From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Another Happy Ending
With Mitt Romney thoroughly defeated at the voting booth, a beloved colleague of Big Bird is free to proceed with the Thanksgiving preparations:
Wherever your travels take you over the holidays---whether by plane, train, automobile, blimp, or a twisted-up blunt on your living room couch---have a safe and stuffy-facey one. Which reminds me: I really gotta watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles again. Frickin' classic.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Note: An abbreviated Cheers and Jeers will appear tomorrow in honor of the federal holiday known as "Family Dysfunction Awareness Day." An abbreviated west coast-friendly version will appear Friday afternoon/evening. No C&J Monday. Back Tuesday. Bring leftovers.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Golden Globe and Oscar nominations: 22 / 55
Days 'til the North Pole Express rides start at mid-coast Maine's Boothbay Railway Village: 3
Economic damage from Hurricane Katrina, the most expensive hurricane to date: $108 billion
Estimated damage from Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy, bringing it in at #2 on the list: $50 billion
(Source: National Weather Service)
Employment rate for U.S. workers aged 65-69 in 2001 and 2011, respectively: 24%, 30%
(Source: USA Today)
Percent of Portland, Maine voters who chose Barack Obama: 74.5%
Estimated U.S. cranberry production this year: 768 million pounds
(Source: Census Bureau)
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 186 (including 3 plagues and 1 more installment of Bad Lip Reading). 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: Sometimes it pays to get nosey…
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CHEERS to holiday haggling. In just 9 days the folks at Netroots Nation will open the bidding for the 4th annual Online Holiday Bazaar Auction. Everything on the block is donated by the netroots community, including, we hope, you:
Michelewln donated this
print titled "Red Sky."
This is a great platform for showing off all the talented crafters and artisans within our midst while benefiting Netroots Nation at the same time. This year it takes place November 30 to December 4. Over the years, through the generosity of folks like you, our on-line auctions have been rousing successes ... hope you'll join us again and donate an item!
Don't hesitate to e-mail Linda Lee at exhibits [at] netrootsnation.org if you have questions.
The more the merrier, so start baking, knitting, or rootin' through your stuff for goodies that might entice folks to bid early and often. To upload info about your donation---it's so easy that my five year-old butler can do it---go to the auction web site and they'll lead ya through it. C&J promises to have a few items on the block, including an authentic talking (read: bellowing) Keith Olbermann bobblehead, and an offer to stand in line for you the next time you have to go through airport security. (Or, for an extra C-note, I'll fly you to your destination myself via my catapult and giant synthetic butterfly wings. One carry-on bag only, please, and it better be really, really light.)
CHEERS to today's awesome quiz show. Hey! Welcome to Today's Awesome Quiz Show!!! Here we go: Florida Senator Marco Rubio says he ain't none too bright when it comes to science. So, naturally, Marco Rubio serves on which of these Senate committees?
A) Ways and Means Committee
B) Judicial Committee
C) Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee
If you chose C, congratulations---[
DingDindDing!!!]---you're right! Marco Rubio is dumbing himself down for a 2016 presidential run by pandering to his anti-science base with a thinly-veiled suggestion that creationism might be science, too! For correctly guessing his motive, you win a free set of matching Samsonite luggage! Just as soon as my intern finishes removing the ID tags from my neighbor's set of matching Samsonite luggage! [
Applause!!!]
JEERS to much ado about nothing. I haven't written a whole lot about the Susan Rice/Benghazi/White House "scandal" because I had this CRAZY IDEA of letting the investigation run its course, whereupon the inevitable conclusion would present itself: the Republicans who slimed Susan Rice and the White House would be revealed as completely clueless, soulless and shameless. Well, that moment has arrived:
Intelligence officials told CNN that the intelligence community, not the White House, changed the now infamous Benghazi talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice before her appearance on several morning news shows in September. CNN quoted both the spokesperson for the Director of National Intelligence and an anonymous official “familiar with the drafting of the talking points.” The DNI spokesperson said that the only “substantive changes” came from the intelligence community and not the White House.
And now even John McCain
has been forced to back off and slink away in defeat. I don't know where, exactly, he'll slink off to, but I have a pretty good idea:
not the White House.
CHEERS to the original Occupy movement. On today's date in 1620, after being denied boarding passes at Heathrow because they were on the no-fly list, a bunch of "pilgrims" from England with a bad case of B.O. and no sense of humor landed in New England after 66 days at sea and promptly got all quill-crazy, signing the Mayflower Compact. By the way, the ship was destined for the northern edge of the Virginia Colony, but they ended up dropping anchor in a totally different place: Provincetown, Massachusetts. After spending several years reviewing all the available evidence, I've come to an inescapable conclusion: the pilgrims related to the Bush family were at the wheel. Wait, did I say several years? I meant 30 seconds.
Role model to kids who want
to grow up to be assholes.
JEERS to trading the speck in your eye for a log. Appearing on ABC News'
This Week with George Hockaloogeyopoulos, Newt Gingrich
hammared mean old Mitt Romney for claiming last week that President Obama essentially stole the election by bestowing "big gifts" on minorities and special interest groups:
Gingrich: "I just think it’s nuts. I mean, first of all, it’s insulting. This would be like Wal-Mart having a bad week and going, “The customers have really been unruly.” I mean, the job of a political leader in part is to understand the people. If we can’t offer a better future that is believable to more people, we’re not going to win."
Damn right! Mitt Romney should stop spinning the fairy tale that Americans feel like we all owe them everything. Mitt Romney should stop implying that government services are a symptom of the collapse of our moral system in this country! It's beneath him! I mean, Newt made this
crystal clear exactly
one year ago:
Gingrich: "The Occupy movement starts with the premise that we all owe them everything. That is a pretty good symptom of how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country, and why you need to reassert something as simple as saying to them, 'Go get a job--right after you take a bath'."
So, remember kids, for rank hypocrisy, always look to Crazy Uncle Newt to be your guide, not Mitt Romney. Newt has more experience.
CHEERS to spinning in circles. On this date in 1877, Thomas Edison announced to the world that he had invented the phonograph machine. In fact, he broke the news via a phonograph recording, which sounded like this:
Edison's early recording device. Today
we record stuff with, naturally, our phones.
"Hello, is this thing on? Testes...testes one two three. We begin bombing the Russians in 30 minutes. Ha ha! That always cracks 'em up at the Elks Lodge! But seriously, folks. Mary had a little lamb---her parents were mortified. I just can't help myself... You folks fly in from out of town? I bet your arms are tired! I slay me... Oh, by the way, the walrus will be Paul and Luke will be Vader's kid. Oops…'Spoiler alert!' I'm bored. Can I go home and invent the light bulb now?"
Only known cure for Restless Inventor Syndrome, according to doctors: take out two patent applications and call me in the morning.
P.S. Last month the earliest surviving recording was unveiled. Fascinating. Even back then they needed more cowbell.
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Four years ago in C&J: November 21, 2008
JEERS to more Zawahooey. Al Qaeda's #2 guy (hey, haven’t we killed him, like, 30 times already?) Ayman Zawahri released another tape of mumblings this week. In addition to complaining that the TV series Lost is "confusing" and calling Sarah Palin a "decadent flapper," he took a moment to label President-elect Barack Obama a "house negro." Ha ha ha...spoken like a true "cave dick." But trust me, Ayman: leave the racism to us. We're the experts.
TSK TSK to the Family, Friends & Inmates calling plan. Little problem's been discovered in America's prisons:
"Hey, Flannigan, is
your butt ringin'?
Thousands of illegal cellphones are being smuggled into prisons, where inmates, including some on death row, use them to threaten victims, conduct drug deals, plot escape and seek legal help, prison officials say. The phones, most operating on prepaid accounts bought by relatives and friends, often are not caught in searches at visitor entries.
Guards got suspicious when they heard a Nickelback ringtone coming out of an inmate's ass.
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And just one more…
My winter companion. But I
wish he'd come down and
scoop the dog's poop for me.
CHEERS to headin' down the home stretch. Two events signal the impending demise of the year that was 2012. Last night we noticed that the constellation
Orion was hovering low on the horizon after dark. For the rest of the fall and winter it will be our nightly companion when we take the dog out to go potty. But, more important, late last week Portland set up its
official 65-foot-tall Tannenbaum. ("Wie treu sind deine Blätter." "Gesundheit!") If tradition holds---and it does or else it wouldn’t be a tradition---from here on out the rest of the year will be a blur and then...[
Blink!]...welcome to 2013!!! Keep some aloe on hand for the windburn.
Have a nice Wednesday and, if I don;t see you here tomorrow morning, a really gobbliscious Thanksgiving! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
In a sea of pop-culture sensations that launched this year, Barbara Walters had narrowed down who she thinks owned the last 12 months for her annual special "Barbara Walters Presents: The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2012." And, among a group of politicians and an Olympian, one floppy-haired Bill in Portland Maine also made the list.
---MTV News
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