Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for August 16, 2024

And so is born the Red Rascal…

He’s thinking of quitting the exporting, and just focusing in on the importing.

So—THAT’S who’s responsible for Wile E. Coyote’s orders that always foul up!!

James Cameron’s True Lies, Slacker Division!

When I joined the Army a while back they gave me all these tests and finally said I qualified for Officer Candidate School…all I had to do was extend my hitch for 2 more years…we never spoke again!

Secret agent man, secret agent man. They’ve given you a number, and taken away your name.

Brain and Pinky live in the abandoned Acme labs,

Hey that’s exactly the line I got from a former employee when he interviewed for such a job. “Nah, I met a guy at a gas station, he offered me a job at an import/export business! That’s why I fly to the middle east so much.”

20 years later, Acme has been gobbled up by Amazon.

Some believe they just work in shipping or journalism because if we told them who they work for it would blow their cover.

I always get them mixed up with the people who make Noxzema

There’s a company called “Globe Rectifiers” that always sounded to me like a CIA front.

“Well, we travel the globe. And we rectify it.”

Moe Berg these kids aren’t.

Oddly enough, Jeff Redfern’s lack of a meaningful life works in his favor. The main things that the CIA and the DOD look for when checking for a security clearance: ties with unsavory terrorist groups ( foreign, but especially domestic), extramarital affairs, and financial troubles. Jeff Redfern has no political ideals, no sex life, and no finances to speak of, so he cleared those hurdles pretty quickly.

Is this over yet?

That’s nice. I work for Universal Exports. Name’s Bob. Jim Bob.

My brother had gone into the Air Force to learn Russian. Once he got in, we was informed that Russian classes were full and he would be learning Vietnamese. He spent two years in communications intelligence listening to “Vietnamese static”. After that time, he told me in person that he had been tasked with learning Hebrew. I later asked him in a phone conversation how that was going and he said he did not know what I was talking about. OoooooK.

I think James Bond’s cover was Universal Exports. Not sure, its been a while.

Or van delay industries

My wife, in her younger years, dated a golf pro who traveled a lot. Some years later, she got a job that required a security clearance. She was surprised that the FBI already had a dossier on her. And she was far from a bomb-throwing, anti-government hippie so that wasn’t it. She finally concluded that the golf pro must have worked for The Company and they just wanted to make sure the women he dated were not working for the other side.

Oh, not Universal Export, how silly of me.

Or he could be an editor for the New York Times.

Yes, they were really that desperate.

Doesnt he work for the equivlent of “Universal Exports.”