Friday the 13th

Today is Friday the 13th, and we knew our bad luck had started this morning as soon as we heard the heartbreaking news that a flaming asteroid hadn't smacked into last night's Democrat debate. Meaning all ten candidates were able to further expound on their plans to kill the economy, our freedoms and, of course, lots and lots of babies.We haven't completely caught up on their latest round of claptrap yet, but we have been reading the specifics of what Elizabeth Warren (whose popularity is skyrocketing in the prestigious Totem Poll) has in mind if elected - and it's way worse than anything Jason Voorhees could do with a machete.

President Liz (presumably in full feathered headdress) would introduce a concept she calls "accountable capitalism," which the Wall Street Journal succinctly summarizes as a plan which is "an assault on retiree wealth" which would "destroy savings built over a lifetime and sink the economy."

Think they're exaggerating? Warren wants every business in America worth $1 billion or more to be compelled to become a "federal corporation" in which 2/5 of the directors must be elected by the workers. And rather than primarily serving stockholders, these "federal" corporations would be ordered to serve "the workforce, the community, customers, the local and global environment, and contribute to the betterment of community and societal factors."

In other words, every large company in America will go belly up, taking retirement investments with them.

All considered, we'd prefer to have the maniac with the hockey mask running our economic policies rather than any of the ten Marxist candidates who are currently giving us goosebumps.

UPDATE

We watched quite a bit of the debate (well, all we could stand), and it was even more disturbing than we expected it to be. So much anger and hatred. So many lies. So much loathing of our country and disparagement of large portions of our citizenry.

Not to overstate the case, but if any of these candidates wins the presidency we can kiss the American experiment goodbye.

FROM THE VAULT: TIMING IS EVERYTHING

9/11 - Eighteen Years

Our feelings on this sad anniversary are too mixed and too powerful for us to put into words. For many (but apparently not enough) of us, 9/11 was a life-changing and world-changing event.

We felt that nothing would be the same afterwards...and for us, that has remained absolutely true. The sights of that day are embedded in our psyche. The shock, despair, grief, and anger are now part of our DNA.

For other people, the effects haven't been as profound or prolonged. Whether it's a Muslim congresswoman shrugging off the horror by saying "some people did something," or college students who (when interviewed) can't even identify what month or day 9/11 occurred, the importance and impact of this event is hardly a universal constant anymore. That's sad and frightening.

But we don't have it in us to litigate the point today. We have our own thoughts and feelings, but believe that today is more about personal reflection than editorializing. We all have another 364 days a year to make our feelings and beliefs known...and we should use every one of them.

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For a retrospective of our 9/11 cartoons and commentaries from the past, just click this link.

Interpretive Dunce

Sure, we've been seeing and hearing from a lot of Democrats who want to become chief of state, leader of the free world, and twitchy-fingered commander of our nuclear arsenal...but do we really know any of them - deep down in whatever passes for a Progressive's soul?

To that end, we present a poem written by former flavor-of-the-month Beto O'Rourke who, at the time (1988), was using the pen name Psychedelic Warlord so his intellectual musings would be taken seriously. No, really.

In the service of art, and to more accurately portray what goes on in the self-obsessed psyche of a Liberal intellect, we have not changed a single word.

Nor have we changed our mind about which party we'll enthusiastically be voting against in November.

Red Eye Or Not

Terror swept through a CNN town hall broadcast on Wednesday when Joe Biden's left eyeball suddenly turned bright red as he spoke, then started spraying blood uncontrollably onto other Democrat candidates, CNN moderators and crew, and a retching, stampeding studio audience.

At least, that's how we imagine it went down. All we know for sure is that his eyeball filled with  blood, which really isn't a good look if you're not actively engaged in a Satanic rite.

The injury, thought to be a condition called a "subconjuctival hemorrhage" may or may not be a form of sexually transmitted disease. All we really have to go on is that "subconjuctival" sounds a lot like "conjugal," which is a term for any prison sex which does not involve dropped soap.

Biden himself tried to score points with evangelicals by suggesting that his injury might be a "stigmata." When told that the wounds of stigmata traditionally appear only in the bodily areas directly affected by the Crucifixion, Biden speculated that "maybe Jesus had pink eye as a kid or something."

