Category: Agitprop

Joe-wee

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments
I wonder what we could get for this pee tape?

OK, so we chain Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to the bottom of an empty Olympic-size pool. We charge average Americans $5 a go to pee in the pool, and sell the “streaming” rights to the highest bidder.

All proceeds go toward eliminating the debt and deficit, minus a small cash prize to whoever finally puts the two of them under water.

There will be some who say this won’t eliminate the debt or the deficit, or even shove Sleepy Joe’s Incredible Shrinking Build Back Better bill through the legislative sausage grinder. And they’re absolutely right.

But let’s do it anyway.

There’s cold in them thar hills

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
Thor is taking a few tentative swings with Mjölnir this morning.

The arm and knee warmers have begun tagging along on my morning rides.

I don’t always wear ’em, but it’s nice to know I have ’em. Just in case.

If I were riding today I’d pack a rain jacket, because the NWS boyos are calling for thunderbummers. And snow? Really? In the higher elevations, to be sure, but still, damn. You’d think it was almost October or sumpin’.

Speaking of a chill in high places, I see the usual rampant dipshittery has hit a frosty new low in DeeCee. Fuck me running, but it has become wearisome to watch our national “leadership” rolling around in that big ol’ barrel of titties and telling the rest of us to go suck on our thumbs.

Can we get a conservatorship established to oversee this mess? Maybe Britney Spears could recommend someone. Then again, maybe not.

Personally, I’d like to see more than a few of these Gilded Age fuck-bubbles loaded aboard the next Jeff Bozos dick-missile to the stars, with nothing to eat but each other, but only if we’re talking a one-way ticket.

I suppose we’d wind up replacing them with more of the same. But maybe the new crowd might think about dinner and a movie, and maybe kissing us, before sticking it in.

Wot’s all this then?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
Officer Friendly is here to rifle through your Google user data.

“Probable cause? We ain’t got no probable cause. We don’t need no probable cause. I don’t have to show you any steenkeeng probable cause!”

Zachary McCoy was Just Riding Along™, not unlike thee and me, when the John Laws came calling for his Google user data. According to The Guardian:

McCoy later found out the request was part of an investigation into the burglary of a nearby home the year before. The evidence that cast him as a suspect was his location during his bike ride – information the police obtained from Google through what is called a geofence warrant. For simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, McCoy was being investigated and, as a result, his Google data was at risk of being handed over to the police.

No thank you, please, and fuck right off with that noise, Officer Friendly. How’s the song go? “Let me ride through the wide open country that I love / Don’t geofence me in.”

A workin’ man can’t get nowhere today

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Luck of the draw.

Happy Labor Day, comrades.

I’m barely a worker these days; my paying chores have dwindled to one “Shop Talk” cartoon per month for Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.

Of course, now that BRAIN is a part of the Greater Outside Globe-Spanning Vertically Integrated Paywalled Conglomerate, I find myself negotiating a contract to keep my faded Levi’s up and buckled while I continue to do what I’ve been doing for nigh on to 30 years. So it goes.

Thus, in solidarity with all y’all still on The Man’s clock, here a few random tales culled from our workaday world:

• Hotel workers serve as an unsung pit crew for the firefighters battling the Caldor blaze.

• Job openings outnumber the unemployed. But a gulf between the jobs available and what workers want has led to a “Great Reassessment.”

• Speaking of assessments, are the bots trying to upend the MeatWorld JobMart or are we just stumbling around in the dark as per usual? Kevin Drum has some brief thoughts on the topic.

• Is the boss watching, even when you’re working from home? Maybe. Say hello to “tattleware.”

• Can a workin’ man get somewhere today? He surely couldn’t back in 1978, according to Merle Haggard.

Iron Man is dead*

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 38 Comments
Sometimes you do the boom, and sometimes the boom does you.

Another superhero adventure is coming to a messy ending.

The Military-Industrial Complex’s Cinematic Universe isn’t as orderly as Marvel’s, probably because the writers aren’t as good. Neither are the reviews. But hey, that’s show business for you.

It seemed like such a simple story, too. United States is attacked. United States fights back. Boffo box office!

But some nimrod thinking sequels, spinoffs, and merchandise resurrected an old character called “Mission Creep.” The story went sideways but we kept buying the tickets, taking the ride.

“Look, there’s Stan Lee!”

“No, that’s Robert McNamara.”

Remember the old joke about the driver heading up an off ramp by mistake? “What the hell, you’ve come this far. …”

Well, 20 years later, here we are, upside down in the ditch, watching Mission Creep, Captain REMF, and The Incredible Schmuck posturing for the cameras in an endgame that isn’t one. Avengers Dissemble!

* Of course he’s not dead. We’ll keep trotting him out as long as there’s a buck in it.