The State of the Union
Also, important information about Adam's genitalia...
President Biden was scheduled to give his State of the Union Address on Tuesday night and even though I didn’t know what he would say or how Republicans would respond, I drew this cartoon on Tuesday morning, an act of faith which assumed the Democrats and Republicans would not join hands while singing a rousing version of “Give Peace a Chance” and screw up my prediction that the actual “State of the Union” resembles a Civil War battle.
So now I have to thank Marjorie Taylor Greene for wearing what appears to be some species of roadkill around her neck and yelling, “LIAR!” at President Biden while he addressed the nation.
She then ordered another rum and coke, stumbled up to the stage, requested Aerosmith’s “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” and tried to stuff a dollar bill down Kevin McCarthy’s thong, all of which I made up, but – be honest – would not seem that out of character for MTG.
(OK, that last paragraph seems to suggest Marge indulges in the occasional drink and to be totally honest I don’t know what her drinking habits are, but I’m kinda hoping she occasionally gets hammered because otherwise, she’s an incredible asshole while completely sober.)
According to the Biden Administration the Chinese “weather” balloon was “capable” of spying on us, which isn’t exactly the same as saying it was spying on us, so you have to watch out for those weasel words whenever anyone uses one. According to the Chinese their balloon was totally innocent and just strayed off course.
Unfortunately, I can easily imagine either and/or both governments lying to us.
In any case…
We got freaked out by a balloon floating over the United States which might be gathering information on us, but are totally OK with phones and “virtual assistants” (apparently that’s what you call devices like the Alexa pictured) and computers, which we know are gathering information on us.
And to make things worse, we’re the ones who pay for those devices and let them spy on us, but we don’t want the Chinese collecting information on Americans unless they do it when we post a video of our dog doing backflips on TikTok.
Turns out, we’re kind of flexible when it comes to being upset about someone spying on us and as an article in the Kansas City Star pointed out, the Chinese also have 500 satellites which we don’t think about because we can’t see them which also explains why some people didn’t believe in the COVID-19 virus, but doesn’t explain why some of those same people believe in God
It seems to me we have a lot more evidence that COVID-19 exists than some All-Powerful Being with white hair and a long beard who gets involved in human affairs on a random basis and answers prayers about long field goal attempts, but lets earthquakes in Turkey kill 20,000 people.
(I hope I’m right about the Afterlife because otherwise I got some ‘splainin’ to do when I arrive at the Pearly Gates. I might be denied admission because as we all know, Heaven is a Gated Community.)
BTW: I couldn’t help but notice Michelangelo kinda shortchanged Adam in the genitalia department and did the same thing with David and if you don’t believe me, get out your microscope and take a look:
I asked one of my sons who knows a lot of weird shit and talks about it on his Patreon podcast (optimistically called DEATH IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER) if he knew what was up with Michelangelo and tiny penises, and my son said every artist in that era gave small dicks to their naked male subjects because a small dick was supposed to be a sign of intelligence. Which is just the kind of rumor White Guys would like to spread and if we’ll lie to you about the inadequate size of our penises, we’ll certainly lie to you about Chinese balloons, COVID-19 and – as we’ll see before we’re done today – cryptocurrency.
According to CNN, the Chinese were saying they’d welcome a visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, but after their balloon “strayed off course” they were saying “Antony Who?” and asking if he was the middle child from the Dutch children’s story about “Wynken, Blynken and Nod.”
(I had to Google it and it’s a bedtime story about three children fishing among the stars from a wooden shoe, which indicates the Dutch also have access to hallucinogenic drugs and no fear that this weird-ass story would give their children nightmares.)
According to a story on the CBS News website, in 2022 cryptocurrency hackers set a record and stole $3.8 billion and here’s a link to that story if you want to read it:
And according to a website called The Healthy Journal, a billion dollars in $100 bills weighs approximately 22,046 pounds, so assuming I did the math right (and that’s a huge assumption you probably shouldn’t make) $3.8 billion would weigh 83,774.8 pounds which I think makes my point about how convenient cryptocurrency is for thieves.
To steal regular, old paper money the old-fashioned way you probably need a gun and a getaway car and maybe a forklift, which reminds me that in the past if you wanted to say you hated one of my cartoons you had to find piece of paper, a pen or pencil (assuming you were allowed sharp objects) an envelope, a stamp, write your incomprehensible complaint out longhand, find a mailbox, mail your letter and then stew for two weeks, waiting for a reply from me which, generally speaking, you were never going to get.
In the Good, Old Days it took some real effort to be a horse’s ass or steal $3.8 billion, but now, through the miracle of modern technology, you can do both without lifting a finger unless you count the one that hits the “send” button.
BTW: $3.8 billion sounds like a lot of money for crypto hackers to steal until you hear that all by herself, a woman named Ruja Ignatova disappeared with $4 billion after getting people to invest in OneCoin, a rival to Bitcoin, and OneCoin is being called one of the largest international fraud schemes ever and Ruja is now on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list mainly because a number of FBI agents wouldn’t mind hooking up with her.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/22/business/ruja-ignatova-cryptoqueen-fbi-most-wanted-cec/index.html
OK, that’s it for today, but come back Sunday morning when I plan to have an essay about the Super Bowl and what Chiefs (and for that matter, Eagles) fans can reasonably expect from their teams.
Talk to you then.
I've got a seat saved for you in hell, Lee. All the fun people will be there. I'm on the spike between Pol Pot and Myra Hindley. 😉
This piece rockets into the hall of fame for me. There are enough salient points to discuss and quote (with proper credit given) to last into Spring.