Humor – Page 35 – The Wrongologist

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 10, 2016

Quite the week. You thought that the Saudi/Iran blow-up would dominate the news, until North Korea’s claim of a Hydrogen Bomb test took over the front page, but then, global stock markets melted down, following China’s markets into the crapper. And for relief, we had the President’s Executive Order on Gunz, the Bundy Brigade in Oregon, and the presidential candidates.

Some Asian explosions look alike:

COW H Bomb

Trump’s idea on North Korea’s new toy:

COW Trump Strategy

Between Lil’ Kim and Trump, the Donald having his finger on the button is a LOT mo scary!

Obama’s tears were not the only ones last week:

COW Tears The logical conclusion of 2nd Amendment Absolutism:

Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press

Bundy Brigade take over causes momentary outrage:

COW Bundys Boys Saudi Arabia vs. Iran: Make sure we have no skin in their game:

COW Saudi Iran issue

News You Can’t Use – December 28, 2015

A view of Santa’s rowing down the Grand Canal in Venice:

COW Venice Santas

News you can’t use:

Fortune reports that Americans born after 1980 lag behind their overseas peers in literacy, numeracy and problem-solving in technology-rich environments. Researchers at the Princeton-based Educational Testing Service (ETS) conducted the study, which was a test called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), to measure the job skills of adults in 23 countries. Our kids didn’t fare so well:

Top 5 countries in literacy:
1) Japan
2) Finland
3) Netherlands
4) Australia
5) Sweden
(The US placed at #17 out of 23)

Top 5 in numeracy:
1) Japan
2) Finland
3) Belgium
4) Netherlands
5) Sweden
(The US placed at #21 out of 23)

Top 5 in Problem Solving in Technology Rich Environments:
1) Japan
2) Finland
3) Australia
4) Sweden
5) Norway
(The US placed at #18)

The results were shocking to researchers, since American millennials are supposedly the most educated generation ever, according to the study. Madeline Goodman, an ETS researcher told Fortune:

We really thought [US] Millennials would do better than the general adult population, either compared to older coworkers in the US or to the same age group in other countries…But they didn’t. In fact, their scores were abysmal.

Millennials with college credentials did score higher on the PIAAC than Americans with only a high school diploma (yet less well than college grads in most other countries). The study concluded that a more expensive and expansive education “may not hold all the answers.” At least not to questions that are not about the Kardashians.

The Worst People of 2015. (GQ) Making the top 5: Kim Davis, Cameron Crowe, David Cameron, Sepp Blatter, and Hillary Clinton. Several could have been rated higher, like Martin Shkreli @ #28, or Jared Fogle @ #8, just behind Bill Cosby. Why should Hillary be ranked ahead of Shkreli or Fogle?

Never a Dull Moment: A Look Back at 2015. (WSJ) Joe Queenan takes a funny look at 2015. Sample of the writing:

…shockers came right out of nowhere. First, the new, less weepy Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, grew a beard, something no one holding that lofty position had done since 1925. That man’s name was Gillett.

Political Dark Money Just Got Darker. (Editorial Board, NYT):

For two years, President Obama has dithered and withheld the one blow he could easily strike for greater political transparency: the signing of an executive order requiring government contractors to disclose their campaign spending.

Wow. It’s almost like Democrats aren’t fully committed to campaign finance reform.

2015 Is On The Run

Time to put our boot on the throat of 2015:

COW New Year

Perhaps Toles means “shred of dignity”. It was certainly an indecorous year.

News you can’t use:

The Onion’s 2015 Year in Review. This sends 2015 off with all due respect.

2015 in mass shootings (Rolling Stone). There have been 353 mass shootings in the US to this point, according the Mass Shooting Tracker, a crowd-sourced database. (The tracker defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are killed or wounded; the FBI uses three dead or wounded as its criteria.)

10 of the Worst Cable News Moments of 2015 (MoJo). We’ve barely survived another 12 months of cable news. Mother Jones gives you a few of the best of the worst the M$M had to offer in 2015.

Lower Jobless Claims Don’t Point to A Robust Labor Market (WSJ). less than 15 million American made first-time requests for government assistance this year, about half as many claims as were made in 2009, and far fewer than the number filed during the 1980s and 90s when the economy was expanding at a strong clip. The greatest concern in the labor market isn’t those who recently lost their jobs, it is the persistently large number out of work for months or years, and those stuck in low-paying and part-time jobs.

Heavily redacted Benghazi emails released on Christmas Eve (The Hill). Politicians release bad news on slow news days because they think the opposition isn’t listening, but the GOP ALWAYS listens to Hillary.

Meet a Koch-like family working to influence State Legislatures (Political Research Associates). The DeVos family (Amway) is one of the most influential families in conservative politics. Though they share the Kochs´ commitment to corporate welfare, the DeVoses also promote a Christian Right cultural and social agenda.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 20, 2015

You are not going to read the entire 2000 page Omnibus Budget Bill, but you don’t have to. The thing that you need to know is that despite years of preaching budget austerity, and preaching that expenses must be paid for, the GOP-controlled House passed nearly $700 billion in unpaid-for tax cuts, none of which were paid for by budget cuts or other tax offsets.

