From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
S&P Update: Wednesday Morning
- Abraham Lincoln: downgraded from "The Great Emancipator" to "Decent Rail Splitter"
- The Statue of Liberty: Downgraded from "Beacon of Hope" to "$240,000 worth of harvestable copper"
- The Titanic: Upgraded from "Whoops!" to "Smooth sailing!"
- Bud Light: Upgraded from "Foamy dishwater" to "Microbrew Sensation"
- The Great Pyramid of Giza: Downgraded from "Wonder of the Ancient World" to "Washington Monument Wannabe"
- Citizen Kane: Downgraded from "Cinema Classic" to "What's up with the sled? We don’t get the sled part."
- The New York Post: Upgraded from "Snot rag" to "Newspaper"
- Razzles: Upgraded from "Candy" to "Gum"
- Neil Armstrong's first walk on the moon: Downgraded from "One giant leap for mankind" to "Wipe your feet, slob, I just vacuumed the command module"
- Giant Meteor Headed Straight for Earth: Upgraded from "Destroyer of Civilization" to "Promising Mineral Mining Opportunity"
Tomorrow: S&P updates on the Magna Carta, babies and tomato puree.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Note: That's it! I've had it! I'm abandoning Barack Obama!
[ker-SLAM!!!]
[House shakes]
[Pictures fall off wall]
[Birds fly out of trees, making audible coconut sounds as they bonk heads during the panic]
[Several seconds pass]
[Squeeeeeeak…]
Okay, I'm back. I hope he learned his lesson.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the opening of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial in D.C.: 18
Days `til the Pittston Tomato Festival in Pennsylvania: 8
Amount by which Americans increased their borrowing, via credit cards and loans, in June, the largest such increase since August of 2007: $15.5 billion
(Source: Federal Reserve)
Drop in smoking since 2007: 16%
(Source: Time)
Cost to mint a nickel: 9.4 cents
Percent of airline passengers who think it's okay for other passengers to take off their shoes (as long as their feet don’t stink---no slippery slope there, eh?): 68%
Minimum percent who say they react to passengers in front of them who recline their seat (with no intention of sleeping) by "staring angrily at their scalp" or "retaliating in small, petty ways": 51%
(Source: Lonely Planet online survey via USA Today)
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 184 (including 6 Global Turmoils and 1 prairie dog exorcism). Soul Protection Factor 28 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
P.S. Our first Mid-week Rapture Index debuted five years ago today. The magic number stood at 158. Not to sound alarmist, but you might want to keep a duffle bag under your bed with a few changes of underwear, a toothbrush, and a wad of cash (yes, you can take it with you). And a passport---Heaven requires a passport now.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Laundry day
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CHEERS to busy little badgers. The recall elections are over. The dust has cleared. The confetti has fallen. The robocalls have stopped. The beer has been drunk (don’t worry, they'll brew more). The media outlets are counting the wheelbarrows full of cash they amassed from the tidal wave of campaign ads. And may I be among the first to say: CONGRATULATIONS to Wisconsin's two new Democratic state senators---women, both---Jennifer Shilling and Jessica King! Great job! Kos's optimistic take on the results is pretty hard to refudiate, and I would add one more thing: If the Democrats need to leave the state again to prevent Governor Scott Walker from enacting another bullshit piece of soul-sucking, Koch Industries-backed legislation, they can do it in shifts now, meaning two Democrats can stay in the state and then, at a designated time, relieve two senators at the border, thus allowing them to come home and take care of stuff. It'd be like an endless game of "Pass the Denial of the Quorum." They can literally gum up the works for Walker indefinitely now, and still spend time with their families and tend to state business. (See? I can do thinkin'!) Up next: goin' for the whole pasty-faced enchilada: Walker's own seat. Russ Feingold: start your engines.
JEERS to extremism across the pond. Oh, Britain---you're such an enigma wrapped in a riddle spread on a warm crumpet. You're prim and proper lads and lasses one moment, and vicious little buggers the next. There are two groups that need to cool their jets big time now, starting with the goon squads who are rioting and looting and setting shit on fire. Rallies? Yay! Arson? Boo! But the snuff-sniffing austerity fanatics in the government need to go back to the drawing board, too, because the policies they've put in place have too much Sheriff of Nottingham and not enough Robin Hood. Fiscal responsibility? Yay! Stripping your lower and middle classes of opportunity and compassion? Boo! The way forward is clear: the disenfranchised need to quit burning down buildings, and the bewigged tut-tutters need to quit burning down people's dreams. Oh, and one more thing: since you're the U.S.'s birthparent 'n all, can we have our allowance early? A few trillion should do the trick. Hugs, America.