According to doctors, this kind of spontaneous bleeding can be caused by things as simple as coughing, sneezing, eye rubbing, or "straining." Which is great if America really wants a president who'll need a transfusion every time he pushes out an oversized deuce.

FROM THE VAULT: REID MY EYELIDS

Because eye injury jokes never get old.

BURNING SENSATIONALISM

The event at which Biden's eyeball had its "monthly visitor" was CNN's 7-hour marathon Climate Change Town Hall broadcast, at which Democrat presidential wannabees were all given time to say how utterly screwed we are. Many of the candidates believed that Earth has so little time left that the planet wouldn't even make it to the end of the broadcast. Spoiler alert: it did, but we're guessing most viewers didn't - perhaps owing to spontaneous eye bleeding of their own.

Happily, our own peepers remain intact because we'd need to be facing something a lot worse than the end of the world to put up with seven hours of CNN. But we've been unable to completely avoid some of the nonsense spouted by the Dems onstage.

Bernie Sanders helpfully suggested that the effects of climate change could be mitigated with more birth control and abortions worldwide, presumably because the butchers at Planned Parenthood use a lot of fossil fuels if they're not kept busy. Julian Castro demanded "environmental justice," whatever the hell that is, with nature receiving Miranda rights and a publicly appointed lawyer when necessary.

Elizabeth Warren shocked nobody by suggesting the key to responsible environmentalism in the age of climate change is to approve no infrastructure projects in the United States which might impact the tribal lands of native Americans. Say, by putting an oil pipeline through the middle of a casino.

Pete Buttigieg informed the dozen or so viewers that fighting climate change will be "more challenging" than winning World War II.  Which is probably true, considering WWII was fought by The Greatest Generation, and all our country can currently conscript is Nazis or pussies.

Kamala Harris suggested that the most practical and pragmatic way to address global climate change is to beat the stew out of it with $10 trillion in taxpayer dollars. Cory Booker, on the other hand, thinks the world can be saved if the government builds enough recharging stations for electric cars - ignoring the fact that the carbon footprint for electric cars (and the need to actually generate electricity for them) is worse than that of internal combustion vehicles.

As always, no evidence was given for anthropogenic (man-caused) climate change, meaning that the entire seven hour event was essentially an exercise in liberal fantasy and self-gratification. At this rate, we don't know if the world will burn...but we suspect a good portion of it will go blind.

Fountain of Goof

Despite Joe Biden's seeming inability to keep track of where mass shootings have actually happened, he has come up with a plan to finally end this "absolutely mindless" national scourge: by eliminating gun magazines that "hold multiple bullets in them." Which would be, oh, all of them.

Housing multiple bullets is the point of gun magazines, Joe, and a pretty darn useful feature for those who don't want to stop and reload after every shot when being pursued by an ax-wielding maniac, rabid bear, undocumented immigrant with a machete, or a "justice involved person" who wants to show you his penal system.

But if Uncle Joe is hellbent to make sure that a gun can fire ONLY one bullet without reloading, we suspect he will soon be insisting on a program which requires gun owners to swap their current firearms for muzzle loaders and blunderbusses. Both of which, Joe Biden will claim, worked great when he was a young man in the wild west, guarding wagon trains from thieves, scoundrels, and Elizabeth Warren's great-grandparents.

BONUS: HORSEFLIES

With so much dismal news in the world, we enjoyed seeing a much lighter story get some traction this week. Specifically, the case of Abrea Hensley bringing her miniature service horse with her on an American Airlines flight from Chicago to Omaha.

Truthfully, we think it's kind of sweet and we see nothing wrong with it, as long as the horse is properly trained and approved for service duty as was the case here. Interestingly, the miniature horses can do much of what a service dog can do...but they live about 3 times longer, which is a real boon for the owner.

Mind you, we don't want too many service and support animals on a flight, because it would start feeling uncomfortably like Noah's ark. Plus, in an emergency which required rapid disembarkation on the ground, we don't really want the flames to be licking our ass while in line for the exit door behind a slow moving Galapagos tortoise.

Hensley has received both support and criticism from those on social media, but we're siding with the supporters on this one. For one thing, we take crippling social anxiety pretty seriously, and applaud any reasonable means that can help people get back out in the world to live their lives. Also importantly, flying generally sucks anyway and it would be kind of fun to have an adorable little horse on board. Heck, put a spider monkey dressed as a cowboy on its back and we'd be willing to pay extra for our airline tickets!

