden with very faint praise, saying things like he can probably get some more good things done if he can "keep his focus." Which is as tasty a wink-wink nudge-nudge reference to dementia as you'll find anywhere.

DeSantis also announced that he's running for president on Twitter, which has caused the Lefties to declare that Elon Musk is a racist, a satanist, and a Nazi and that Twitter has lost all credibility now that Musk has made it harder for the DNC to hire bots from China to skew Twitter polls.

Another story that I found very interesting (but admittedly know little about) is that the head of the "Oath Keepers" was just sentenced to 18 years in prison for his "seditious acts" relating to the January 6th holocaust in Washington. Even though the man, Stewart Rhodes, never entered the Capitol building, didn't use a weapon, and clearly didn't convince anyone to take over the government in an actual coup attempt. In striking contrast, this week some 19-year-old wannabee terrorist actually rented a U-Haul truck, deliberately crashed it into steel stanchions in front of the White House, then was arrested after he admitted that he was there to kidnap Joe Biden and/or Kamala Harris, kill them if necessary, and take over the government himself. The media instantly declared the kid to be a murderous white supremacist but had to backtrack when it turned out that he's some kind of foreigner from the Middle East (based on his name) and is neither white nor a citizen of our country. Still, that whole plan to commit murder for the purpose of taking over the government sounds pretty insurrection-y to me, so he's probably looking at 18 years in the pokey, right? Wrong. Once it was learned that he wasn't a white supremacist the Left just wanted the story to go away, so the kid has had his charges reduced to willfully damaging a steel post. That whole kidnapping and killing the president thing? No problem.

And speaking of posts, I've pretty much gotten to the end of this one. So I'll see you in the comments area!

Hail and Salutations

 
Greetings, all! Time moves in odd ways for me these days and I apologize for going so long between posts. Much of that is due to the fact that I haven't been doing anything exciting enough to write about, and the news is so aggravatingly stupid that I can't bear to watch much of it. But still, enough trickles in for me to at least have a little headline fun. 

So why did I title this post "Hail and Salutations?" Because on Friday we had some pretty impressive Texas hail around here...

That's not my hand, by the way. Rather, that's a picture shot by someone who lives maybe 10 minutes from my house. Windshields were shattered, cars were dented, roofs ruined, and anyone who let a smile be their umbrella was probably killed outright. Seriously, you do NOT want to be outdoors when this stuff hits.

My house was hit by the hail but less impressively. Still, my lawn looked like a tossed salad afterward because of all of the shredded leaves ripped from the trees. Here's some video (again, not mine) of the fun...

And that's my meager but heartfelt Monday offering. May your week be filled with fun, laughter, success, and non-murderous skies!

Rape Expectations

In a shocking legal decision that is going to prove a nightmare for HR Departments everywhere, former President Donald Trump has been ordered to pay $5 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for saying that he never raped her and wouldn't want to. 

The jury did not find Trump guilty of rape, but apparently, it's now unacceptably rude - and legally actionable - for a man to say that he doesn't want to rip off a woman's clothing and violate her sexually against her will. 

This now being legal precedent, men who care about women's rights and simple courtesy should be quick to tell females "I'd like to have my way with you in a dark alley while gagging you with a filthy handkerchief and banging your forehead bloody on a dumpster." Or, if an even more flattering comment is required, "I'd rape you, put your broken body in a shallow grave, but then rape your corpse one last time because you're just that hot."

Obviously, so as not to combine racism with misogyny, "woke" men should make a point of telling women of all creeds, colors, and nationalities that "I'd really enjoy stalking you, tackling you in a dark park, and leaving you unconscious, naked, and bruised under a bush covered with my DNA." Similar expressions of etiquette should of course be shared with the elderly and handicapped. 

Whether or not the ruling applies to same-sex relationships has not yet been established, but for safety's sake men using public urinals may wish to turn to whoever is next to them and say "I'd like to bang you like the new fish in a prison shower room."

As of this writing, Joe Biden has not made an official statement on the ruling but, in an effort to appeal to female voters,  it seems certain that he will soon make public remarks on how much he'd like to rape Kamala Harris.

Manners or not, this is going to be a tough one

Shoot du Jour

I live about 15 minutes away from the Allen Premium Outlets mall, where a deranged shooter went on a killing spree Saturday. Do I shop there often? No. Have I shopped there in the past? Yes.

