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.