We also think this story is largely much ado about nothing when you consider the fact that politicians fly private jets in and out of Washington every day, and every flight has at least one horse's ass on board.

Labor Day 2019

Today we observe Labor Day, a celebration of the unions which gave new freedoms, wealth, and dignity to peons who previously suffered under the cruel oppression of capitalist bastards. Nowhere is this more the case than in the editorial cartooning industry, which has come so far in the past century.

Once considered a "job that Americans won't do," 100 years ago editorial cartoons were farmed out to Irish immigrants and Chinese coolies who were functionally little more than slaves, working at crude drawing tables in return for a weekly ration of potato peels or fish heads.

Later, when the Irish turned to police work and the Chinese turned to ruining SAT scores for everyone else, the greedy editorial cartoon barons put women and children (as young as four years old) into forced servitude, penning cartoons in dingy, airless factories. Their work shifts were 24 hours long, every day except Sunday - when they got 15 minutes off to pee and whimper.

Some died of ink poisoning, others died violently in the process of collecting the ink by milking octopuses, while many simply lost the will to live after being forced to look at grim news items every day.

But then the unions entered the scene and changed everything. The sweatshops were closed, women went back to prostitution, and children were again free to be beggars and pickpockets. But actual editorial cartoonists, now holding the reins of collective bargaining, became the masters of their own fate.

Today, editorial cartoonists are among the most highly paid and respected professionals in our nation, loved by all, desired by beautiful women, and universally sought after for their wit, intelligence, and dashing good looks.

Not to mention their vivid imaginations...

FROM THE VAULT

AND IN ALL SERIOUSNESS...

We just wanted to do a light blog entry for today, but we would be remiss if we didn't mention a couple of big stories.

At the time of this writing, hurricane Dorian is bearing down on the Bahamas and Florida and is up to Cat 5 strength. The potential for massive damage and loss of life is huge and unstoppable. Our thoughts are with all of those in harm's way, and we hope that Dorian will change its course and spare as many people as possible.

The other story involves two mass shootings on Saturday, one in Texas and one in Alabama. As of Sunday morning, we know very little about the Texas incident other than that an idiot started shooting at officers who were attempting to make a traffic stop, and this kicked off a long chase in which the suspect fired at people randomly. Seven people were killed (including the shooter, which is no loss at all) and another nineteen have been hospitalized with injuries. Meanwhile in Alabama, a 17 year old opened fire on people after a high school football game (perhaps targeting - poorly - someone with whom he had a grievance), wounding nine people. There are no fatalities so far.

Knowing so few details in either case, we have nothing to say just now other than that we grieve for all those affected by this madness, and we again salute the selfless courage of the law enforcement officers who brought an end to the carnage.

Comey-tose

James Comey has been found guilty of violating FBI policy, violating his terms of employment, misuse of confidential official records, and violating pretty much every standard of professional ethics known to man.

So of course, the lanky sumbitch is apparently not going to be charged with anything because, as Jeffrey Epstein so recently reminded us, it pays to be on Hillary's good side. Or, considering what Comey spent much of his career covering, her backside.

This lack of justice, and our desire to start Happy Hour a little early, is why you're getting this Earwigs cartoon today...

DISCUSSION TOPIC: GOOD MOVIES?

We recently discussed our dissatisfaction with movie theaters, but now we want to address a problem with watching movies at home: too many of them stink.

Mrs. Jarlsberg's favorite movie is "Die Hard" (it's also her favorite Christmas movie), but there just aren't many slam-bang, good guys versus bad guys, high stakes actioners for us to watch. Or are there?

That's where you come in: in the comments section, give us some suggestions of "Die Hard" type movies that we've been missing (or might just want to see again). We've enjoyed things like "Cliffhanger" with Sylvester Stallone, "Breakdown" with Kurt Russell (excellent film!), and "Air Force One" with Harrison Ford.

The movies don't have to be particularly current nor high budget, but they do need to be emotionally engaging and eventually show good triumphing over evil.

In other words, NOT a movie about James Comey.

Bomb-y Weather

It is being reported that President Trump has, on more than one occasion, told his staffers to look into the possibility of dropping nuclear bombs on hurricanes to break them apart before reaching American shores. Trump, on the other hand, tweets: "This is so ridiculous, never happened. Fake news!"

