Fuelishness 2: $3.89 for all my friends!

March 14, 2026March 14, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

Everyone’s on the same page along Tramway Boulevard.

Way back in the Glory Days of Monday — remember that fabulous Monday? — a happy Duck! City motorist could gas up for $3.39 or $3.59 per gallon, depending on his/her choice of station.

On Saturday … not so much.

The going rate for a gallon of go-juice on Tramway today is $3.89, from Lomas to San Bernardino. Affordability is on the march, and soon the American public will be legging it around and about, too.

Just wait until Addled Hitler sinks Kharg Island, a small coral island off Iran’s coast that according to The Associated Press is “the primary terminal through which nearly all of Iran’s oil exports pass.” The Guardian has a nifty explainer, too.

Petras Katinas, an energy researcher at the Royal United Services Institute who calls Kharg “the main node” of the Iranian economy, said that if Iran were to lose control of the island, it would be difficult for the country to function, even though the island isn’t a military or nuclear target.

“It doesn’t matter which regime is in power — new or old,” Katinas said.

Oh, good. This is like blowing up a 7-Eleven and replacing it with a Circle K, only the Circle K has empty shelves, fuel pumps that don’t work, no employees, and an angry mob forming in the cratered parking lot with weapons in various calibers and configurations, craving a word with management.

Send Whiskey Pete Kegsbreath out to restore order. He can show them his tats. They can show him their rat-a-tat-tats.

Snow job

March 6, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments

The lone GS-1 running the National Weather Service must’ve lost her Magic 8-Ball and is reduced to winging it, calling for “a slight chance of snow showers” here before 8 a.m.

As that hour has come and gone, we will not be breaking out the cross-country skis anytime soon.

Still, the weather is finally more or less seasonal for a change, so I can probably leave the lawn mower in the garage for a while, too.

In other news: 92,000 jobs swirled down the Gilded Shitter in February; the unemployment rate is up to 4.4 percent; retail sales fell in January; stocks drop amid “uncertain outlook”; gas prices jump again to their highest level in a year and a half; and a senator who can’t do his job helps the coppers do theirs.

So. Much. Winning.

Who can we bomb now? Are we bombing everyone yet? There must be somebody left unbombed. If we have any bombs left. …

White-line fever

March 4, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments

“I think I’ve seen this movie before. …” Photo by Thang Cao on Pexels.com

Good news! Americans weary of watching war in the desert (“Yawn … seen it!”) can change the channel to jungle combat as U.S. troops “advise” their counterparts in Ecuador.

Jaysis fuck, etc. Yanks just can’t stop lashing uncounted tonnage of “dumb dust” up their snouts, so we expand the War on Drugs to include “narco-terrorism” and start shipping Special Forces to Ecuador, which itself does not produce any nose whiskey but serves as a trafficking route.

I suppose it’s only a coincidence that what Ecuador does produce in quantity is — wait for it — oil.

Meanwhile, Sniffles the Clown keeps horning fat rails of Adderall to take his mind off that pepperoni pizza he’s baking on his neck, and that’s OK because he’s the Pestilence an’ shit, so keep it coming, bitches.

“For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law. Also, and too, the Green Berets.”

Acting rashly

March 3, 2026March 3, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments

“Rash? Fake news!” says press secretary Karoline Leavitt as her head takes a hot lap around her shoulders. “There are no rashes in this White House. Hail Satan!”

I hear His Excremency has a rash.

No, not diaper rash. Though he probably has that too. This rash would be a little higher, something like the fabled “ring around the collar,” if by “ring” you mean something that looks like a wicked case of contact dermatitis, late-stage syphilis, shingles, or as one Internet comedian (not me) surmised, “The Evil trying to get out before he dies.”

If it is a Hickey from Hell, do you suppose this means that he and the Devil are going steady? I would’ve thought Old Scratch could do better than this burned-out old hoor, but there’s no accounting for taste. Maybe he’s getting bad advice from Jeffrey Epstein, who must still be irked about getting whacked in jail.

I think of stuff like this in the dead of night instead of sleeping so you can get a good night’s rest. You’re welcome.

March has already been awash in dire portents and we’re not even three full days in yet.

I bought a block of my favorite Kerrygold cheese, their Blarney variety (because Irish, blarney, etc.) and its expiration date was 03/27 — my birthday!

We’ve had two consecutive days of high-temperature records — 79° on Sunday and 80° yesterday, with special guest appearances by particulates and pollen (juniper, elm, oak, cottonwood, and ash) — followed by a full lunar eclipse of the Worm Moon, which makes it a Blood Moon.

And of course we have the war on Iran. I don’t know why The Pestilence felt it necessary to go all the way to Iran to kill Americans when he’s been so successful at that right here at home. Whatever happened to America First?

The body count’s not high enough yet to distract his base from the sudden jump — soo-prise, soo-prise, soo-prise — in gas prices. But they’re bound to take notice after the next few fill-ups.

Nothing to see here, move along, move along. I’m sure His Excremency will be sending Kuwait a bill for the $300 million in F-15E Strike Eagles they shot down the other day, and equally certain that he’ll be sharing that windfall with the rest of us.

That’s the news — and now, here’s Asmodeus with the weather!

“Folks, we may be in the End Times, but don’t expect any end to this heat! The Dark Lord has the Lake of Fire at a rolling boil, and we expect Hell to remain unfrozen for the better part of … well, forever! Back to you, Patrick!”

Forrrrr’d, March!

March 1, 2026March 1, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

“Just another day on the set, people. Lights, camera, action!”

From The New York Times (gift article):

From the moment he announced an extensive military attack against Iran by posting an edited social media video at 2:30 a.m. Saturday, President Trump made clear that he would be taking a different tone and approach than his wartime predecessors.

Mr. Trump did not scramble back to the White House from Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Palm Beach, to oversee the U.S. and Israeli strikes. He did not deliver a televised address informing the public of the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was the nation’s supreme leader for nearly four decades.

Instead, the president capped an extraordinary day of U.S. aggression abroad by attending a glitzy fund-raising dinner at his club.

With this REMF at the top of the org’ chart the old joke applies more than ever: What’s the difference between the U.S. armed forces and Scouting America? The Scouts have adult leadership.

Maybe the headline should be “Forrrrrrr’d, Mar … a-Lago!”