Gag that cartoonist



Yvonne sent me a link to this Daily Dilbert by Scott Adams, which I am guessing may refer to the recent case of the cartoonist Matt who works on the webcomic Three Panel Soul with Ian who was fired from a government job because he and a colleague were talking about hobbies and he said he enjoys paper target shooting. As R Stevens from Dieselsweeties notes, he wasn't talking about guns and people, shooting people or anything of that nature, in fact he was saying he thought it would be good to have guns which would be harder to use to keep people safe. He was fired because his colleagues are now apparently scared of him.



That may sound like nonsense to some who will be thinking hey, he must have done something else, but given that since Columbine a number of US schools have expelled kids who have done nothing wrong except wear a black duster coats (thus probably alienating the kids and giving them a real grieveance to hold, ironically) and an English major at college was harassed by campus police because he had written a horror story so the dumb-ass rentacops on campus assumed he must be a homicidal maniac, and suddenly it looks a lot more plausible. The great American official logic at work - don't do anything to control access to weapons, just fire people you don't like; of course, if Matt was a violent gun nut then surely this would have provoked him to march down to his ex employer and shoot all the former co-workers who got him fired??? Behold the one thing scarier than nutters with guns - the average fucking idiot...

But as Yvonne points out, this Dilbert cartoon also has a certain resonance to something closer to home, about a certain bookselling blogger fired by his version of Dilbert's Pointy Haired Boss, Evil Boss and his equally Evil Sandals, for mocking him and, of course, by firing him allowing him to step up the mocking to outright Defcon One Intercontinental Ballistic Lampooning launches. Stupidity rules, alas, but at least we can take the piss out those stupid smeggers!

Kill yourself - the game!

I got this link for an online game via Chris at the Canadian Comics212 blog (good spot for material on comics and animation) - it's a quick game where you are in a Dilbert-type universe, being a terminally bored cubicle worker who can't take it anymore. The aim is to kill yourself using a variety of office equipment or by insulting co-workers; each item only takes so much from your health, so you need to be creative and move around. Fun little distraction and the inverse of most games where you normally try to keep your character alive. I wonder how long before some church busybody declaims this for 'glorifying' suicide' and encouraging mortal sin? I managed to top my player with 55 seconds to spare on my third bash.

American politics explained by Dilbert



Not bad as a summary! Although I think my clearest insights into the American political system has come through reading Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury, just as my best British political education came via Yes, Minister and Private Eye.