JEERS to decisive action taken not so decisively. The feathers of health experts and the general public are in quite a ruffle after people gobbled up Cargill turkey and found out it contained an antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella, forcing a too-slowly-implemented government recall. The USDA promised to do better next time, but that they need more adequate funding and staffing. Eric Cantor, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell agreed to consider it, but only if the Bush tax cuts are made permanent to reduce uncertainty in the meleagris gallopavo markets. I swear, you could set your watch by these guys.
CHEERS (because we never jeer anyone on their birthday) to Herbert Hoover. Today marks #31's 137th orbit around the sun. He was in some ways an outstanding public servant. But, lord, what a disastrous, cold-hearted presidency, won by employing his own southern strategy in 1928 and sunk by the Great Depression and vast seas of Hoovervilles. And this is just priceless:
The president...preferred not to see the servants at all. The mansion's bell system was used to keep a distance between Hoover and the people who served him: Three rings announced his approach, requiring staff to hide in the nearest closet until he was out of sight. The same went for the groundskeepers, who found themselves jumping behind shrubs when the president was rumored to be nearby. Those staff members with an insufficient cloaking device faced the possibility of dismissal.
---From Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents by Cormac O'Brien"
Go pay your respects here...very quietly from behind the bushes.
CHEERS to local police-blotter fodder. Portland, Maine is amassing a mighty civic army to eliminate the funkadelic scourge of graffiti and they mean business. Monday, a pair of notorious aerosol-packing scofflaw outlaws were hauled in by the cops after they were---this is the weird detail that makes a mundane story bizarre---caught by police lying in the road. As in, a city street with active vehicular traffic of varying degrees of smushing capacity. Oh, and I think one of them---bizarre twist #2---might be Debbie Harry of Blondie??? As the crackdown continues, graffiti artists say they'll continue fighting for their constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear a fine variety of Krylon and Krink products down their pants. Because spray paint and juicymarkers don’t deface buildings---people do. Or something.
JEERS to marginal advances in sodapopology. On August 10, 1889, Dan Rylands patented the screw cap for bottles. But we keep breaking our teeth on `em, anyway.
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Five years ago in C&J: August 10, 2006
JEERS to red meat for Fox News. The U.S. and Britain are now at Terror Alert Level "Redder!!!" as an apparent terrorist plot to blow up 6-10 airliners is apparently thwarted. Officials say all liquids are now banned in the cabins of overseas flights. Great...just what a passenger riding on a potential time-bomb needs: an empty liquor cart. [8/10/11 Update: And let's not forget that, right on cue, Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman both exploited Americans' heightened fears to score cheap political points. I know, I know…that was so out of character for them.]
CHEERS to Angryland USA. New poll for CNN says that 60 percent of Americans oppose the U.S. military occupation of Iraq (a new high). By my calculations that means there are now 180,000,000 elitist sissy-poos who want to cut and run. If only we could get `em all to show up at the White House at the same time. (Ding Dong! "George, it's for you, dear...!")
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And just one more…
CHEERS to blowin' this popsicle stand. Congrats to NASA (yes, they're still in business) for their successful launch of the Juno probe, which will explore Jupiter and drop off---not making this up---emergency supplies of Legos. The trip is expected to take 5 years (six if they run into paving crews around the Mars bypass). I hear NASA is also planning to send an unmanned craft to visit the planet two doors down from Jupiter. They're currently in the preliminary "Try not to snort milk all over our nice clean control panels every time you hear 'Uranus probe'" stage. (Spoiler Alert: It's not going well.)
And this free bit of advice for your Wednesday: hang…the fuck…on! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Cheers and Jeers is offensive to public decorum and should be banned from souvenir stalls---people with young families should not have to see Bill in Portland Maine."
---Pisa Mayor Marco Filippeschi
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