Granted, the story is pretty suspicious, and bolstered only by statements like "there's reportedly a White House memo that proves it." On the other hand, can we imagine that Trump might have suggested bombing the living hell out of a weather phenomenon? Absolutely! And even though it would be a terrible, terrible idea, the 8-year-old that lives in our brain says: "yeah, but it would be so cool!"

Frankly, we don't think Trump ever really planned to bomb hurricanes. Rather, he was simply taking a tough position in order to bring hurricanes to the bargaining table.

BONUS: MEIN FUROR

We got an interesting email from a well-intended reader recently, who asked: "Just out of curiosity, who IS this guy that appears in your blog's background?"

Wait, what?! We'd never noticed that before, but sure enough if you open your browser window really wide and squint at the margin, there he is...

And it looks like our special mystery guest is...Hitler! Holy crap!

Okay, it isn't really Hitler. It's just a little stain spot on a grunge design which Blogger/Google offers free to users. But still...that's not exactly a good look for a conservative blog at a time when we're all being called Nazis. And what if Google deliberately inserted the subtle image in their most patriotic template knowing that conservatives would use it, and they could later be accused of spreading subliminal fascism and get a lifetime ban from the Internet?

Not willing to take the risk (and to distract from our attack of paranoia), we opened the HTML of the website to change the background and give Little Adolf the boot (or jackboot). This was, technically speaking, a huge mistake. Because we don't actually know doodly-squat about HTML and had soon managed to completely screw up the whole look of "Stilton's Place."

Every link we've included for the past few years disappeared. Text was suddenly an almost-invisible grey. Post Titles were bright blue. And the background color for posts was "blinding white." Not to mention that every alternative graphic background we tried (to replace the offending one) made us want to gouge our eyes out.

Happily, after about two hours of work (and by "work" we mean hundreds of random mouse clicks), we managed to put the site back together again. And we made an important journalistic decision: rather than try to remove a meaningless smudge that might offend someone or might be construed as dog whistle Nazism, we are leaving it on the page while formally and officially stating IT ISN'T FREAKING HITLER. Although the little spot next to it does look a little like Eva Braun.

By the way, that spot is actually a pretty interesting example of pareidolia, the fascinating tendency of the mind to take a vague stimulus and try to make it into something recognizable (and frequently a face). It's why we can take the completely random and meaningless and imagine we see spooky faces in wallpaper, animals in clouds, or - in the case of Democrats - presidential potential in any of their candidates.

UPDATE: BETWEEN A REICH AND A HARD PLACE

Hooray! Thanks to the help of an anonymous reader (hey, stand up and take a bow!) we were able to change the background image enough to send Mr. H back to Argentina! Now if we could just do something to take all of those filthy, disturbing images out of the Rorshach inkblots...

Koch Knocker

There's no way we can actually make this funny today, but some things are so appalling that we just can't let them go by without comment.

In this case, we're talking about Bill "world's unfunniest man" Maher's remarks regarding billionaire philanthropist David Koch's death from cancer. Koch, a Libertarian who took a liberal stance on many social issues, also held many conservative beliefs and made financial contributions to people and causes (like legitimate climate studies) that Bill Maher hates passionately.

Which is why on "Real Time with Bill Maher," the obnoxious comic celebrated David Koch's passing with the following monologue (repeated here verbatim):

Fuck him...I'm glad he's dead!
(pause for laughs)
He was 79, but his family says they wish it could be longer. But at least he lived long enough to see the Amazon catch fire.
(pause for laughs)
Condolences poured in from all the politicians he owned, and mourners are being asked in lieu of flowers to just leave their car engine running.
(pause for laughs)
As for his remains, he has asked to be cremated and have his ashes blown into a child's lungs.
(pause for laughs - then it's time to get serious)
He and his brother have done more than anybody to fund climate science deniers for decades, so fuck him. The Amazon is burning up. I'm glad he's dead and I hope the end was painful.

It's not rare to hear Leftists like Maher puke up naked hate speech, but to actually celebrate the pain that someone felt while dying of cancer is a new low.

We would never wish for the death or illness of anyone, and certainly not take pleasure from the pain someone experienced during an agonizing death. But if and when such a fate befalls Bill Maher personally, we're willing to make an exception to our rule.

