From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Preview of Coming Sochi Attractions
I ran aross a couple interesting numbers regarding the openly gay athletes who competed at last year's Olympic games in Britain, and their overall performance over the years:
Morning, dickhead.
Over 43% of the out athletes (10 of the 23) won a medal in these Olympic Games. That's over double the percentage of athletes overall who won medals: 20%. …
A whopping 58% of all openly gay, lesbian or intersex Olympians over the years have won a medal, which is an incredible statistic.
I think I know why Vladimir Putin and his thugs are in such
a gay panic over in the land of gray skies and tree-bark toilet paper: they know that the LGBT athletes coming from around the world to compete in the winter games are going to outperform the Russians at every level, foul up Puty-poot's little hetero-supremacy fantasy, and make the bigots cry like little babies.
Memo to NBC: I want to see extreme close-ups of all those Russian tears.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Note: "Lead, follow, take a nap, wrap your co-worker's entire work space in tinfoil, yell at clouds on company time, enjoy the free gourmet coffee, take a paid day off just because, go bowling, ignore me when I give you stupid assignments, ditch the tie, walk out of meetings that are endless and unproductive, help yourself to the fudge, or get out of the way," read the motto of the world's most awesome CEO.
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12 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til 2014:
139
Days 'til the
Portland Brew Festival:
16
Increase in federal tax revenue in June vs. June '12:
14%
(Source: AP)
Amount of business brought in to Maine last year by the cruise ship industry:
$45 million (and 800 jobs)
Overall cruise-related revenue pumped into the U.S.:
$42 billion
(Source:
The Portland Press Herald)
Cost of a 60-minute
Zeppelin ride in the skies over Paris:
$597
Rank of the U.S., China and Russia among countries with
the most cats:
#1, #2, #3
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 185 (including 3 Satanisms and God Cruise Lines' Worst Skipper Ever). 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 (hat tip to Thinkng Fella): Saved!!!
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A new New Jersey jersey
CHEERS to Captain Rescue vs. [the republican]. Yesterday's
primary elections in New Jersey were about as exciting as watching paint dry on the side of MetLife Stadium. Republican Whoever #1 defeated Whoever #2 and won the honor of getting trounced by Newark Mayor Cory Booker---who crushed his Democratic opponents---in the October special election. Demographically speaking, election analysts crunched the numbers and found that he was especially strong with women, minorities and cats saved from trees.
CHEERS to giving Nasty McFussypants a run for his confederate dollar. Is it possible to have too much fun? We're about to find out:
RedState REALLY wants him gone.
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A challenger for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham's seat said Tuesday that he is challenging the GOP incumbent because South Carolina needs more conservative representation and someone who isn't so friendly with Democrats. …
[State Senator Lee] Bright, of Roebuck, was first elected to the state Senate in 2008, and promoted his conservative credentials. In each of his three legislative terms, he has been a sponsor of the "Life Begins at Conception Act" and has sponsored a resolution calling for South Carolina to refuse any money from the federal economic stimulus bill passed at the start of the Great Recession.
Wow. Saying Lindsay Graham isn’t conservative enough is like saying Grover Norquist isn't quite familiar enough with bathtubs. But Graham will have plenty of support from his deep bench of allies. Like John McCain, and Joe Lieberman and…um…um… Check back in a few days---I'm sure I can come up with another.
CHEERS to America's favorite safety net. On today's date in 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt gave us one less thing to fear by signing the Social Security Act into law, saying:
It's just crazy enough to
become the most beloved
program in U.S. history.
"We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.
This law, too, represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete. It is a structure intended to lessen the force of possible future depressions. It will act as a protection to future Administrations against the necessity of going deeply into debt to furnish relief to the needy. The law will flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation. It is, in short, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide for the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness."
Today a frighteningly high number of Republicans regard Social Security as the brainchild of a dirty effing commie socialist hippie. But just you wait. When they start getting their checks in the mail their sudden silence will be deafening. And then they'll start complaining that their commie socialist hippie checks aren't big enough. And then they'll actively work to prevent the commie socialist hippie program from being privatized by the evil Republicans. Run that by your local annoying wingnut next time he says evolution doesn't exist.
JEERS to terra not-so-firma. Did you hear about this? There's a giant sinkhole in Florida that's causing destruction, turning lives upside down and scaring people half to death. But enough about Rick Scott's office…did you hear about the other giant sinkhole that swallowed part of a resort? The thing was fifteen feet deep. As soon as they heard about it, state legislators immediately passed a law requiring resorts to be built in the shape of a gun so they can stand their ground.
RUB A DUB DUB to strange invaders. Imagine waking up to discover that a stranger had climbed into your house, threw your spice jars out the window, dumped a jar of pickles on the floor and then---this is the best part---doffed his shirt and lathered himself up with soap before walking into your bedroom. That's what happened to some poor lady in Waterville, Maine over the weekend. Police say that throughout the ordeal the intruder was "speaking incomprehensible gibberish." Governor Paul LePage will act as the man's official translator during the arraignment.
JEERS to America's #1 Defeatocrat. Six years ago this brilliant comment reared its head and caused a bit of a hoo-hah. It's worth revisiting. Guess who said it:
What happened to the
carefree, swinging Dick?
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Once you got to Iraq and took it over---took down Saddam Hussein's government---then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west. Part of it---eastern Iraq---the Iranians would like to claim; they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.
Barack Obama? Howard Dean? General Wes Clark? Nope. It was
Dick Cheney…in 1994. Dick should've listened to Dick. Bad Dick.
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Five years ago in C&J: August 14, 2008
JEERS to bubble-dwellers. Last night on Hardball some idiot Republican mouthpiece defended the right-wing smear book Obama Nation by saying: "Barack Obama is a celebrity. I've seen people go after his autograph myself!" Yes, idiot Republican mouthpiece...signing autographs like a celebrity would be really really bad:
Thanks for reminding us.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the whitest guy ever to be "born a poor black child." Happy birthday to Steve Martin, who was a spry 30 when I first heard his stand-up act (via long-play LP, no less) at 12 and laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe, and who today is an elder statesman of comedy at 68. Besides re-defining stand-up, having a hit single (King Tut), hosting the Oscars and SNL, starring in a boatload of popular movies, and writing best-selling books, an Oscar-nominated screenplay (Roxanne), and sketches for the legendary Smothers Brothers, what has he contributed to society? While we're trying to think of something, crank this up…
Sorry, Steve, but I'm drawin' a blank. Happy birthday, anyway.
Have a wild and crazy Wednesday. (Hey, somebody had to say it.) Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Unfortunately Bill in Portland Maine has a misguided sense of humor."
---Lisa DeSisto
The Portland Press Herald
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