Now, get it out of your head the GOP is fiscally responsible. Remember that Reagan quadrupled the Debt. Bush cut taxes while we went to war. Obama has run up the debt as well, but if ANYONE tells you the Republicans are fiscally responsible, laugh in their face.

In other news, the GOP really needs Santa’s help:

Terror is driving the season:

Terror is driving the season Part II:

And Grinches are multiplying:

Star Wars franchise wants to sell merchandise:

And the Fed raised interest rates for the first time in seven years:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 13, 2015

(This is the last column until Thursday 12/17. Wrongo and Ms. Right are in San Francisco. Talk amongst yourselves, keep hands inside the blog at all times.)

The hits keep coming! The San Bernardino killings continue to reverberate in our psyches. People are scared beyond what should be reasonable, given the statistics about killings by Islamic terrorists. The Paris climate agreement is signed, but what will it really do? The Supreme Court considered affirmative action again, with predictable BS from both sides. Trump continues, and Rahm Emmanuel looks to be on the wrong side of justice in Chicago.

Here come the same tired solutions once again:

COW Tom Tomorrow 2

It’s Trump’s world, but so few can live in it:

COW Trump World

Chicago’s mayor finally decides to get rolling on solving the problem:

COW Rahm Truck As mayor, he sat on that video for over a year. He had to know, because the $5 million payment to the victim’s family didn’t come from petty cash at the Chicago PD. He was the chief architect of the cover-up. And he needs to go.

Justice Scalia again covers himself with glory:

COW Scalia Bad Thing

Won’t matter what Paris says about climate change:

COW Climate Change

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – November 29, 2015

Russia and Turkey, America and turkey. Turkeys shopping on Friday. Turkeys on the campaign trail. Quite the week for turkeys.

Russia’s and Turkey’s tiff makes Thanksgiving worrisome:

What Massasoit should have said to the Pilgrims:

“We’d love to get the platter back when this is over. That, and our land.”

Not all holiday cornucopias are filled with gifts:

For some, Black Friday wasn’t about shopping:

For others, long lines on Black Friday would be OK:

2016 presidential politics provided quite a bit of leftover turkey:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – November 22, 2015

JFK was killed 52 years ago today. Most of us only vaguely remember the tragedy, but Wrongo was in class at Georgetown in Washington DC when it happened, so he remembers it well. It seemed that the nation convulsed when Kennedy was killed. We watched Cronkite read the news from the ticker, we saw Oswald shot live on TV, and we watched the procession with John-John’s salute. But was the arc of our history really altered? There are what-ifs by liberals about the Vietnam War, but it continued until the Nixon administration. LBJ, thought of as not worthy to succeed Kennedy, delivered the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, and the National Endowment for the Arts to the country.

On to cartoons. Paris, immigration and the 2016 presidential election dominated the week’s news.

GOP governors edit Emma Lazarus:

Why we are fearful:

It is a lot easier to pretend that you’re acting tough by talking about closing mosques and turning away refugees than it is to explain why the risks are worth taking. The appropriate response is to point out that it isn’t tough to cower in fear. We are actually tough when we tolerate a little fear in the interest of doing the right and wise thing.

In time for the Holidays, a “No Vacancy” sign:

The safety net is remade by Republicans in His image:

The immigration debate reminds us of walls through the ages:

Jeb reviews our recent history with France:

Promise them anything but a balanced budget:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – November 8, 2015

Another interesting week. Here at the Mansion of Wrong, most leaves are on the ground, except for the Oak trees. Squirrels are very busy with this year’s bumper crop of acorns. In politics, Jeb and Ben looked, but couldn’t find any acorns. Mr. Obama said “Yes” to troops in Syria and “No” to the Keystone pipeline.

Not a great week for Republican candidates. Jeb can’t escape the family legacy:

Dr. Carson fumbled science, including why we have Pyramids:

Tuesday’s elections followed a tried and true script:

Mr. Obama pushed the pram into Syria:

But, we have no “boots on the ground”:

A study revealed that middle-aged whites are dying more quickly in the US:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – November 1, 2015

A Republican debate, a new Speaker of the House, boots on the ground in Syria, the World Series, not to mention Halloween. Quite the week. Did you set your clocks back?

This tweet pretty much sums up the Republican debate poutrage:

Rubio had a good debate. Suddenly, people see him as taller:

GOP Halloween:

Now that Paul Ryan is Speaker, it will be a wild ride:

Ryan will try to be first with the leash:

Uncle Sam whistles past America’s foreign policy graveyard:

NY Mets World Series tix are pricey:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – October 18, 2015

Happy Sunday! From The Hill:

With the House still clueless about who its next Speaker will be, Congress has just 10 legislative days to tackle a topic at the center of some of the most pitched fiscal battles of the last several years. The deadline was moved up Thursday by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who told Congress it has only until Nov. 3 to raise the government’s $18.1 trillion borrowing cap.

Paul Ryan is still avoiding the opening for Speaker:

Mr. Obama decided to keep troops in Afghanistan until at least the end of 2017. He says that combat operations in Afghanistan are over. He says the job of “train, advise, assist” won’t change. Mr. Obama says our troops just need to stick around until the training begins to take hold: