Author: Patrick O'Grady

After decades with his scabby little nose pressed to various grindstones of journalism, Patrick O'Grady came away with plenty of mental scar tissue, a good deal less hair to cover it, and an undiminished appreciation for three subsets of the craft: drawing cartoons, writing commentary, and composing headlines. All three are short, punchy attention-getters, the literary equivalent of yelling, "Hey, look at me!" before hanging a moon out the school-bus window, and thus own a natural appeal for an overgrown class clown with the attention span of a rat terrier raised on angel dust and bong water. And thanks to the Internet, the best thing to happen to journalism since the invention of movable type, he gets to do all three of them without having to go to work at a newspaper, where management has slowly devolved into a button-down mutant hybrid of the worst aspects of the Spanish Inquisition, the dental bits in "Marathon Man" and the DMV of your choice. He and his wife, the long-suffering Shannon, share an adobe hacienda in The Duck! City with their cat, Miss Mia Sopaipilla.

Here’s the turd, there’s the handle, what’s your hurry?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
His Lardship on the throne.

Once again Charles P. Pierce breaks it all down so the rest of us can lean on our shovels.

Waiting for Mueller is now an unacceptable and inadequate response from the national legislature. Mueller’s job is to see if the president* and his minions should go to jail. The House’s job is to determine if the president* should not be the president* anymore.

Bring it. Impeach the sonofabitch. If nothing else you give him a fresh case of ants in his pants to distract him from rendering the Republic uninhabitable.

Here’s more, from Adam Serwer and Yoni Appelbaum at The Atlantic.

‘I’m not even supposed to be here today!’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
“What kind of convenience store do you run here?”

Ho boy. If Kevin Smith isn’t all over this, he should be. “Clerks III: Roll Another One.” It’d beat the hell out of being a clerk at the Quick Stop, or an independent contractor on the Death Star.

Jay and Silent Bob would have to hustle to sell weed outside it, though. Maybe Trek could kick in a couple e-bikes so they could keep up.

Stand down, clown

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
We’re all bozos on this bus. Some of us more than others.

The speaker of the House lays an epic troll on Il Douche, suggesting that he postpone his State of the Union speech or submit it in writing.

I dunno. I don’t remember anything in the Constitution about black crayon and Big Chief tablets. Y’think he can manage it in  280 characters?

That’s what I call some prime-time Pelosi.

Stone free

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
His Excellency recovers from the tortures of the damned, a.k.a. a visit to the vet.

While the shit-mist continues to blot out Old Sol in DeeCee, we’ve had a little sunshine in our back door today.

Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) had been under the weather about a month back, and so I chauffeured him to his personal physician, who diagnosed a bit of arthritis in the hips and (of all things) a pair of stones in his bladder, an affliction with which we are all too familiar.

The vet recommended that we replace his dry kibble with a canned prescription diet and a side of nutriceutical antiinflammatory, then come back in 30 days to see whether the change in cuisine would solve the issue without more heroic measures.

If It didn’t — well, as I noted, we’ve been down this stony road before with the late, lamented Mister Boo. And we were not looking forward to approving yet another round of surgery on yet another of our comrades.

Today was the day for His Excellency’s followup visit, and not only did the Turk pass with flying colors (and without knifework), he’s actually shed a few ounces on the new diet.

Since his rock has apparently rolled, I played him a little Jimi to celebrate.