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...

Green and Beer It

In commemoration of St. Patrick's Day, Joe Biden lost a battle of wits today with a potted plant that he believed to be a leprechaun. A visibly agitated Biden resisted efforts to drag him from his chair, claiming that he'd get a pot of gold if he won the staring contest that had already been going for 45 minutes. 

Eventually, alleged Dr. Jill Biden convinced her husband that he'd already won the gold and he could see it just by rolling up his pantlegs and stroking his leg hair in the sun. Delighted, the president wished everyone a Happy St. Swithin's Day and Merry Hava Nagila, then hurried away while chasing a picture of a bowl of ice cream that Kamala Harris was dangling from a fishing pole.

FROM THE VAULT

Tour de Farce

Mainstream media and Democrats in Washington are losing their minds owing to Fox News's Tucker Carlson, who is sharing the previously restricted videos of what really happened in our nation's capitol on January 6. 

Carlson's critics point out that he's deceptively showing deceptive video clips that attempt to deceive viewers by deceptively having nothing in common with the totally accurate (albeit completely unsubstantiated) accusations of the Left and the "January Sixth Committee" which found that violent anarchists burned the capitol to the ground, Washington's streets ran red with blood, and Donald Trump stood in the center of the carnage firing a machine gun into the air while shouting, "My holocaust is the best holocaust ever! Has there ever been a holocaust as big as mine? I don't think so! And this is a very, very beautiful one!"

Meanwhile, that lying bastard Tucker Carlson is releasing video like this...

This is a frame grab showing the infamous Q-anon Shaman being escorted into the heart of the capitol building assisted by the police. In this picture, there are 10 officers with weapons, and one guy with an American flag, a buffalo hat, and chafed nipples from his suspenders.

Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, and every talking head on the Left has told us that the moment shown above was literally "worse than 9/11," "worse than Pearl Harbor," and brought our Democracy to the brink of collapse. Not to mention getting buffalo fur on the nice rugs.

The recently exposed videos also show the so-called Shaman telling other protesters to remain peaceful and just go home as well as offering up a prayer of thanks on behalf of the officers who safely guided him to the capitol floor.

For this, he is now serving four years in prison following his conviction for violating the little-known statute that forbids "shenanigans and malarkey in a goofy costume." 

Just like the kids above who trusted the crossing guard, he trusted the police who invited him ever deeper into the building. In much the same way that too many Americans still trust the politicians who want you to believe what they say instead of what you can finally see.

Slowly But Unsurely

In the movie "The Jerk," Steve Martin's character Navin Johnson begins a new life by standing in front of the family shack and holding his thumb out for a ride. Hours later, standing in the dark, he's in the same place when a truck finally stops for him.

"How far are you going?!" he eagerly asks.
"To the end of the fence," the tobacco-chewing local says.
"OKAY!" says Navin as he loads in his luggage, travels 10 feet to the end of the fence, gets out, thanks the bemused driver, and raises his thumb once more.

I'm sharing this because I feel like I'm having a Navin Johnson moment. Sunday marks the first anniversary of Kathy's death and, when it comes to making progress on my "grief journey," I've gotten no farther than the end of the fence.

Not for lack of trying. My not-busy-enough life these days includes a variety of self-help tools and activities. All of which have some value, but most of which lack the social interaction that I suspect would offer the most healing. In other words, countering death with more life.

Despite my puckish sense of humor and my rakish good looks (Santa Claus looks rakish, right?) I simply don't have a big community of friends to spend time with. I'm trying to find activities that will change that, but I'm an old introvert and deathly shy. I recently got a one-year membership to the local Seniors Center and I'm sure it's a fine place, but looking at their activity calendar I found potential adventures like "bingo day" and "scrabble day", and I'd like to be doing something a bit more vital than that. Although if liquor can be smuggled in there's at least a potential for some fun.

