From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
The Duckery Continues
Just a quickie quacky reminder that C&J's mascot---the one that looks so sweet and innocent above but lord knows what kinda heat it's packin' under them feathers---is overdue for an official name, and we're giving you a once-in-a-ducky-lifetime chance to choose it during our "Name That Duck" contest.
The contest started yesterday and we've received a virtual paddling of responses so far. (I'm told by my friend the team owner of the Mighty Ducks that a "paddling" is lingo for a group of ducks, y'all. Ooh, strange things are happening to me!) Keep 'em coming---if your submission wins, I'll send you a complete set of official 2012 White House Easter Eggs. And I'm sweetening the deal by adding a $30 donation in your name to the 2012 Netroots for the Troops campaign, which packs care packages at the Netroots Nation convention (Providence, June 7-10) and sends them to servicemembers overseas and VA hospitals stateside.
The rules: Email me your name suggestion (one entry per person) to bipm04103@yahoo.com (or via the DKos message system). I'll pick the top 5 suggestions and the DKos community gets to vote for the final winner.
Contest runs through 12:59:59 Sunday night. The top 5 entries will be voted on Tuesday in our C&J poll under the watchful eye of Sauron.
Thanks for helping name that darn duck. It'll help make it easier to get a Social Security number for it so I can claim it as a dependant on my taxes this year. Or should I say DUCKpendant? Ha Ha Ha and Ha! Those are cheesy laughs, ladies and gentlemen, and golly I love hearing 'em. Almost as much as I love firing 'em.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Note: For those of you who were asking for this option in yesterday's poll, here ya go: "All of the Above." Happy to oblige.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Earth Day 2012: 39
Days 'til the National Cherry Blossom Festival in D.C.: 6
Drop in state support for higher education, adjusted for inflation, over the past five years: 12%
(Source: Paul Krugman)
Percent of Americans who want President Obama and Congress to take "immediate action" to bring down gas prices: 85%
Percent who think gas prices are mostly out of the control of the President and Congress: 31%
(Source: Gallup poll)
Age by which more than 80 percent of smokers (1,000 per day) pick up the habit: 18
(Source: latest Surgeon General's report)
Year the term "March Madness" was coined by Henry Porter to describe an Illinois high school basketball tourney: 1939
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 182 (including 5 nuclear nations and some invisible cows). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "So it's unanimous, then. After deliberating for six weeks, we've decided that our entry in the contest is: Squirrel!"
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CHEERS to the Most Important BREAKING News of the Day, the Week and the Month!!! New episode of South Park tonight! Sweeeet.
CHEERS to winning Dixie. Here are the results of last night's contests:
Alabama: [Don’t forget to toss some numbers here in the morning so people won’t suspect you were at a wine bar last night getting trashed on Long Island Iced Pinot Noirs during the Republican primaries. I mean it: don't forget!]
Mississippi: [Ditto.]
Hawaii: [Ditto.]
American Samoa: [Dittoa.]
Nah, just kidding. What happened was, voters in Dixie handed a double-victory to the candidate from the state where Dixie met its Waterloo, and sent runner-up Governor Cheesypoof scurrying back to Elitesville where he ate cold cereal and nursed his boo-boo with wins in Hawaii and American Samoa. And I'd just like to say, on behalf of everyone who watched the action unfold last night, including those pollsters who were gobsmackingly wrong: "Aloha, y'all!"
JEERS to fakers behind the curtain. Have you heard about this "independent" group called "Americans Elect?" They're the third-party folks that are working to secure a place on the November ballot in all 50 states for an alternative candidate---chosen online by their "grassroots" supporters---because they want to play politics differently, by cracky! (You can see their Isle of Misfit candidates here.) But they're off to a rough start here in Maine because people have noticed that they're allowing their donors to remain anonymous, making them resemble more of a run 'o the mill SuperPAC. Check out the logic presented by former (and probably future) Maine gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler, a poobah at Americans Elect:
In the face of partisan "purity" tests and hostility toward those who buck the party line, we respect our donors' desire to stand up for more choice without being drawn through a political minefield. And we refuse to fight this battle for a more open political process against parties.
Yes! They have the COURAGE of their CONVICTIONS to take America in a NEW DIRECTION by…um…hiding from view. A Republican state representative here
isn’t buying it:
I am submitting legislation that would require Americans Elect to make public its funding sources. The bill does not apply any requirements to Americans Elect that do not already apply to all other political parties in Maine. Indeed, these disclosure requirements apply not only to parties, but to campaigns and political action committees in Maine, including Mr. Cutler's own campaign for governor.
At that time, he did not complain about these disclosure requirements. He did not argue that partisan backlash would prevent him from raising money. He did not accuse others of being funded by special interests and then ask us to take his word for it that he was not. Nor did he claim to support a more open political process while ducking requirements that make the political process more open.