Sadly, there really does seem to be a mass shooting almost every day now. People scramble for information to try to make sense of these tragedies while talking heads who really don't have a clue feel called upon to pontificate. Including me, it now seems.

As of this writing on Sunday morning the body count stands at nine dead (including the shooter) and seven more wounded. Or not - the news reports vary.  Victims range in age from 5 to 61. And there are appalling details that I have no intention of sharing here.

I'd like to say that no one I know was hurt or killed, but I actually won't really know that until the victims' names are released.

Meanwhile, like everyone else, I'm trying to piece together a story based on very incomplete and perhaps inaccurate information. We're told that the shooter was in his 30s and lived with his parents. It was reported that police requested a translator to talk to the shooter's parents, so we can assume that they (and he) weren't "from around here," as we say in Texas. Of course, ascribing any importance to that fact would label me xenophobic and bigoted, so I certainly won't do that. Nor will I speculate on whether the distinctive tattoo on the back of one of the killer's hands might be some sort of gang sign.  For all I know, it's just a bar code applied when these lunatics roll off the assembly line. 

Neighbors called the shooter "quiet" and "a loner," which comes as no great shock. He frequently wore the clothing of a security guard - but who knows if that was avocation or affectation? Had he worked at the shopping outlet? Was there a reason in his mind for this time, this place, and these people? I don't know. But I feel a need to know, as if an "aha!" moment will tell me how to ensure the safety of family, friends, and myself in the future. Which is a fool's errand; you can't outthink madness and evil.

So my thoughts ramble. I think about the young marine on a subway who took steps to subdue a man threatening violence to others and is now likely facing a charge of murder. And I wonder if this is going to dissuade possible heroes from coming to the aid of others in the future.

I don't want to waste time talking about guns. Guns, when used like this, are terrible tools rather than the actual problem. Mental illness is a problem. Isolation is a problem. Cultural degradation is a problem. The celebration of violence (I'm looking at you, John Wick) is a problem. The orchestrated pitting of one citizen against another is a problem. And our nation's loss of social and spiritual values is at the heart of it all.

In other words, I have nothing new to say and no magical insights. But I can confidently speculate that politics and politicians can have no positive impact on this nightmare. It is the soul of our nation that needs repair and real change will require a cultural shift that I can't even imagine. But I can damn well hope for it.

UPDATE

We know a little more now. The shooter was a 33-year-old Hispanic who was licensed as a security guard between 2016 and 2020 although sources aren't saying if he ever worked at the mall. CNN has predictably reported (in headline-sized type) "INVESTIGATORS PROBE POSSIBLE LINK TO RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM." The "possible link" being an insignia on the shooter's shirt saying "RWDS" which, according to the totally unbiased Southern Poverty Law Center, might stand for "Right Wing Death Squad," a group of bloodthirsty Conservative terrorists whose secret conspiratorial plans have only been thwarted to date because of their taste for matching embroidered polo shirts.

There has also been speculation that the tattoo on the shooter's hand represents the Hispanic "Tango Blast" gang based in Houston, although it is said to also be popular ornamentation for those in the Hip-Hop community. 

And Right Wingers, of course.

A.I. - A.I. - Oh!

In a twist that even James "Terminator" Cameron didn't see coming, mankind was doomed yesterday when vice-president Kamala Harris was tasked with keeping Artificial Intelligence from wiping out humanity.

Ms. Harris met with representatives from Google, Microsoft, and other leading A.I. enterprises to discuss the potential risks of the rapidly metastasizing technology. It's unclear whether Harris got this existentially important assignment owing to her great success protecting our nation's southern border or her complete mastery of sophisticated scientific concepts. By which we mean "Venn diagrams." 

Still, putting Harris into such a critical position may not be the astoundingly stupid and surely fatal mistake it appears to be. Because the only way to slow down Artificial Intelligence at this point is to let it try to conduct conversations with the vice-president and melt its circuitry trying to figure out what the hell she's talking (and cackling) about.

---------

To give credit where credit is due, Kamala may actually have accomplished something in her talk with the A.I. moguls, because I just tried to use Microsoft's "Bing" A.I. art generator to make a picture of the vice-president battling an evil computer. And it turns out that users are forbidden from making pictures of Harris. So while WE may not be protected from A.I.'s abuses, it seems that she is...for now.

