Welcome to Awards Edition Plus, your one-stop snark shop and Cheers and Jeers placeholder for Monday, April 29th 2013. Bill--who takes more vacations than George Dubya Bush--is busy washing the Cheers and Jeers Lexus and purchasing those jars of paste he hands out to welcome new kiddie-poolers. Which leaves me holding a bucket of pool-shocking chlorine and an empty bag. Even Geoffrey the Cat won't get into that bag. It smells like old newspapers and booze.
Today will be an abbreviated edition because I have about two days left to get yardwork done here at The Rock before the leaves appear and I can't see what I'm doing. Lenin Cat has an editorial, and we've got a Golden Douchenozzle nominee as well as the News of Dubious Veracity Department. Then we've got YOUR cheers and jeers.
Let's jump over the orange tangle of weed-whacker line for a little more...
A Couple of Diaries You Might Want To Read
Teacherken on Krugman's latest is a good read. Krugman is about one step away from calling BS on our entire system. Hurry up, Paul, call it.
Over here, floridagal (or as we'd say here in Maine, "Floridergal") has an indictment of Golden Douchenozzle Award winner Michelle Rhee, a woman whom I would like to spend about five minutes alone with in a closet. Come as you are, Rhee, I'll bring the phone book and baseball bat.
Awards Edition Plus Editorial\
by Lenin Cat
Plutocrats in Congress
I don't know how you feel about this, but after month after month of Congressional asshattery gridlock, our Congresscritters finally agreed on something: people who fly often shouldn't have to deal with this pesky sequester business. The sequester, apparently, is only for the "little people". One of the authors of the bill, Maine's own Sen. Susan Collins, knows all about how unfair furloughing FAA folks can be, because our state is full of small airports like the one a stone's throw from me, Owl's Head. Small airports that are expensive to fly into and near places where rich Federal retirees live. Like Camden, Maine, which is where you'd go to retire if you were a former Defense or CIA employee, and you'd fly into Owl's Head to get there. It's also expensive to do, ticket-wise, though there is only one or two TSA folks there who also moonlight as lobstermen.
If I were a Congressperson or a Senator, the last thing I'd want to put my name to is the kind of bill that Congress passed last week. Because if I were a Congresscritter, the last thing I would want is to admit that we now live in a plutocracy.
Mark my words: the anger of the American people will eventually punish this kind of asshattery, and when they do, it won't be pretty.
--Lenin Cat.
News of Dubious Veracity Department
from the Washington Insider:
Congressman Gohmert Refuses to Eat at Washington Circle-Jerk
Washington, D.C. While we were laughing at the annual Press Club dinner, Rep. Gohmert of Texas remained dead serious about the terror threats which continue to stalk our elected officials. Speaking after the dinner, Gohmert said "It's bad enough that they're mailing us letters laced with ricin, now we're being served RicinBeans? Austerity is for the little people, folks!
Abbreviated Golden Douchenozzle Award
The Golden Douchenozzle Award is given periodically to political and public figures for rank hypocrisy and general asshattery.
There are so many one could nominate, but I've got to say, Michelle Rhee takes the cake. Not only is she guilty of cooking the test booklets, but now she's cooking petitions, too. I have a reason for choosing of all people this week an education "reformer". I used to teach in the Houston Independent School District when former Sec. of Education, Rod Paige, was Superintendent. I watched while principals were handed cash bonuses for expelling and suspending low-performing students ahead of high stakes testing. I also watched while that asshattery was exposed, and he was rewarded with a cabinet-level position in the Bush administration. Rhee is doing nothing different, and she continues to get away with it, and we continue to buy it. Well, I'm not buying it. I may not teach anymore, but my Harvard educated brother still does, and I take teaching in public schools as seriously as he does. It's one thing for our elected officials to make money on our backs, but it's another to do so trying to ruin public education. There is no greater asshattery in my book than f*cking with public education. Rhee is a common swindler, grifter, douchenozzle. Let's smite her with the Molly the Chocolate Lab's big stick of righteousness.
What are you cheering and jeering about today? Let us know in the comments. Happy Monday!
NOTE: I apologize to Lenin Cat for my bad Verizon wi-fi connection, but I can't access photobucket at this time and thus his picture does not appear before the Editorial. Awards Edition Plus regrets the omission in advance.