Some folks have said, "you're a writer and you're funny - why not write a book on grief?" And the answer is pretty much the same as why I'm not writing books on losing weight, making an Internet fortune, or picking up women: because I suck at all of those things.

About the closest thing to wisdom I'd have to offer again references a joke. A blond goes to the doctor and says that she's in terrible pain. He asks "what hurts," and she winces in pain as she touches her ankle, her hip, her chin, her knee, and her elbow. "Ah," says the doctor, "you have a broken finger."

To me, grief is that broken finger. It's just one thing, but it seems to make everything hurt. And just as the blond should try using her other hand for a while, so too is it important for me to interact with the world by exploring it with something other than my grief. But it's hard and is a slow skill to learn.

What has helped me is my ongoing connection to Kathy. I keep her picture next to my computer and throughout the day I'll look to her and get a quick pick-me-up hit of love and understanding. A tangible feeling that although we're not together in the same way as before, we're still together. I can't explain it but I'm grateful for it.

Daughter J and I have no specific plans to commemorate this anniversary, though it's possible we'll do some much-needed housecleaning and maybe plant some flowers. Those are things that Kathy would not only approve of, but she would point out "well, you didn't have to wait until now!"

And on that day, I'll also make a toast to all of you (using the "good stuff"), who have done so much to sustain me throughout this first year. Your friendship, honesty, patience, and support mean more to me than you can know.

At least we were flashy dressers

Brightest Star in the Cancellation

Fans of the comic strip "Dilbert" may be distressed to find out that the wildly popular cartoon is being dropped by pretty much every virtue-signaling newspaper in America because of an alleged "racist tirade" by series creator Scott Adams.

Did he say the things he's accused of saying? Yes. Was it a "racist tirade?" No.

In a much-too-tiny nutshell, Adams reported on a recent Rasmussen poll in which 53% of black respondents agreed with the statement that "it's okay to be white." Meaning nearly half of the respondents either didn't think that or were unwilling to express their opinion. Considering that degree of anti-white hostility, Adams sarcastically said black people en masse (not individuals) are a "hate group" that white people should cautiously avoid.

He clearly stated that every person, regardless of skin color, should be respected, happily interacted with personally and professionally, and enjoy all of the freedoms and opportunities our nation has to offer. But based on the poll, Adams said that the only white person moving into a black neighborhood would be making a problematic choice. Adams has encouraged white journalists who have chosen to live in black neighborhoods to cast stones at him. The others can choke on their own self-righteous hypocrisy.

Adams is, in my opinion, a genius who thinks on multiple levels, most of them significantly above the mainstream mentality. I pay a monthly fee to support his podcasts on Locals.com and it's not unusual for his live stream to be the only human voice I hear on any given day (bonus: his takes on the news are frequently humorous, unexpected, and brilliant). So I can confidently say that he is not a racist, that his remarks - while knowingly inflammatory - were well-reasoned and not a tirade and, as usual, the liberal media has quite deliberately mischaracterized everything.

Mind you, to the frustration of his critics Adams is neither apologetic nor even unhappy about the brouhaha, and quite possibly lit this fuse on purpose in order to force a more honest discussion of racism in this country (Elon Musk has already tweeted support for Adams). The man thinks big and, frankly, no one else was giving the issue more than lip service including the many "news" outlets now castigating him. So maybe now we'll finally have a real conversation.

I don't have the energy or mental acuity to get into all the details, so my primary purpose today is simply to tell anyone who's heard that "the Dilbert guy is a horrible racist who hates black people" that it's a heinous lie. Scott Adams said things that woke culture has decreed You Must Not Say, but that doesn't make him either racist or wrong.

You can see and hear his original remarks, in context, in this Youtube video and get a much more detailed explanation in this lengthy (and fascinating)  interview with black podcast host Hotep Jesus. And no, I didn't know there was a guy named Hotep Jesus out there until now, but I'm glad I've discovered him.

Inflation Fighters

Yes, it's Presidents Day again. A day when there is no mail delivery because no one should try walking to their mailbox while as drunk as they have every reason to be today.

