Arm The Lobsters

Behold my solution to a problem that may soon be consuming the Defense Department: How to spend the obscene oodles of boodle Donald Trump’s lapdog Congress seems poised to deliver to them for fiscal year 2027. Continuing to flush it down the toilet in an unpopular, un-winnable war of ego, penis envy and Epstein avoidance seems do-able, but crass and politically risky. So what to do?

I say buy mo’ lobsters, but put them to work.

Remember last year, when Pete Hegseth’s Defense Department was so desperate to empty its budget under the use-it-or-lose-it policy — a system I suspect was designed by government sick-leave strategists — the department went on a wild spending frenzy. Among other extravagances, they spent $6.9 million on frozen lobster tails. For the brass.

This was canny, but it was thinking small. Next year, they should buy live lobsters and use them as strategic weapons. Donald Trump has asked for $1.5 trillion for 2027, a huge increase, and he’ll probably get it, and all that cash will have to go somewhere. Why not on malacostracan decapod crustaceans?

In short, consider the lobster.

This is not a crazy idea, apparently. The world is atwitter, as it were, with rumors of “kamikaze dolphins,” aquatic mammals supposedly trained by Iran as living suicide torpedos, to attack ships with mines in the Strait of Hormuz. It’s of dubious veracity, but who cares? It’s the principle that counts, and here is a principle that can actually be your pal.

Why lobsters? They are ideal attack animals. They are perpetually infuriated and nasty and hostile, due to those bands we put on their claws. Biologically, they are semi-amphibious fighting vehicles, like this thing.

This project would not be undignified, as with arming rats or roaches. Lobsters are noble animals. Their blood is, literally, blue.

Their claws alone are powerful weapons, capable of exerting 100-pounds per square inch of pressure, similar to a multi-load pneumatic can crusher.

But that is just for hand-to-claw combat. According to reports, a five-pound lobster — with its tough exoskeleton — can carry its own weight on its back. According to military science, five pounds of pentolite, a submersible explosive mixture composed of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and trinitrotoluene (TNT), can cause catastrophic damage, destroying small buildings, penetrating thick armored steel, or obliterating a vehicle.

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So. That’s it.

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Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:

Today’s mailbag:

Q: Yesterday I helped someone I dearly love collect stool samples for the doctor, who needs them for a good reason. It wasn’t fun, but it was OK. Plus, I believe that sewers and septic systems have added at least five years to lifespans everywhere they have been adopted.

But for the life of me, I can’t figure out why poop jokes are funny (even though I laugh at many of them). So , what’s your answer, Czar of Humor?

— Ken G

A: You have come to the right place, Ken. Congratulations.

Poop jokes are funny because they expose the essential, hilarious absurdity of humanity’s infatuation with itself. The fact that we have to do this ridiculous, undignified thing is a universal, unavoidable reminder that we are just animals, which contrasts with our desire to believe we are elevated, civilized, beings. The ability to laugh at this underscores the absurdity of life itself, ironically taming and containing our most elemental fear, the fear of death.

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Okay, that’s it for today.

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If I didn’t have to write this next sentence, I wouldn’t. But if I don’t, Substack refuses to publish this newsletter until I assure them (this is true) that I am for some bizarre reason choosing not to attempt to make this newsletter — and by extension, all of Substack — survive in a hostile world. I hate having to deal with that more than I hate providing this button:

See you tomorrow. Remember to bate your breath: On Thursday we publish the results of the Invitational grandfoals contest.