This humorless bastard needs to start worrying a lot less about climate change, and a lot more about Karma.

FOR THE RECORD

David Koch once told the Wall Street Journal that he'd rather donate money to a good cause rather than "use it on buying a bigger house or a $150 million painting." Unlike the Obama family, clearly.

So to whom did David Koch donate?

$185 Million - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for cancer research, childcare center, biology building, and school of chemical engineering.

$150 Million - Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The biggest gift the center ever received.

$128 Million - New York Presbyterian Hospital

$100 Million - New York State Theater at Lincoln Center

$66.7 Million - Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

$65 Million - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

$35 Million - Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History

$26.5 Million - M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

$26.2 Million - The Hospital for Special Surgery in New York

$20 Million - American Museum of Natural History

$20 Million - Johns Hopkins University, for a cancer research center.

None of this remarkable and selfless generosity matters, of course, to those on the Left who defined David Koch as one of the worst of the "evil rich," and someone who "doesn't pay his fair share."

We look at it differently, and with the utmost in respect and gratitude. Rest In Peace, Mr. Koch, and thank you.

The Old Man and the CNN

CNN (which might do well to change its name to "C Inane" and just admit to being a satire site) just launched a devastating new attack on Donald Trump. Oh, not devastating to Trump - but rather devastating to journalism in general and on-air news annihilist Chris "Call me Fredo and I'll break your legs!" Cuomo.

Cuomo launched a serious broadside on the air claiming that Donald Trump "doesn't care the way other (presidents) have." As proof, he showed before-and-after photos of Bill Clinton, George W Bush, and Barack Obama. Before the presidency, they were all young, energetic, and fresh faced. After the presidency, all three were indistinguishable from Ruth Bader Ginsburg "because of the stress they carry with them."

But pictures of Donald Trump taken two years apart damningly showed that the President looks "exactly the same," which enraged Cuomo. "Maybe this President could use a sleepless night or two," Fredo fumed. "Maybe he should focus on fixing things, carrying that burden. Because that's the job and it should get hard!"

Cuomo may have had more to say on the subject, but after so much vigorous shouting he had to be rushed back into the CNN makeup room to be re-spackled.

HOT BETWEEN THE SHEETS

It turns out that if you've been ignorantly setting your air conditioner's thermostat to a comfortable temperature, you're a planet destroying, energy wasting, menace to society. But happily (drum roll, please!) the government is here to help!

"Energy Star," working in coordination with the EPA and Energy Department, just released easy-peasy directions on setting your thermostat throughout the day!

At 6 am, set your air conditioner to 78 degrees (or higher). At 8 am, bump the temperature up to 85 degrees (and perhaps peel off any clothing you were wearing) and just leave it there until 6 pm.

At 6 pm, you can turn your A/C back down to 78 (Brrrr!) until 10 pm.

Then from 10 pm until 6 am, set the thermostat at 82 degrees in order to enjoy a perfect night of sweat-soaked sleep which will prepare you for a bright new day of changing the freaking thermostat every few hours.

For those people who don't want to spend the rest of their lives fiddling with the temperature, Energy Star recommends getting a programmable thermostat with wifi. This will not only automate all of those myriad temperature changes, but will also conveniently give the government (ours and the Chinese) yet another easy wifi access point to spy on you and steal your personal data.

Sure, that's a chilling thought...but your home will be so hot, you'll appreciate it.

Behind the Scenes at Stilton's Place

Today, I'm pulling back the curtains to share what a day of writing Stilton's Place is sometimes like. To begin with, absolutely nothing in the news really spoke to me, so in desperation I decided I'd try to fill space by writing about my first visit to a movie theater in years...

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEE

I'm very, very particular about where I sit in a theater. I basically believe there is only one "right" seat in any theater, and if I don't get it I'll be annoyed for the entire movie. So imagine my horror upon discovering that the theater I hadn't gone to in years had converted to recliner seats (which cut seating down by two thirds) AND required you to reserve assigned seats in advance (for an additional fee), unless you're willing to take your chances at the box office in hopes that some lazy bastard with a smart phone hadn't already reserved The Only Good Seat.