So this is what I had to settle for. Not a true illustration of the situation but, symbolically speaking, it captures the spirit of Kamala Harris matching wits with Artificial Intelligence...

And as long as I'm screwing around with an A.I. art generator, let me wish everyone a delightful Cinco de Mayo with this image of a government-funded mariachi band welcoming new voters as they enter our country...

One Good Intern Deserves Another

After so many years at the forefront of journalism, I feel like it's my duty to give back to a newer, younger generation. So I've opened my doors to these jobless guys and offered to teach them the basics of news gathering, analysis, and humor management. 

For starters, I'll have them see what they can dig up about sad stories of elder abuse like this one...

Biden's official announcement was both predictable and flabbergastingly awful. He wants to "finish what (he's) started" which I think we can safely assume is murdering our nation. He also declared that he needs to continue the fight against right-wing MAGA extremists who hate freedom, women, minorities, senior citizens, voting rights, health, and the sound fiscal policy of basing our nation's economy on freshly-printed Monopoly money.

2:30 (Think About It)

No, I haven't forgotten which blog I'm working on, but there's considerable overlap at the moment. On Friday night (because of course it was a Friday night) I had a tooth suddenly go supernova on me. Since then I've been popping pain pills and antibiotics to try to make it to Monday, when I can hopefully see someone rather than just making a future appointment.

Ironically, the tooth in question should theoretically be incapable of causing pain owing to a root canal and a crown from an emergency dentist about 18 months ago when I was on hospital duty with Kathy. This person (I hesitate to use the word "dentist") apparently failed to do a complete root canal, put on the worst-looking crown I've ever seen, and then made it fit by drilling the top until she (oops!) made it down into the original tooth, making the crown useless. And did I mention the $4k emergency fee? But I was preoccupied at the time so let it go.

But that lack-of-quality workmanship has caught up with me and I'm enduring "Marathon Man" levels of pain about as enthusiastically as Dustin Hoffman did. And money be damned, I'm NOT going back to the emergency place to demand a do-over because I'd rather pay pretty much anything to pretty much anyone else to have the job done right. Although during moments of intense suffering, I have considered taking a more "hands-on" approach...

It's indicative of my situation that I've actually been looking up "do it yourself" videos on Youtube, and that even the one above seems appealing. I genuinely envy that lucky SOB with the beer.

And now, I've got to get back to the serious work of holding an ice bag on my face. I'll try to update this post later after I've either been to the dentist or a Home Depot.

MONDAY UPDATE:

My good dentist worked me in first thing this morning and confirmed that I've got infection due to the botched root canal the emergency person did. So I've got a referral to a specialist I've seen before (also good) at 4:15 to finish the root canal that the emergency practice only started. So now I've got a few hours to kill and will spend them packing that tooth area in mint chocolate chip ice cream.

SECOND UPDATE:

Aw, nuts. The specialist let me come in early, but not much good came out of it.  The x-ray shows that the emergency dentist left what might be a small amount of drill bit in the root of my tooth. So I was given the choice of getting a new root canal using a laser which might or might not clear the obstruction, or just pulling the tooth after which I’d need an implant. I said I’d rather do the root canal, but it turns out that if they attempted it and it didn’t work, I’d be in WAY more pain than I’ve been in so far and would have to schedule an emergency tooth extraction with some other practitioner. 

SOoo the strategy is to just give my antibiotics another 24-48 hours to bring the pain down, THEN try the root canal (for $2500 - and I’ll surely need a new crown on top of that). If the tooth was further back in my mouth I’d just have them pull it and be done with it. But since the tooth is visible when I smile, I don't think I should just leave a gaping hole there. Of course, it won't be a problem if I give up smiling, which seems like an easy enough option.  

At the moment, at least, I don't hurt. Because for my $300 specialist visit today, I got three numbing injections  (directly into my brain stem I believe) which should mask the pain until all the dentists close their offices for the day.

AND BY THE WAY...

How accurate was this prediction from last Friday?

In case you haven't heard, Tucker has been fired from FOX News and we now know (which he didn't) that Friday was his last show for the network. Sometimes I'm so good I scare myself.

"Fun-Sized" News

You know that reflex test where the doctor taps your kneecap with a rubber hammer to make your leg jump? Well, today's cartoon has my reflexive responses to considerably harder hammers hitting my funnybone. And yes, all of these stories are real...