Of course, the cartoon above in no way represents any wishful fantasy on our part. Rather, it's a gentle josh about the fact that Biden completely ignored a Chinese spy balloon until it had completed its mission, but has now ordered full-scale attacks on balloons that appear to be totally harmless.

As a case in point, it now seems likely that Biden spent over one million dollars to shoot down a $12 balloon from a hobby shop that had been launched by the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade. A group whose terrorist threat assessment puts them several thousand notches lower than Amish barnraisers.

Still, a holiday is a holiday and Stilton's Place encourages everyone to celebrate and honor our current president by acting exactly like him today: get lost in a large building, forget who your wife is, do something racist, lie blatantly, mumble unintelligibly, and finish the festive day with ice cream and a sponge bath.

FROM THE VAULT: TRY THE CROW

Seriously, isn't this the best thing about Presidents Day?

Well Blow Me Down

What the cartoon above lacks in humor, it makes up for (nearly) in accuracy. I felt like I absolutely needed to make a post today just to say "Hi," but I was strapped for material. So I went with the classic desperation play of talking about the weather. Which isn't interesting at the moment but potentially could be since my neck of the North Texas woods will be under a severe weather warning for much of the day. 

This doesn't actually worry me much, since this sort of thing is common in Texas and we all know exactly what to do. Unfortunately, "what to do" is hightail it into the basement - but because of the clay soils in my area, there aren't any basements. So we fall back on "Plan B" which is darting from window to window during a storm and hoping very, very strongly that we don't get hit by an F5 twister.

Trivia note: twisters get their F3, F4, or F5 designations based on how many times you scream the "F" word when you see what's barreling down on you.

Barely related to any of this, I've always wanted to make a low-budget mockumentary about storm-chasing because the subject fascinates me...

It's unlikely (but not entirely impossible) that "FUNNEL RUNNERS: Into The Suck Zone" might get made eventually. Heck, I might get some exciting footage from my home security cameras today!

I genuinely love shows about chasing tornadoes and think that the subject would make rich fodder for a mockumentary treatment. The big problem, of course, is that while a lot of things about storm-chasing are funny, tornadoes regularly do very unfunny things to communities and (God help them) trailer parks of the kind I once lived in. So there's a possibility - or even a likelihood - that if I ever made the mockumentary a tragic news story would pop up that would make me look like an insensitive a**hole. Which would be accurate, but which I can also achieve with a lot less effort.

Outside of pipe-dream projects and weather reports, I don't have much else to share at the moment. Although on Valentine's Day, several outdoor flowers that Kathy had planted actually bloomed for me. There was no card, but I knew who they were from.

Balloonacy

He not only IS a number, the Chinese have got it

Last week, Hunter Biden finally admitted that the laptop computer filled with damning evidence of debauchery, drug abuse, and Biden family corruption really is his and SQUIRREL! LOOK! LOOK! SQUIRREL! I MEAN SPY BALLOON! OVER THERE! LOOK!

What was I saying? I don't remember but I'm pretty sure it must have been something about the Chinese balloon which drifted slowly across our nation for days and days, allegedly doing something or other, before Joe Biden gave the order to "shoot it out of the skies as soon as it finishes its mission."

To help show the gravity of the situation, a terse news media described the balloon as being "as big as two school buses" which is certainly a useful metric for those who like to measure spherical objects with school buses. For the rest of us, it might have been simpler to report that the balloon was "70 feet across" and had enough volume to completely fill three or four news cycles.

Clarification: On Facebook, a number of people remarked that they had no idea what the cartoon above was supposed to be. For such poor souls, I'll explain that it's a reference to the wonderful TV series "The Prisoner" in which a former spy is held captive in a mysterious holiday village by parties unknown. Escape is impossible because when a prisoner appears to be fleeing, he's tracked down by a seemingly living balloon that suffocates him into unconsciousness. The show was created by its star, the always-wonderful Patrick McGoohan and is definitely worth checking out.

