From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
So, Yeah…This Happened
Ten freakin' years ago, on October 10, 2002, Congress took leave of its senses and said "Okely Dokely!" by a 296-133 margin to let President Bush go to war against Iraq without actually, y'know, declaring war. I can hit the highlights of the ensuing debacle from memory without going anywhere near the Google:
Yes, someone actually made a
'Turkey Dinner Bush' action figure.
Smoking gun/mushroom cloud, yellowcake from Niger (not), MASSIVE QUANTITIES OF WMDs!!!, Shock and Awe, Saddam spokesman "Baghdad Bob" declares victory over USA, Saddam statue pulled down and beaten with shoes, war will be over "in weeks," it'll cost only $1.7 billion, looting is OK because "free people are free to do what they want," Viceroy Bremer disbands Iraqi military, U.N. building blown up, body and vehicle armor inadequate, disheveled Saddam found in spider hole, Sunni vs. Shia vs. Kurds vs. Christians, WMDs WILL BE FOUND in "Tikrit and Baghdad and areas north, east, west and south somewhat," Saddam snacks on Doritos in captivity, suicide bombs explode morning noon and night, Abu Ghraib, Saddam's hanging caught on phone-cams, WHERE ARE THE WMDs???, al Qaeda recruitment skyrockets, "You go to war with the army you have not the army you wish to have," stunning incompetence among U.S. civilian leadership, insurgency "is in its last throes" (not!), casualty rate among troops and civilians appallingly high, "THOSE WMDS HAVE GOT TO BE HERE SOMEWHERE!", no-bid contracts to Bush-Cheney cronies, spotty electricity and raw sewage, no sweets and flowers, the surge calms Anbar Province, Iraqi parliament models itself on our Congress by not doing anything and spending half its time on vacation, faulty wiring electrocutes troops in showers, 26 additional reasons given by neocons for starting the war when NO WMDs ARE FOUND, Bush dodges thrown shoes, Obama supervises orderly pullout as $1 trillion+ gets plunked on America's credit card and blows hole in deficit. Tea Party deficit hawks shrug.
The biggest cheerleaders of the war say they'd do it all over again, and Mitt Romney has hired virtually all of them to plan his foreign-policy adventures as president.
If the star chamber behind the Iraq nightmare gets voted back in 27 days from now, lord help us.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Note: "Half of life is just showing up. The other half of life is just FREAKING OUT ABOUT POLL NUMBERS GAAAAHHH!!!!!" ---Gandhi
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the release of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: 65
Days 'til the Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival in Niceville, Florida: 9
Percent of all U.S. workers who were home-based in, respectively, 2005 and 2010: 7.8%, 9.5%
Percent chance that Mondays and Fridays are the most popular days for working at home: 100%
(Source: Census Bureau)
Average age of a video game player: 34
Gender breakdown among gamers: 60% male/40% female
(Source: Entertainment Software Rating Board)
Weight of the winning entry at the annual pumpkin weigh-off at Frerichs Farm in Rhode Island: 1,872 lbs.
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 185 (including 3 Satanisms and 1 fearsome fire devil). Soul Protection Factor 12 lotion and an asbestos tutu are recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Belated Happy 4th Birthday, Bo!
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Obama leads in Ohio, which
means Romney is still fucked.
CHEERS to President Obama. He was in Ohio yesterday, stumping energetically on behalf of the middle class and savoring the fact that Americans find him more likable than his opponent by a factor of 9-to-1. Fuck the likely voter polls---they'll be back up again by this time next week, especially after Biden wipes the floor with Ryan (if Ryan can keep himself from storming off the stage in a huff, that is). Oh, and excuse me for a second…[
Opens window, Closes window]…yup, bin Laden's still dead and General Motors is still alive. And y'know what? I think the Obama campaign should take inspiration from
this spectacularly awesome first-term photo essay by White House genius photographer Pete Souza
and turn it into an image-only ad. It would leave millions of people saying to themselves, "Oh, yeah---
that's why I like that guy!" I'll close this item with this: freak-outs are for freaks. Don’t be a freak.
CHEERS to cool science. The Nobel Prize parade of winners continued yesterday in the category of physics!!! Congratulations are in order:
Two faces at once. Physics!!!