Have a great weekend everyone!

Greater Than The Summary of Its Parts

 Just to start your Monday morning off right, here's a super-convenient compressed version of current (and real) news stories. Oh sure, I could post links to the stories themselves but would it really make a difference? I think not.

From The Vault: The Carroll and Shtick Approach

Greetings all! I didn't want the week to wrap up without making a post, but I honestly have very little to talk about owing to my ongoing news embargo and a sedentary lifestyle. Which has been even more sedentary this week because of a pinched nerve in my back that spontaneously erupted in a moment of high frustration when working on my taxes. Which immediately raises two important questions: first, can I deduct a tube of Ben-Gay as a legitimate tax-related expense and second, why the hell hasn't Ben-Gay either changed its potentially offensive name or hired Dylan Mulvaney as a spokesperson?

I asked A.I. to generate a picture of a man with back pain but forgot to specify "not horrifying."

When not cursing the IRS, TurboTax, and whatever dark forces summoned them into being, I've been working on the landscaping around here, continuing to stick random plants in the ground in hopes that they'll grow into something Kathy would approve of. This involves a large element of random chance because I still don't know what I'm doing out there, but I'm assured that spending time outdoors communing with nature is very good for a person's mental health if they're unaware of the risk of skin cancer.

But back to today's post. I feel weird about just showing up and waving at everyone, so I'm also inviting you to join me for a trip down memory lame. Because Trump is currently embroiled in a civil court action in which writer E. Jean Carroll is renewing her accusations that Trump raped her many, many years ago. Which makes it feel appropriate for us to look back a few years to see what I had to say about the situation...

FROM THE VAULT

It's been a remarkably consistent week for President Trump: he was going to obliterate Iran, then it didn't happen. He was going to have ICE raids on illegals all over the country, then it didn't happen. And now he's been accused of rape by a woman selling a book about how awful men are, and we're pretty damn sure it didn't happen either.

Advice columnist E. Jean Carroll who, in her spare time, conducts twice-weekly walking tours disparaging "The Most Hideous Men of New York City," claims that in "1975 or 1976," Trump was overcome with lust for her while they shared a dressing room in the Bergdorf Goodman department store. Both were fully clothed at the time (she never even dropped her handbag), but Carroll claims that Trump managed to hold her against a wall while simultaneously unzipping his fly and pulling down her tights, after which he "thrust his penis halfway - or completely, I'm not certain - inside me." After which she pushed him aside, ran from the dressing room, and cleverly escaped on a slow-moving escalator without alerting anyone at the store or mentioning it in public for a quarter century.

Ms. Carroll, the author of the coincidentally just-released "What Do We Need Men For?", denies Donald Trump's claim that she's lying to sell more books and states categorically that she's telling the absolute truth and has only come forward to revitalize her career as a fading porn star and stripper. No, wait - that was Stormy Daniels, the only woman on the "gentleman's club" circuit who has to give 75¢ in change to anyone who tucks a dollar bill in her g-string.

Ms. Carroll says that she has no intention of filing charges against President Trump, because she "would find it disrespectful to the women who are down on the border who are being raped around the clock down there without any protection. It would just be disrespectful."

So as a famous and celebrated advice columnist, she would tell women not to report being raped in order to show respect to other women who are getting raped?! We should definitely get into the "advice columnist" racket, as apparently the entry requirements are pretty much nonexistent.

Rape is a very serious matter, but the sad epidemic of rape taking place at our southern border could be greatly reduced by closing the borders as Trump wants to do, rather than having liberals keep them wide open as an enticing lure to women and children...and their rapists.

And we've been told, repeatedly, that every woman who cries rape needs to be believed without question. Sadly, the circus of wild unsubstantiated lies at the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings has made that an exceedingly foolish thing to do. For which actual rape victims who are disbelieved can thank political hatchet-wielders like Gloria Allred, Michael Avenatti, Senate Democrats and, we're betting, E. Jean Carroll.

I Can't Believe It's Not Buddha

It's been a week or so since I've posted anything, mostly because life has simultaneously been busy and boring. I'm not sure how that works either, but trust me on this. So I thought that I'd simply post whatever the heck I've got bouncing through my head at the moment. I was going to call it "Deep Thoughts with Stilton" but then realized that none of my thoughts are particularly deep.