ALSO IN THE NON-NEWS

• The ice storm in North Texas has passed which is great news for those of us who have reached hip-breaking age.  And I'm pleased to report that the many plants and flowers that had just started pushing up out of the soil in January look like they've survived the cold weather without too much damage.

• Last week I discovered that the IRS had rejected my tax return only days after I submitted it electronically, owing to a top-secret identity PIN number for Daughter J that they said I got wrong. But showing themselves to be good sports, the IRS didn't make a big deal out of it by notifying me and, undoubtedly for my convenience, just held on to the $36,000 tax refund they owed me. 

Rectifying this required a phone conversation with the IRS in which I was told that I would have to resubmit my taxes (and possibly face a late filing penalty, even though they're the ones who owed ME money). I asked if I needed to get a new PIN number for Daughter J and it was explained to me that I could only submit my return by mail at this point, so no PIN number was needed!

"So I should just mail in the same return I sent before?"
"Yes."
"The same one you rejected?"
"Yes."
"And I should send it without a PIN number?"
"Yes."
"And why was it rejected before..?"
"It didn't have a PIN number."

So with any luck, I'll be receiving most of my tax refund from last year at about the same time I have to file this year's taxes.

Hapless Anniversary

I sure wish I could plug something funny or colorful in here, but I'm afraid it's just not happening today. Saturday is my wedding anniversary and I think I could cope with that okay. But it's also a new anniversary that is a lot harder for me to deal with.

When Kathy and I were in the hospital last year at this time, there was a big whiteboard in her hospital room that listed the many different kinds of chemotherapy she was getting, and a series of boxes to show how many doses she'd received and how many were left to go.

Eventually, it came down to one last dose of one last drug - but the nurse forgot to check the box. Kathy instructed me to pick up the marker and fill in that last "X," which I did.

"That was my anniversary present to you," said Kathy - for indeed, it was our anniversary. "I did this round of chemo for you, and that's the last of it."

We had agreed that this would be the case. She'd had more chemo than she ever wanted and she'd done it for me. So the only thing left was to wait to see the results. Two weeks of waiting followed by a painful bone marrow test.

That test showed that Kathy was almost, almost in remission. No cancer cells could be detected by the human eye...but more sensitive computer sensors found a tiny amount of cancer still lingering. Which started another two week wait as prelude to another test. Would the chemo still in her body kill off those last cancer cells?

We waited- me with hope, Kathy without. And again she had the bone marrow test and we awaited results. Results that were eventually given to us by a soulless automaton of a doctor's assistant: the cancer had again exploded out of control. And that was that. There was nothing more to do.

The next day we were in "hospice" at another facility. Actually, just a standard room in the Alzheimer's wing of a nursing home, staffed by people who couldn't speak English. Kathy received no medicine or treatment of any kind. And together we waited.

Roughly two nightmarish weeks later she was gone.

And so this anniversary - the first anniversary of Kathy's exquisite and painful final gift - is going to be a rough one for me.

And I'm embarrassed to be inflicting this on you good folks, but you are my friends and I could use a virtual hug or two.

I love you and miss you, Kathy.

Stalling Tactics

Apparently, yet more classified documents entrusted to Joe Biden have turned up in a fifth unsecured location, leading Department of Justice officials to broaden their document search to include "everywhere that a**hole has ever been."

Of course, the real story here isn't that Joe Biden sucks at taking care of critical intelligence documents. Rather, the story is why the DOJ and Biden's own lawyers are pro-actively combing every piece of paper in his possession in the first place? 

There are some (and by "some" I mean me and anyone else who isn't a blithering idiot) who believe this is a desperate attempt to find and destroy evidence of Joe's long history of corrupt deals, bribe-taking, influence peddling, and money laundering  before the Republican congress can finally start pursuing the myriad criminal leads in Hunter Biden's infamous laptop.

Although even as bad as things look at the moment, Biden is not completely without defenders...