I decided to reserve my seats online...but the seating chart made no sense with the resized seats and aisles. So I finally picked some likely looking seats, then tried to reserve them. But no - first I'd have to create an account with the theater chain and give them my name, address, phone number, email, and credit card information. Choosing not to, I then tried to do a "guest check out" using a virtual credit card number (to prevent identity theft)...but the theater website claimed that my credit card provider rejected the transaction.

Fine. Mrs. J and I went to the theater early (for the first showing of the day), and requested our chosen seats at the box office. And they were open! Huzzah! So we hurried into the entirely empty theater and tried to find our seats. We were in row "E" but couldn't find any markings to tell us which row was which. We eventually discovered that the designating letters were subtly woven into the design of the rug and tastefully unlit.  After this squinting discovery, we hurried to our seats in the exact center of the row.

Aaaand, the seats were horrible. WAY too far from the screen. We might as well have been at home watching TV. So we found the seats we really, really wanted and I had to trot my happy ass all the way through the mega-multiplex and outside to the box office again to beg for an exchange. This was granted, and I huffed and puffed my way back to our seats. At which point Mrs. J perfectly reasonably wanted some popcorn and a soda. So off I went to the concession stand, where exactly one person was behind the counter filling the orders - slowly - for a multiplex with 17 freaking auditoriums. I eventually got a medium popcorn ($9) and large coke ($6) and headed back to my seat to reflect on the fact that I was already out $30 for a matinee performance of a movie.

We played with the recliner seats a bit, which required a button control to electronically raise and lower your legs, and tilt your seat backwards so that your eyes would focus naturally on a spot about 10 feet above the top of the movie screen. Mrs. J liked the leg support of the recliner because she has short legs and her feet don't touch the floor when using regular movie seats. I, on the other hand, quickly decided that recliner seats in a movie theater are an offense against God and the natural order of things. So I sat bolt upright the entire time.

To kill time, the theater showed us a variety of commercials in which kids and adults communicated via Rap, followed by "entertainment" tidbits - one of which was "movie trivia." They then showed clips of a recent-ish movie in which Sandra Bullock plays a wealthy white woman who adopts an absolutely giant black teenager and makes his dream of playing football come true. No, really. "You're making his life better," smarmed a woman on screen. "No, he's making my life better," Sandra Bullock replied with the predictability of every sunrise ever. The movie was "The Blind Side" although my guess of "Liberal Wet Dream" didn't seem far off.

Then the trailers began. The first depicted a charming young black couple in a car, going on a date, cute as a couple of buttons. A classic romcom, right? Well, no - they're soon pulled over for a turn signal violation by a racist white cop who pulls his gun on the clean cut young man. A scuffle ensues, the cop gets shot by accident, and the rest of the movie is about two sweet black kids running for their lives from despicable, murderous white policemen. "Wow," thought I, "we really must come back and drop another 30 bucks to see that!" Not.

Next up was a trailer for a movie in which four attractive young women of color (not "The Squad" - we said "attractive," remember?) are bumping, grinding, and doing pole dances in a strip joint as dollar bills are thrown at them. The women then team up to use their sexual skills to skim thousands of dollars from evil white bastard Wall Street types who, after all, are the "real" thieves in this world. The movie is called "Hustlers," and we'll be rushing out to see it right after Hell freezes over.

At long last, the feature film started: Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." The film was "meh" at best, had no discernible story, lacked Tarantino's usually witty dialogue, and had only one good twist which Tarantino stole from one of his own movies. It's not a horrible film, and its technical aspects are good, but its main virtue is being instantly forgettable. I'll give it a "C" because if I rate it lower, I'll feel like even more of a dope for laying out so much money.

So, that was my curmudgeonly reintroduction to moviegoing and popular SJW culture. Whee.

And have I mentioned that the reason I even went is that a psychiatric professional had encouraged me to start attending movies as a means of reducing my constant state of anxiety? Spoiler alert: I'm going to stick with therapeutic doses of Clan MacGregor - $30 worth of which would kill a man outright.

I AM JOE'S BRAIN

After writing all of the above, I decided "who the heck wants to read that much crap about me being a sourpuss and cheapskate with an obsessive-compulsive fixation on theater seats?" After which I tried desperately to find some news item suitable for a cartoon and commentary.

Eventually I found a story in which Joe Biden's brain surgeon (from decades ago) was coming forward to attest that Joe doesn't have brain damage, despite all the  appearances to the contrary...