By the way, the AI self-portrait above is in no way representative of how I really look. I certainly weigh too much but don't think I'm quite as inflated as this guy. I asked the computer for "portly" and was instead given "rotund." 

AI is a funny thing, which is perhaps why Elon Musk and other high-tech types are currently warning the world to put further development on immediate hold before it destroys us all. Which is a real possibility, albeit probably not in the way that most of us would have expected. Social media and the (ahem) "news" are all guided by algorithms now. Algorithms designed to ramp up our fears and anger against others and addict us to getting more and more upsetting information. Which is why our country is so divided and angry.

But AI puts those algorithms on steroids (currently growing in what has been called a double-exponential curve) and will be able to tell each and every one of us exactly the most convincing arguments to embrace full-fledged paranoia and enmity of others while developing a heroin-level dependence on whatever the computers (or whoever's running the computers) wants to tell us.  Bonus: any information - audio, video, photo, document, or text - that can be transmitted electronically can be faked easily, instantly, and (quite soon) perfectly. 

So slowing things down on AI development is probably a very good idea...and also the definition of the genie already being out of the cybernetic bottle. 

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On what can't exactly be called the bright side,  Artificial Intelligence could be brought to its imaginary knees by Nonexistent Intelligence if our national power grid fails owing to a natural solar flare (we just recently missed a huge one that would have done the job) or an EMP attack from anyone who can explode a nuke in the stratosphere above our country. We would instantly be thrown back into 1880's technology - no electricity, no gas for cars, no computers, no water systems, no food delivery, no communication, etc. Our nation would go "Lord of the Flies" in about two weeks.

Happily, our grid can be "hardened" for what amounts to flyspeck money in Washington...only no one is making it happen. As a case in point, here's a cartoon and editorial I did about this very subject some 12 years ago. 

Actor Dennis Quaid has just made a documentary about all of this that you can sign up to watch at the website for "Grid Down, Power Up."  Do it now before the story can only be told around campfires!

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In actual good news, I've recently been reading about the poor biologically-female athletes who keep getting crushed in competition against biologically-male "female" athletes and aren't happy about it.  Competing against their hormonally-augmented opponents gives them a tremendous handicap. Which is what inspired me to create a perfect solution for the problem: allow all biological females to compete in the Special Olympics so they can finally start winning medals again.

Granted, this would pretty much be taking a dump on special needs kids, but isn't it still the same reasoning that the Left is already making about biological females? You're welcome, America!

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And say, how about that indictment of Donald Trump? How much of a pisser is that? He's accused of commiting a misdemeanor (falsifying a business record) that has already expired under the statute of limitations. Only the rogue District Attorney has bumped up the charge by claiming that Trump's payment of $130k in hush money to Stormy "Slutzilla" Daniels became an illegal campaign donation, and categorizing it as a "legal expense" therefore becomes (egad!) a criminal act and felony.

Unlike Hillary Clinton, who in the same election paid over one million dollars for the creation of the Steele Dossier, which was definitely a contribution to her campaign, and which was reported (in her falsified records) as "legal expenses." 

So however you look at this mess, Hillary is at least eight times more guilty than Trump and she's not being charged with diddly-squat. Probably because DA Alvin Bragg doesn't want to commit Arkancide.

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I've been working on my taxes and, as is the case almost every year, I'm gaining new insights into why some people end up in bell towers with sniper rifles. I'm a smart-ish guy, college education, successful businessman, and I have a pricey computer program to help me compute my relatively simple taxes. So why is it still frigging impossible?!

One reason is that the tax forms aren't written by Earthlings, or at least not by any with even a rudimentary understanding of English.  A recent breaking point of mine came when reading this question from the IRS (which I'm paraphrasing):

Are you an American or someone who lived outside of the country for more than half of 2022? 
[   ] Yes
[   ] No

Well, I'm an American so I should answer "yes," right? Because if I answer "no" I'll probably lose my citizenship and be deported. Seriously, how am I supposed to answer this?! Would it have killed them to replace "or" with "and/or" so I didn't have to play guessing games in which the prize for getting the answer wrong is a federal fine?! Bastards.

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This past week, a friend of mine posted that he'd stripped the fingerprints from one finger while zesting a lemon on a grater - and it hurt. And because real friends reach out to help in times of trouble, I sent him this inspirational poster. Now we can all feel his pain.

