From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Auction Paddles at Dawn
It's on, baby. The fifth annual Netroots Nation Holiday Bazaar online auction starts this morning at 9ET.
The auction's an easy way to get some holiday shopping done and support the activities of Netroots Nation. There's a plethora of unique treasures, gifts, keepsakes and edibles for anyone on your holiday list, including:
• One pound of McMom's handmade fudge ("I even resurrected my cast iron skillet to make sure the texture is perfect," she says.)
• Funky tie-dye t-shirts
Lick your screen
for a free sample!
• An array of coral, crystal, kyanite and other sparkly things to wear
• Handmade cellphone cases
• Bacon toffee and coconut macaroons
• Ceramic ornaments (includes at least one pootie)
• A string of leg-lamp lights from A Christmas Story
• Scarves
• Lighthouse, lobster and ducky cookies from a team of C&J elves in Maine
• An autographed copy of Beyond the White House by President Jimmy Carter
Dozens of items are on the virtual auction block this year. NO muss! NO fuss! NO unsightly bulges! How much would you pay for all this? That's up to you. Bid early and bid often at the
Netroots Nation Holiday Bazaar online auction. The final gavel drops in four days.
Oh, just one other little thing: McMom's donating two batches of her world-famous fudge. I'll bid on one, and all the rest of you can bid on the other. Kthxbai.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, December 5, 2013
Note: Mikey never liked it. He was just collecting a paycheck. Film at 11.
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9 days!!!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til 2014:
26
Days 'til the
Army-Navy game:
9
Number of the 29 Trustees on the board at "Third Way" who are investment bankers:
22
(Source:
DK Elections)
Speed at which the world spins while standing in Portland Maine:
751mph
Speed at which the world spins while standing at the Arctic or Antarctic Circle:
418mph
(Source:
The Portland Daily Sun)
Increase in fresh food sales the week before the December holiday known as The Holidays:
8%
(Source: Nielsen research)
Current score in the war on Christmas:
3-2 (Pagans lead)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Fellow procrastinators of the world, unite! Now is the time to begin thinking about Christmas shopping. We still have a few days left, so there's no rush for those who have been known to do it all on Christmas morning at the Jiffy Mart (everyone appreciates a nice can of WD-40).
---December, 2005
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Puppy Pic of the Day: And the most popular dog names are…..
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CHEERS to getting a thumbs-up from the Mustache of Independence. Maine Senator Angus King (I) was in Portland Tuesday, and brought up a good point about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Namely, that there's a lot more to it than just the web site:
His mustache has its
own zip code. Ha Ha!!
Following his nearly two-hour meeting with MaineHealth, King said there are a number of aspects of the Affordable Care Act that are starting to deliver positive outcomes. He said the organization's data showed that there's a decline in emergency room visits and re-admissions at the state's hospitals but a high quality of service is being maintained. […] A big part of controlling health care costs is encouraging healthy behavior, King said, and that's why programs like the East End Community School's Let's Go! program, which are in part funded through the new health care law, are important. King said it's about changing the culture and educating people about eating well, exercising and maintaining healthy habits. […]
Thirty to 40 percent of health care costs are preventable ailments, like obesity and smoking [-related problems], King said, and if people lead healthier lifestyles, the cost of care will begin to decrease. "It's another one of those positive pieces of the law that isn't getting all that much attention," he said.
Preventive care---which should soar as more people get coverage---isn't as ripe for partisan fisticuffs as, say, a balky website or stories of the few who will end up paying more for their insurance under the ACA. But in the big picture, an even
slightly healthier USA will translate into big savings and make Obamacare an even bigger asset in our enjoyment of life, liberty (with NSA supervision) and the pursuit of happiness. Broccoli-filled Twinkie, anyone?
JEERS to polite requests that shouldn’t ever be necessary. Um…has anyone seen a stolen 2.5-ton truck full of face-melting radioactive cobalt-60 crossing the border from Mexico? If you have, could you please call Glenn at the Federal Stolen Truck With Face-Melting Radioactive Cobalt-60 desk at 1-800-HOLY-SHIT? He'd really appreciate it. UPDATE: Never mind…found it! It was under the plastic balls in the playpen at Chuck E. Cheese. Darn kids.
His choppers had their
own zip code. Ha Ha!!
CHEERS to sweet victory. On today's date in 1792, George Washington won reelection. It was a brutal campaign. His challenger was a real jerk named...um...
George Washington. Watching him debate himself was actually a little creepy: "Shan't!" "Shall!" "Shan't!" "Shall!" "Thy wife weareth the boots of a paymaster in the Continental Army!" "Thy teeth are fashioned from the timber of a commoner's outhouse!" "Noogie!" "Ow ow ow!!!" Did I mention he owned his own distillery?
JEERS to the young and the restless. A new poll shows that a growing number of Millennials are outraged at President Obama and his radical Affordable Care Act that allows them to stay on their parents' insurance plan until they're 26. They also think he oughtta be recalled in a recall election that can't happen, and they hate what he's doing in countries that most of 'em can't find on a map. Furthermore, they say they're absolutely, positively not voting for him when he runs for his third term. I think the poll was taken in a bar.
CHEERS to #8. Martin Van Buren (aka "Martin Van Ruin") turns 231 today. In the negative column, he sat around picking his nose during the depression and panic of 1837, and was on duty during the time of the shameful Trail of Tears. In the plus column, he averted conflicts with Britain and Canada. In the "sleeping on the couch" column, he never once mentioned his wife, Hannah, in his autobiography. And check out this bit of mudslinging from Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett before he made his one-way trip to the Alamo (from "Anything for a Vote" by Joseph Cummins):
His sideburns had their
own zip code. Ha Ha!!
"[Martin Van Buren] is fifty-three years old, and notwithstanding his baldness, which reaches all round and over half down his head, like a white pitch plaster, leaving a few white floating locks, he is only three years older than I am. His face is a good deal shriveled, and he looks sorry, not for anything he has gained, but for what he may lose…
Martin Van Buren is laced up in corsets, such as women in a town wear, and if possible tighter than the best of them. It would be difficult to say from his personal appearance, whether he was a man or a woman, but for his large red and gray whiskers."
Breitbart.com would never hire Crockett as a columnist today. Too restrained.
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Five years ago in C&J: December 5, 2008
CHEERS to one patient I wouldn’t want to piss off. Down in Houston, 83 year-old Barbara Bush is recovering from surgery to fix an ulcer. She's doing so well that she's now on a finely-calibrated liquid diet. It's very precise: she gets 3 ice cubes with her scotch, and 4 ice cubes with her gin and tonic.
JEERS to Arianna Huffington. The owner of the #1 blog in Bloggerland sat down with Jon Stewart Wednesday night to promote blogging (and to plug her new book on---surprise---blogging). All she managed to do was make blogging sound as exciting as watching paint dry. Among her pearls of wisdom: there's no need to edit what you write...just post your first draft. Yeah, tits a real goob idea!
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And just one more…
CHEERS to today's weather forecast. From Accuweather, one of Rick Santorum's most reliable campaign contributors:
If you see it swingin' your way, run! (Especially if it refuses to at least buy you dinner first.)
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
2013 Cheers and Jeers One of the Least Productive in History
---Mediaite
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