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