Sunday Funnies 150830

The Sunday Funnies word of the week is escapism:

es-cap-ism |iˈskāpˌizəm|

noun

the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, esp. by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy.

DERIVATIVES

escapist noun & adjective

1. Escape Plan A - Not-So-Foolproof

a not-so-foolproof escape plan

Link to Source

2. Escape Plan B - Trade-Off Edition

Link to Source

3. Television Dishes Up A Smorgasbord Of Escapism

Link to Source

4. The Trunk Line - A Handy Way To Escape the Threat of Honest Elections

The inescapable conclusion: If you're not one of "us" you can't get there from here (or from anywhere else if we win enough rigged elections). 

Link to Source

5. Escape Into Fantasy - An Affair of the Unbalanced

Note to FOX viewers: It's impossible to escape into fantasy if you're already there.

Link to Source

6. Absurdity - A Means of Escape From Bullshit Politics and Politicians

It's a sad commentary on American politics when fake, Bad Reporter headlines don't sound any crazier than the real headlines reporting on the comments and positions of the GOP presidential wannabes.

Link to Source

7. Online Escapism

Unlike Ned, I find escape in the upper left-hand corner of my keyboard.

Link to Source

8. The Old Escape Clause

Commit this to memory now so you can use it when you're old. If you're already old, you most likely already use it, or you don't remember to use it.

Link to Source

9. For some there is no escape.

Off-the-wall comment: Her genetically encoded, round-trip GPS is programmed as follows: leave home; make deposit; return.

Link to Source

10. Reverse Escape Route (designed to remove those from whom one wishes to escape)

Don't think about how much you enjoy these Sunday Funnies.

Link to Source

11. The magnitude of this problem completely escapes...

Link to Source

12. Wayne LaPierre.

Of course ol' Wayne is a one-trick-pony whose livelihood depends on his continued ability to sell the idea that guns are more important than lives.

Link to Source

13. Final Comment Of A Successful Escapist

To learn the details of this person's demise, see item 10 above.

Link to Source

And with that, I'm outta here!

Sunday Funnies 150823

The Sunday Funnies theme of the week is Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

job ¹ |jäb|

noun

1 a paid position of regular employment : jobs are created in the private sector, not in Washington | a part-time job.

2 a task or piece of work, esp. one that is paid : she wants to be left alone to get on with the job | you did a good job of explaining.

• a responsibility or duty : it's our job to find things out.

• [in sing. ] informal a difficult task : we thought you'd have a job getting there.

• [with adj. ] informal a procedure to improve the appearance of something, esp. an operation involving plastic surgery : she's had a nose job | someone had done a skillful paint job.

• [with adj. ] informal a thing of a specified nature : the car was a blue malevolent-looking job.

• informal a crime, esp. a robbery : a series of daring bank jobs.

• Computing an operation or group of operations treated as a single and distinct unit.

verb ( jobbed, jobbing )

1 [ intrans. ] [usu. as adj. ] ( jobbing) do casual or occasional work : a jobbing builder.

2 [ trans. ] buy and sell (stocks) as a broker-dealer, esp. on a small scale.

3 [ trans. ] informal cheat; betray.

4 [ intrans. ] archaic turn a public office or a position of trust to private advantage.

PHRASES

do the job informal achieve the required result : a piece of board will do the job.

do a job on someone informal do something that harms or defeats an opponent : I go out and do a job on anyone who is giving our top scorers a hard time.

a good job informal chiefly Brit. a fortunate fact or circumstance : it was a good job she hadn't brought the car.

on the job while working; at work.

out of a job unemployed.

ORIGIN mid 16th cent. (sense 2 of the noun) : of unknown origin.

job ² archaic

verb ( jobbed, jobbing ) [ trans. ]

prod or stab : he prepared to job the huge brute.

• thrust (something pointed) at or into something.

noun

an act of prodding, thrusting, or wrenching.

ORIGIN late Middle English : apparently symbolic of a brief forceful action (compare with jab ).

Job |jōb|

(in the Bible) a prosperous man whose patience and piety were tried by undeserved misfortunes, and who, in spite of his bitter lamentations, remained confident in the goodness and justice of God.

• a book of the Bible telling of Job.

1. Steve

Link to Source

2. Legal Assistance

Link to Source

3. Trickle-Down Economist

Link to Source

4. It's tough teaching in Texas.

Link to Source

5. Career Change

Link to Source

6. 1% Wage Increase

Link to Source

7. Dead-End Job

Link to Source

8. Freelanceing

Link to Source

9. Apprentice

Link to Source

10. Investment Counselor

Link to Source

11. Shipping and Handling

Link to Source

12. Optometrist

Link to Source

13. Nut Jobs

Watch them all hip-hop to the far-right as they pander to "the base."

base ²adjective
(of a person or a person's actions or feelings) without moral principles; ignoble : the electorate's baser instincts of greed and selfishness | we hope his motives are nothing so base as money.• archaic denoting or befitting a person of low social class.
• (of coins or other articles) not made of precious metal : the basest coins in the purse were made in the seventh century AD. 