So far the response from Americans Elect has been a big "Yah but...!"
Pfft…politics as usual.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
Time now for Bill in Portland Maine's Completely Rational and Reasonable Comment of the Day. This goes out to every Republican Senator and Congressmember now serving who considers Ronald Reagan the God of Deficit Hawk Conservatism and President Obama the King of Big Spending Liberalism:
"You can all go to hell, you asshole obstructionist nitwits, and also go to the place that people in hell consider to be their version of hell, for contributing mightily to killing our economy and then dancing on the grave. You are the embodiment of the banality of evil. Hugs to the kids!"
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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CHEERS to the greatest geek in all of Geekdom. Happy 133rd birthday to Albert Einstein. You have the floor, sir...
"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."
"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism---how passionately I hate them!"
"In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself."
Ah. I see he was familiar with the Republican Party.
CHEERS to democracy in action. Good news from the Justice Department: Texas's new law requiring voters to produce a photo ID before they can vote has been struck down. Governor Rick Perry calls it the realization of his worst nightmare: fairness…
The DOJ argued that state lawmakers had failed to prove that there was enough evidence of voter fraud to justify the new rules, prompting the department's Civil Rights Division to conclude that the law requiring voters to show personal identification before casting ballots was likely to more heavily impact Hispanic voters. According to the DOJ, Hispanics make up only 21.8 percent of all registered Texas voters, but they comprise more than 38 percent of the registered voters who lack the proper kinds of identification.
Voters' rights were also restored
in Wisconsin, and I understand there's another decision pending in Florida. While we wait for that ruling, here's a little ID pic of me for Governors Perry and Walker, so they won’t go home completely empty-handed:
|:-) (Hey, don't mock my unibrow---they're trendy now.)
JEERS to the red menace. Soon to be heard at a hostage standoff near you:
"Stand down, coppers! I got a filet mignon in my hand and I'm not afraid to use it! "And my partner here's got a T-bone!"
"Please, officer! He's serious!"
"You'll never get away with it, Black Angus Bart! Officer Veggie, load the rump roast into the catapult!"
"Noooooo! Not the rump roast!"
Sprouts, anyone?
CHEERS to "Q." Composing and producing legend---like, the kind of legend that other legends look at and say, "Okay, now he's a legend"---Quincy Jones turns 79 today. Our favorite Q-tune is his junky-tonk theme for Sanford and Son and if you want to release some waterworks just go revisit his score for The Color Purple. For pop thrills there's Thriller. But for sheer mojo-rejuvenating goodness, no playlist should be without Soul Bossa Nova. Groovy, baby, yaaaaaah….
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Five years ago in C&J: March 14, 2007
CHEERS to General Peter Pace. Great news! The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff compared homosexuality to adultery on Monday. That's a big improvement from other muckety mucks who would've also compared it to bestiality, pedophilia, kleptomania, necrophilia, alcoholism, infomercial-watching and hammer toes. Progress! Your free subscription to The Advocate is in the mail, General.
JEERS to bad plumbing. Let me get this straight: a company that's been making flood-control and irrigation pumps since 1926 (pay no attention to the owner's cushy ties to Jeb Bush or the "vast majority" of $128,000 he's given to Republican politicians) builds a bunch of defective pumps for the Army Corps of Engineers, which---knowing they were crap---installed them anyway. In New Orleans. For those of you keeping score at home, that's Heckuva Job #21. Thousand. [3/14/12 Update: They fixed the problem and everything's fine now, right? Right???]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to going crazy irrational!!! Let's hear it for secular holidays! Yaaay!!! Today is 3/14, and at 1:59 this afternoon the world will erupt in slide-rule goodness for Pi Day!
π is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter (i.e. π=C/d) and is approximately equal to 3.14159. … π is fascinating because of its importance in so many scientific calculations and because it’s an irrational number, meaning that its value cannot be expressed exactly as a fraction having integers in both the numerator and denominator. As a result its decimal representation never ends and never repeats. A lot of effort has been put into calculating it and the latest record is at 5 trillion decimal places.
Among other things, pi is comes in handy when you need to dstract mysterous entities who have
hijacked your starship. But I admit to getting mostly Cs and Ds in math, so I'll stick with regular pie, thanks. Apple. With 3.141592653 scoops of ice cream. Or thereabouts.
Have a Wednesday that cleanly slices your week right down the middle…and also makes perfect julienne fries! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
You know what the proper answer from the White House to a call for a statement from Bill in Portland Maine is? "Get your hands out of your pants, you lecherous, sweaty-balled creep. We have nothing to say to you, now or ever."
---Charles Pierce
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