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Speaking of pain, he segued deftly, I've been in less of it recently. Something changed on the one-year anniversary of losing Kathy. I'm certainly not missing her any less, but the grief has become more bearable. I'm not entirely sure why, in part because I don't want to burst the bubble with too much introspection. 

I still haven't made much progress in re-engaging with the world, though on Tuesday I'm going to attend a meeting of our local gardening club. This will hopefully provide a bit of social interaction while gathering advice on how to take care of Kathy's landscaping. 

When she was very ill indeed, she still told me that she thought we needed some Bloomstruck Hydrangea and made me write that down. And this week I found a couple of them at Home Depot! So on Tuesday, I'll give someone at garden club a wonderful straight line when I ask where I should stick them.

Everything Is Vine!

Because we live in a wonderful country, I have access to Amazon's "Vine" program (which you get by either being invited or by floating a big enough bribe). Here's how it works: Amazon posts literally thousands of products that Vine members can order absolutely free in return for writing an honest review of the product.

Or maybe I should say almost absolutely free; at the end of the year, Amazon totals up everything you got and sends a tax form saying that you received that amount as income, meaning you have to pay taxes on everything. Which usually isn't bad, although currently there's an $1800 massage chair on there (really) that I don't even want to pay tax on because it's so spectacularly ugly. It looks like a wrecked VW Beetle covered with Naugahyde and disco lights.

Still, it's fun to occasionally find something I need or just something that seems like it would be fun to own. It's also fun browsing through all of the items and discovering how many absolutely horrible product ideas have actually made it to market. I like to imagine an entrepreneur suddenly sitting bolt upright in bed at 3 a.m. and shaking his wife awake in the dark...

"Honey! I've got it! A million-dollar idea! IT CAN'T FAIL!!!"
(yawning) "Okay...what is it this time?"
"A RUBBER REMOTE CONTROL FOR BABIES TO CHEW ON!"
(long pause, followed by a gunshot)

So just for a little Friday fun, here's a sampling of some of the honest-to-gosh products currently being offered on Amazon Vine and my initial thoughts about them...

The Tale Is Wagging The Dog

In a recent news story that I'm not going to bother to read, it was reported that so-called "experts" have suddenly - almost magically - discovered records from China claiming that there were some wet market raccoon dogs that tested positive for Covid back in 2020. This is being cited as compelling evidence that Covid somehow originated in these poor, delicious dogs and NOT the nearby Wuhan biological lab that was simultaneously conducting Fauci-funded experiments to create exactly the same lethal virus strains that have since killed millions.

In fairness, this new evidence does make a compelling argument that governmental agencies and scientific experts believe, deeply and sincerely, that we must be effing morons.  

To begin with, faking the racoon dog test results would be preposterously easy to do. Secondly, even if the dogs did have Covid, it was already well established that humans (like, oh, millions of people in China) can pass the virus to dogs and other mammals without the little beasties being required to spontaneously master bio-lab level gene splicing. Additionally, there are still no known examples of raccoon dogs or any other varmints who haven't been exposed to humans testing positive for the Wuhan-strain of Covid.

For this reason, anyone who tells you that Covid came from raccoon dogs is either announcing their own stunning ignorance and naivete, calling you a blithering idiot, or both.

In related news, when Dr. Anthony Fauci was asked to comment on this story, he confirmed that wet market raccoon dogs "taste like Covid-infected chicken."

ARRESTING DEVELOPMENT

Also in the alleged news, it is widely believed that former President Donald Trump will be indicted and arrested on Tuesday, accused of falsifying business records. Oh, not the kind of business records falsified and destroyed by Fauci's Wuhan Lab partners to conceal their liability for holocaust-level mass murder. No, we're talking about Trump potentially mischaracterizing the money paid to porn whore Stormy Daniels to keep her yap shut about having a sexual dalliance with The Don.

Granted, everyone thought this was resolved years ago, back when I was doing cartoons like this...

And this cartoon, after the over-the-hill stripper lost her defamation case against Donald Trump and was ordered to pay all of his legal bills relating to the case...

Frankly, I don't care about Trump's personal life and am tired of the unending harassment he's suffered. Especially when those who are genuinely guilty of crimes go unpunished...