BONUS: CHATBOT COMEDY FROM THE FUTURE

People are understandably excited by new AI technologies like ChatGPT that use super-duper computer intelligence to write about almost anything you ask. And I say "almost" because I thought I would test its sense of humor and my initial attempt didn't go well...

Well, excuse the hell out of MEEeeeee! Allow me to rephrase the question in a way that the computer can understand...

Not exactly comedy gold (my job is safe for now) but at least the technology will work as long as no one ever lets the computer know that Joe Biden = numbskull.

Two Arms! Two Arms!

To honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in some way that isn't immediately clear, Boston has just unveiled a 10 million dollar sculpture of a bald man giving oral sex between a woman's spread legs as he grasps her thigh and cradles her big, beautiful bronze butt with his free hand.

Granted, that's not supposed to be what the sculpture depicts, but to paraphrase the old saying: "I may not know art, but I know what the hell that looks like."

In reality, the sculpture is intended to look like the arms - and only the arms - of Dr. King and his wife exchanging a quick hug after he won the Nobel peace prize by making the world safe for preposterously overpriced public art. Art which, regardless of race, creed, culture, national origin, gender orientation, or political affiliation, we can all hate equally. 

"But wait," you say - still apparently unclear about the uselessness of talking back to the printed page, "the sculpture probably looks much better from less salacious angles!" But does it...?

Well, no. 

Seeing millions of dollars wasted like this is always frustrating but, in this case, it also saddens and enrages me because Dr. King's dream deserves better.  Not just symbolically but in practice and policy.

Because somewhere along the way, we've fallen from Dr. King's mountaintop. Or rather, we were pushed by the political and cultural provocateurs who continue to benefit from racial inequity and division. So perhaps it is their arms that this abominable sculpture sadly represents.

BONUS: SOCKS APPEAL

He's only human.

No Superlatives For You!

99% of this post is just me checking in because I haven't posted anything in a week. But as long as I'm here, I might as well mention what I'm pissed off about (as reflected in the cartoon above).

Biden recently presided over a big ceremony in Washington DC in which he gave out medals to the "heroes" who, on January 6th two years ago, saved our democracy by shoving flag-waving AARP members out of public buildings, after which the so-called insurrectionists peacefully went to Cracker Barrel for a nice early dinner.

In keeping with the mythic narrative surrounding the event, officers who were present that day were labeled as "survivors" in much the same way you can call people "survivors" who are disembarking from a jet that didn't crash. 

Of course, not all officers were so lucky, and family members had to claim the medals of the four officers who tragically died fighting the seditionists that day. Well, maybe not that day but within 72 hours or so. And not from injuries sustained that day. One officer died of a stroke. Another of a heart attack. And sadly two died from suicide. But was their despair caused by seeing people in MAGA hats, or did it come from finding themselves on the battlelines against the unarmed, ordinary Americans they had sworn to protect? I don't pretend to know, but I find the lack of curiosity on this point disturbing.

But where was Lt. Michael "Killshot" Byrd during the ceremony? Where was his medal? We're told that the group Byrd was in was the last line of defense and saved dozens if not hundreds of lives that day, not to mention saving Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from giving birth to a buffalo-horned rape baby. Our own military had turned Ashli Babbitt into a Terminator-style killing machine and it was only Lt. Byrd's quick action that prevented her from spouting potentially deadly slogans within earshot of our sacred legislators.

So again - why no medal for Byrd? Why no proclamation from Joe Biden that our nation was saved by the actions of this one man? And a Black man at that! Unless the story being flogged isn't even remotely true (as evidenced by the countless "we didn't find nuffin" committee hearings staged by the Democrats) and Byrd is simply a trigger-happy embarrassment rather than the bravest American hero who ever lived. 

Still, whatever side of the political aisle you're on, I think we can all agree that January 6th, 2021 was a dark day for America. And hopefully, we'll never see such an unarmed attack again.