Serge Haroche of France and American David Wineland showed in the 1990s how to observe individual particles while preserving their bizarre quantum properties, something that scientists had struggled to do before. … In this situation, an atom or electron or photon takes on strange properties. It can be in two places at once, for example. … But these properties are instantly changed when it interacts with something else, such as when somebody observes it.
The scientific term for their discovery: the Mitt Romney Particle.
Just another
GOP tax dodger.
JEERS to the original nattering nabob of negativism. On October 10, 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew
resigned in disgrace after being charged with tax evasion. Poor guy was ahead of his time. Thirty-nine years later tax evasion is the biggest plank in the Republican party platform.
P.S. I was going to ask someone to revive this anti-Agnew TV ad and apply it to all the Republicans running for Congress and the White House. But it dawned on me that there'd be so many names onscreen that no one would be able to read such a tiny font size. Never mind.
CHEERS to marijuana: cancer romperstomper! I don’t know how this slipped under my "weedar," but it's yet another example of why marijuana may yet end up being the miracle cure of our time:
The devil weed may
cure the devil cancer.
A pair of scientists at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco has found that a compound derived from marijuana could stop metastasis in many kinds of aggressive cancer, potentially altering the fatality of the disease forever. … "We started by researching breast cancer," said [Pierre] Desprez. "But now we've found that Cannabidiol works with many kinds of aggressive cancers---brain, prostate---any kind in which these high levels of ID-1 are present." Desprez hopes that clinical trials will begin immediately.
So far the treatment has only been administered via injection, but they're working on alternative delivery systems: pills, suppositories, and fudge brownies.
JEERS to the Dickiest Dick Move in Dickdom of the Day! David Siegel, owner of a company called Westgate Resorts, is filthy rich. So filthy rich that the Fed has a branch office in his basement so they can print money for him day and night. Filthy rich David Siegel doesn't want President Obama to win the election. And he wants his employees to know that he doesn’t want them to want Obama to win, either. And he thinks that threatening to fire employees if Obama wins is a swell way to let them know that he doesn't want them to want Obama to win:
To All My Valued Employees,
As most of you know our company, Westgate Resorts, has continued to succeed in spite of a very dismal economy. There is no question that the economy has changed for the worse and we have not seen any improvement over the past four years. In spite of all of the challenges we have faced, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration. … If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company.
You know what they say about billionaires who have to "reduce the size of their company?" Neither do I, but I bet whatever they say ends with something about a rapidly-shrinking penis. Assuming they're talking about David Siegel.
CHEERS to drama on the mound. 44 years ago today, game seven of the 1968 World Series pitted two ace pitchers---Mickey Lolich of the Detroit Tigers and Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals---against each other. The Tigers won, and Lolich was named MVP. Will the same teams face each other again this year? Stay tuned. Two dogs and a beer, please.
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Five years ago in C&J: October 10, 2007: GOP primary debate
Not the Reagan heir
they were looking for.
JEERS to the lowest bar ever set. Yesterday during post-debate analysis on
Hardball, Roger Simon of
Politico said he was impressed with Fred Thompson because he knew the name of Canada's prime minister (Celine Dion). Simon's words: "It's more than
I knew." A proud moment for journamalism.
JEERS to the real leaders of the free world. Moments after tuning in to the debate, we heard Mitt Romney promise that before he ever attacked another country he would first get permission from the primary decision-makers: his lawyers. But only if the White House pastry chef was busy. [10/10/12 Update: As the official GOP nominee, Romney has hired Bush's war-loving neocons to serve as his foreign policy team. Their motto: "Lawyers? We don't need no stinkin' lawyers!"]
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And just one more…
And may this be Whatsizname's
daily diet (whatever it is).
JEERS to a guy who deserves to be stuck all the way down here at the bottom of C&J's dry well. This is the last thing I'll write about that Penn State child schtupper with the barracuda teeth and the fried moral circuit board in his head, who denied his guilt right up through his sentencing yesterday to 30-60 years in prison:
"B'bye." Whatever your name is.
Have a nice Wednesday. Tawk amongst yerselves. I'll give you a topic: dudes with pigtails will save the planet. Floor's open...What are you cheering
and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Bill in Portland Maine is a villain out of a Batman movie: buffoonish and sinister in equal measure.
---David Frum
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