From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Oh! More Things I Know:
- Surpriiiise! The War on Christmas starts now! C&J's "Happy Holidays" blimp is airborne and circling over Fox News headquarters in New York. (I love catching 'em flat-footed, don’t you?)
- If the left hadn’t explained to the teabaggers what teabaggers do, the teabaggers would still be calling themselves teabaggers.
- The Stop Tar Sands Blogathon is terrific. Watch for those diaries and rec 'em up!
- One thing I don't have to worry about anymore is getting stung by a bee. But that's been replaced by a new worry: no bees.
- Oh, look! Grover Norquist is on my TV. [Click!] Oh, look! Now he's not.
- When Rep. Allen West responded to a letter from the Council on American-Islamic Relations with "NUTS!", he forgot one crucial word: "I'M."
- Want to create a whole bunch of jobs overnight? Take another damn census!
- The vast majority of kids entering high school as freshmen in the fall will have no recollection of the attacks of 9/11 because they were too young to remember them.
- Back in 2007, I wrote: "The current Republican theme song is "Holding Out For A Hero." When Fred Thompson enters the race it will quickly change to "We Are The Champions," followed even more quickly by a sad return to "Holding Out For A Hero." Four years later, this now applies to Rick Perry. Just you watch.
- No matter how many speeches future presidents give, they will never quote George W. Bush to reinforce a point unless it's as a lesson in deception or failure.
- And now a rebuttal from the right: Leave George Bush aloooone!!!!!
- I'm not a fan of unmanned-drone strikes, but I'm willing to make an exception for brain-eating amoebas
- Okay, I'll say it: when you eat a corn dog you're eating a food penis.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, August 18, 2011
Note: Today's C&J is being read out loud from atop a hay bale.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Bill in Portland Maine gets a wedgie for mentioning that Labor Day is only 20 days away: 0
Days `til the 5th annual Clean Lakes Festival in Madison, Wisconsin: 9
Current approval rating for Congress, according to Gallup: 13%
Rank of the Honda Accord, Honda Civic and Toyota Camry among most-stolen vehicles in the U.S.: #1, #2, #3
(Source: National Insurance Crime Bureau)
Copies of Slaughterhouse Five sent to students of Republic (Missouri) High School from the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library after the book was banned by the local school board: 150
(Source: Time)
Year in which the U.S. Mint struck its first official coin: 1793
Year during which foreign coins ceased to be recognized as legal tender in the U.S.: 1857
(Source: Postal Commemorative Society)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
This, in turn, brings up the interesting role of coincidence in the life of Gov. Goodhair. Last summer, the Guv appointed an Enron executive to the state's Public Utilities Commission and, the next day, Perry got a check for $25,000 from Ken Lay. He explained this, to everyone's satisfaction, as being "totally coincidental."
The unhappy Enron exec later had to resign after dauntless sleuths in the press discovered the governor's office trying to cover up---with White Out---the fact that the appointee had accidentally shot a whooping crane some years back. While on a goose hunt. Don't tell me Texas politics isn't more fun than all that boring stuff in [a] civics textbook---and besides, your civics textbook gets edited by some of the dippiest people in Texas politics.
---August, 2002
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Puppy Pic of the Day (via Kossack Bill Evans at mariposa): David vs. Dogoliath
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CHEERS to Billy's Hot Smokin' Energy Update!!! This and that I found on the intertubes:
- Another feather in the Obama administration's hardhat: higher fuel-efficiency standards for heavy trucks and buses are on their way. Savings: 530 million barrels of oil and $50 billion in savings within 7 years.
- This link comes via Kossack ProfessorWho. Let's not forget to keep an eye on what's going on in Japan. You can check the latest Fukushima headlines at a glance over at enenews.com. If there's not a Mothra incubating somewhere offshore, I'll eat my kasa.
- A U.S. Dept. of Energy panel, headed by Secretary Steven Chu, wants natural-gas (huhhuhhuh…he said "gas") drillers to provide details on the chemicals they use for the process known as "fracking." I believe their exact words were: "Give us the fracking details." Got a big laugh. Always good to start an investigation that could lead to revelations of environmental shock and horror with a joke.
- Speaking of natural gas, Tim Hill will be directing Walter the Farting Dog. And the Oscar goes to…
And please keep an eye out for the Tar Sands diaries. What a great effort to bring attention and encourage civil disobedience to fight this horrendous effort by Canadian Koch-brother wannabes to fuck us over with an aquifer-threatening pipeline pumping toxic black goo through the U.S. No thanks. Make it Molson and we'll reconsider.
JEERS to the ups not following the downs. The trading day after S&P lowered America's credit rating, Wall Street crashed and burned as over 500 points on the Dow evaporated. But the day after Fitch assured the world that America's credit rating was still a rock-solid AAA in their eyes (i.e. Tuesday), the Dow went up by…a whopping 4 points. Um…rah…[yawn]…rah. And such.
