Category: Agitprop

There’s a new tariff in town

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
The “Rubáiyát of Owe-More Khayyám.”

Hoo-lawd. Anybody’s portfolio turn into a postcard yet?

In case you’ve missed Paul Krugman, he’s speculating over at Substack that Elon’s Hitler Youth may have cobbled together the tariff scheme using ChatGPT and/or other A.I. models.

In my post immediately following the Trump announcement I speculated that Elon Musk’s Dunning-Kruger kids might be responsible for those tariff numbers. That now looks like a distinct possibility.

Who makes policy this way? The key point is that Trump isn’t really trying to accomplish economic goals. This should all be seen as a dominance display, intended to shock and awe people and make them grovel, rather than policy in the normal sense.

Again, I’m not being snobbish here. When the fate of the world economy is on the line, the malignant stupidity of the policy process is arguably as important as the policies themselves. How can anyone, whether they’re businesspeople or foreign governments, trust anything coming out of an administration that behaves like this?

Good time to be heavily invested in the knee- and elbow-pad markets.

No foolin’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Sign of the times.

“Is this how you’re spending your retirement money?” asks my old velo-comrade Charles Pelkey. “Check the sponsor at the bottom of the sign. Bwah ha ha ha.”

Apparently it’s a billboard in Michigan, though it looks like a Photoshop/A.I. kind of thing to me. Wasn’t my doing. Hmm, lemme think here … who do we know in Michigan?

Saints preserve us

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

It being St. Me Day, and with a nod to The New York Times for its story on how the DOGEbags have been taking a shillelagh to the National Nuclear Security Administration — which is said to have lost “a huge cadre of scientists, engineers, safety experts, project officers, accountants and lawyers — all in the midst of its most ambitious endeavors in a generation” — we present The Bothy Band performing, “Old Hag You Have Killed Me.”

Ralph Spoilsport Motors, ‘The World’s Biggest’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

Say, when did Ralph Spoilsport open a White House dealership?

Man, they really do it in the road at their West Gomorrah location. Let’s just look at the extras on this fabulous car! Wire-wheel spoke fenders, two-way sneeze-through wind vent, star-studded mudguards, sponge-coated edible steering column, chrome fender dents, and factory air-conditioned air from our fully factory-equipped air-conditioned factory. It’s a beautiful car, friend, with doors to match! Birch’s Blacklist says this automobile was stolen, but for you, friends, the complete price, only two-ninety-five hundred dollars, in easy monthly payments of twenty-five dollars a week, twice a week, and never on Sundays. …

I got your speech impediment

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
Yes, it’s the return of the Communications Digit, dislocated in a 2009 bike crash. It’s much better now.

Here’s a reminder for King Donald the Short-fingered that the First Amendment isn’t subject to his whims and tantrums.

Come and take it, bitch. You can deport me to County Clare, maybe fine me a finger, but I’ll just swim back and do it again, with the other hand.