Link to Source

Sunday Funnies 150816

The Sunday Funnies word of the week is idiom:

id-i-om |ˈidēəm|

noun

1 a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g., rain cats and dogs, see the light).

• a form of expression natural to a language, person, or group of people : he had a feeling for phrase and idiom.

• the dialect of a people or part of a country.

2 a characteristic mode of expression in music or art : they were both working in a neo-Impressionist idiom.

ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from French idiome, or via late Latin from Greek idiōma ‘private property, peculiar phraseology,’ from idiousthai ‘make one's own,’ from idios ‘own, private.’

1. Imagine that!

Link to Source

2. Shrink-Wrapped

Link to Source

3. Devil In The Details

Link to Source

4. The Best Laid Plans

There are many versions of this idiom. I prefer the original as penned by Robert Burns in his poem To a Mouse.

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Link to Source

5. Fed Up

Link to Source

6. It's All Greek To Me

It's time for a joke...
Q: What's a Grecian urn?
A: Not enough, whether in Drachmas or Euros.

Link to Source

7. Lame Duck

Link to Source

8. Talking Point

Link to Source

9. Take The Wrong Way

Link to Source

10. Barking Up The Wrong Tree

Link to Source

11. What's Shakin'?

Link to Source

12. Break A Dollar

Link to Source

13. Different Strokes

Link to Source

Sunday Funnies 150809

The Sunday Funnies word of the week is outrage:

outrage |ˈoutˌrāj|

noun

an extremely strong reaction of anger, shock, or indignation : her voice trembled with outrage.

• an action or event causing such a reaction : the decision was an outrage.

verb [ trans. ] (usu. be outraged)

arouse fierce anger, shock, or indignation in (someone) : he was outraged at this attempt to take his victory away from him.

• violate or infringe flagrantly (a principle, law, etc.) : their behavior outraged all civilized standards.

ORIGIN Middle English (in the senses [lack of moderation] and [violent behavior] ): from Old French ou(l)trage, based on Latin ultra ‘beyond.’ Sense development has been affected by the belief that the word is a compound of out and rage .

1. FOX Presents: Who Can Out-Rage The Donald?

Collecting low-hanging fruit along the GOP campaign trail...

Link to Source

2. Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh my! (and people...lots and lots of people)

Inci-dental-ly, getting people to recognize the very real danger of mass extinctions posed by climate change is like pulling teeth.

Link to Source

3. Questioning the Ethics of Outraged Extremists

Right-wing extremists have a simple agenda. Force everyone to do things their way. One of their favorite ways to further their agenda is to use a double-standard vis-à-vis the law. They revere and fight for laws that support and maintain discrimination and unequal justice that favors them but attack and break laws that protect people and policies they don't like.

Link to Source

4. Where is the outrage?

One would think that intelligent voters would be outraged at the appeals to ignorance the GOP presidential wannabes have offered as proof that they are fit to occupy the highest office in the land.

Link to Source

5. Outrageous Unity

Is this what's meant by a trigger issue?

Link to Source

6. An Outrageously Funny Political Twist To A Grimm Tale

I'm betting he'll discover that all seven of them are Dopey.

Link to Source

7. Outrageous Expectation

Link to Source

8. Domestic Outrage

Link to Source

9. Enflamed Outrage

Well, at least he won't get bored.

Link to Source

10. Southern Discomfort

Link to Source

11. And a bonus video to assuage your outrage...

Link to Source

Cleveland Clown Show Winners? - It's Not Debatable.

This morning and throughout the day, political pundits spouted nonsense about which candidate won FOX's GOP Debacle...er...Debate. I contend that their focus on who said what about whom to the greatest effect completely missed the crux of what actually transpired and who the real winners were.

Save for a few instances when both the FOX "News" Personalities and the other candidates attempted to eviscerate The Donald, the focus of the evening consisted of ten GOP presidential wannabes pandering to the 25% of the electorate that lives and feeds at the bottom of the human gene pool.

The candidates were compelled do this because they cannot win their party's nomination without support from these bottom feeders.

In addition, so many of the policies and positions which the Republican party stands for are unpopular with a majority of Americans, that their only hope of being elected is first to pander and secure the support of this segment of the electorate and then turn to double-talk, half-truths, and outright lies designed to dupe and win over enough of the remaining 75% of American voters into believing they didn't mean what they told the first group.

When speaking to "the base" they'll continue to offer the same simplistic, hate-and-fear-mongering diatribes we heard last evening; but, in speeches to general audiences, they'll tone down the red-meat rhetoric and pretend they care about issues their party has systematically opposed and people it has ignored since the Dixiecrats rebranded themselves as Tea Party Republicans and bullied their way into the driver's seat atop the elephant.

Of course, the candidates also have at their disposal the the George W. Bush ploy of speaking only to well-vetted, hand-picked audiences and falsely presenting them as a cross-section of the American population.

It might work, but as long as this is the GOP's plan for winning the White House, I'm confident that America will enjoy a long succession of presidents, who, unlike the pathetic pretenders we heard from last night, are qualified to deal with the complex issues that come with the job, and all of them will be Democrats.

So, despite the stories you've been hearing about who won last night's FOX Fiasco, the real winners were America and the Democratic Party.

Link to Source