JEERS to the Worst Historian in the World. Michele Bachmann made another Supergaffe Tuesday, this time treading on the most sacred ground in all of pop-culturedom. During a campaign stop in South Carolina, she urged the crowd to join her in wishing Elvis Presley a happy birthday. One small problem: Tuesday wasn't the anniversary of the day The King checked in, it was the 34th anniversary of the day he checked out. Someone in the crowd yelled out the truth but she ignored it. I'll say one thing: at least she's consistent.
CHEERS to the Lady from Plains. Happy birthday to former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who gets an 84 percent discount at Denny's today. I hear she plans to celebrate the usual way by stealing a Harley and going on a bank-robbing spree with Jimmy in the sidecar and Lord help anyone who gets in their way. Kids these days...
P.S. Dirty Fucking Hippie Robert Redford turns 75 today. Yeah---I'd vote for him..
CHEERS to choking the chicken. Yes, I'm referring to that major-league dick, Muammar Ghaddafi. If what I read is true, it looks like the fat lady is starting to sing in Libya:
The roads to the coast are littered with the spoor of Gadhafi's retreating forces: splintered wooden ammo crates, tin ration canisters, and incinerated tanks. … Col. Gadhafi's capital [is] under a tightening siege, cut off on the west by rebel advances in Zawiya and other coastal towns, and reportedly cut off in the south by rebel advances in Gharyan, though those remain difficult to confirm. […]
"The war is moving into Tripoli, and people know it," Mr. Ali said. "The biggest battle is going to happen soon in Tripoli." Fleeing Tripoli residents said they had endured near constant blackouts for the past two weeks particularly after rebels' July 28 seized an electrical plant in Hawamid, which rebels said provided Tripoli with a large chunk of its power.
This news item has been brought to you by Samsonite. For all your cash- and diamond-stuffing needs as you're fleeing the capital to escape justice, choosy maniacal dictators choose Samsonite!
CHEERS to making the world safer for kids. Go, Eric Holder! And gold stars to the Justice Department for destroying an international pedophile ring. 72 arrests so far, but that'll certainly increase as the net expands and the creeps in custody talk. It took two years to spring the trap, and the operation is said to be "the largest of its kind," the result of smarts, tenacity, and an unwavering eye toward seeing justice done. I hope you're taking notes, Vatican.
P.S. Now Holder's going after S&P for its role in the 2008 financial collapse. How long ya think before we suddenly get downgraded to F-? Place your bets!
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Five years ago in C&J: August 18, 2006
WHAAA...?? to pickin' on the little guy. 2,500 astronomers gathered in Prague are deciding whether or not Pluto should be stripped of its planethood. CNN:
For years, Pluto's inclusion in the solar system has been controversial. Astronomers thought it was the same size as Earth, but later found it was smaller than Earth's moon. Pluto is also odd in other ways: With its elongated orbit and funky orbital plane, it acts more like other Kuiper Belt objects than traditional planets.
I'm afraid I have to fall on the side of the downgraders. Especially after the Plutonians downgraded us to "Big Moist Ball of Parasites." That hurt.
JEERS to abstinence-only-sometimes education. In a Canton, Ohio school district they've gone back to a broader sex ed. program. Why, you ask? Because the "just say no" approach was spittin' out too many babies. Darn kids. Why can't they just suppress their 195,000 year-old primal instincts like they're told? Yer all grounded!
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And just one more…
CHEERS to getting Burn'd. 91 years ago, on August 18, 1920---a whopping 144 years after the founders wrote that "All Men Are Created Equal"---the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote, was assured passage when Tennessee's legislature became the 36th in the nation to approve it. It's a great story, and one that would have cable-news gums a flappin' for days if they'd been around back then. The pro-suffragists wore yellow roses on their lapels, the anti-suffragists wore red ones, and it looked like the reds were going to win. Until.......
...the legislators squared off for the third roll call. A blatant red rose on his breast, Harry Burn---[at 25] the youngest member of the legislature---suddenly broke the deadlock. Despite his red rose, he voted in favor of the bill and the house erupted into pandemonium. With his "yea," Burn had delivered universal suffrage to all American women. The outraged opponents to the bill began chasing Representative Burn around the room. In order to escape the angry mob, Burn climbed out one of the third-floor windows of the Capitol. Making his way along a ledge, he was able to save himself by hiding in the Capitol attic.
The sore losers were, naturally, the forebears of modern-day Republicans. And what prompted Burn to vote for progress? A letter:
Dear Son: Hurrah and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt! I notice some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the "rat" in ratification.
Your mother
She always did know best.
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:
"I had heard that Cheers and Jeers has some of the smartest, best-looking kids around. And you have confirmed the rumor about the outstanding children of Cheers and Jeers." (Laughter.)
---President Obama
8/15/11
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