Yeah... that's lame.  Not really up to the high professional standards people expect from Stilton's Place. So I decided to redouble my efforts and really, really, really find a good idea to write about and...BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK!

Penny (the official dog of Hope n' Change) was yapping like an absolute maniac. Oh, she frequently loses her mind over pedestrians, bicyclists, Amazon deliveries, UPS trucks, and suspicious looking clouds...but this was different and more urgent. Curious, I looked out my office window to check what sort of apocalypse was coming and saw...

BUSTED (NOT BUSTY)

Oh. A police cruiser parked in front of my house. Well, I certainly had nothing to fear and should just go back to work. Unless...someone was "swatting" me and had reported that I was a violent maniac with a weapon, and this was just the first cop car on the scene before the guys with flak vests and automatic weapons knocked my door down. And although I love the police, I had just seen a movie trailer that stated rather categorically that they shoot people for all kinds of bad reasons.

But no - it was almost certainly none of my business. I should just ignore the distraction. It was probably just something to do with one of the neighbors. But...what if one of them was a violent maniac with a weapon?!

Try though I might, I couldn't really refocus on writing because it's so damn distracting to have a police cruiser sitting mysteriously at the end of your walkway. Which it did for most of an hour.

Eventually the policeman left, and I learned it was a friendly visit to assist one of my neighbors (who is not a violent maniac). But by then my brain was absolutely shot, which is why you've just had to suffer through my endless bitching about going to a movie, a lame Joe Biden cartoon, and a rambling dialogue about my nascent paranoia.

If only there was some way I could make it up to you. Maybe I can ask a friend for a favor...

Better luck to all of us on Friday!

Monday Melange

WEST BANK ON IT

After being given permission to enter Israel and visit her aging grandmother (who had, no kidding, promised to kill a goat for the occasion), Rep Rashida Tlaib cancelled the trip after being told that while in Israel, she couldn't shoot her mouth off about anti-Israel causes and sentiments.

For which the nation of Israel, and one lucky goat, can give thanks.

THE CHOKE'S ON YOU

It's almost disturbingly easy for us to imagine an angry Hillary Clinton shrieking into a phone: "What part of 'make it look like suicide' didn't you effing understand?!"

But let's be charitable. Nobody is perfect and mistakes happen, even for well-practiced professional killers. Although we doubt that this particular killer will live long enough to make another mistake.

GET MUELLER ON LINE TWO

Sorry, but it had to be said.

FROM THE VAULT: SLEAZY WRITER

Over the weekend, actor Peter Fonda died at age 79. He died from lung cancer, and we wouldn't wish that kind of pain and suffering on anyone.

But that being said, owing to a spate of tweets in his final years, we have little choice other than to remember him as a complete asshole...

(From Friday, June 22, 2018)
Alleged actor Peter Fonda took to Twitter recently to voice his hatred for the First Family, and to encourage kidnapping and pederasty as useful tools for the Left to demonstrate their moral superiority to the Deplorables in our nation.

Here's what he tweeted:

The First Lady has subsequently asked the Secret Service to investigate Mr. Fonda, not only because of the appalling nature of his threats, but because most movie fans have been convinced that the actor died years ago, along with his career.

Not that he didn't have one good scene in the only memorable movie he was ever in. Specifically, this scene:

Even more enjoyable when viewed on a continuous loop!

Seriously (which we aren't very often), Fonda's rhetoric - which he has since apologized for - goes way too far and should not fall under the province of protected speech. He is calling for violence against the First Family and, specifically, the violent rape of a child. Because he's so sensitive and enlightened, you see.

Even worse, he's making this call to action to his thousands of followers, any one of whom might decide to implement it. Especially since Peter Fonda likely has followers who are, as we say in the psychological field, "not right in the head."

How could they be, when exposed to a regular diet of Fonda's other sociopathic tweets like this one about our nation's Director of Homeland Security:

For those blissfully unfamiliar with the term, "gash" is an obscene reference to female genitalia, and is considered to be even uglier, more unacceptable, and more sexually demeaning than Samantha Bee's "c-word" description of our First Lady.

It is a word so foul, fetid, and unforgivable that we would personally never use it about any woman.

Except, of course, Jane Fonda.