From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Oh! More Things I Know:
The Affordable Care Act exchanges go live in 19 days.
Even though we've backed off of a strike against Syria, I'm still going ahead with my victory garden and tin drive.
The "Hummingbirds" Climate Change Blogathon posts have been fantastic this week.
What else I know: this building
is too nice for many of the
people who work in it.
When someone here writes a post that claims something is the "final nail" in someone's coffin or that Person X "is toast," chances are it won’t be the final nail and Person X won’t be toast. Exception: Anthony Weiner.
The U.S. National Anthem is the only one in the world that starts, essentially, with, "Hey, buddy, can I ask you sumpin'...?"
TV stations are prohibited from reruns of Judge Judy cases because that would be double jeopardy.
100 percent of economists agree that jobs are a fairly reliable cure for high unemployment. We should test their theory some day.
Twitter is an excellent place to go when you want to get sick and tired of a breaking news story in the fastest possible time.
Banning all demonstrations in Sochi before the winter Olympics is bad news for human rights advocates and the guy hired to man the Ronco booth.
Whenever I see goateed Fred Thompson in those ads trying to bamboozle old people with reverse-mortgage mumbo jumbo, all I see is Lucifer.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, September 12, 2013
Note: By order of Michael's mom, Hazel, who will be visiting Portland for the first time in half a dozen years, there will be no C&J Monday so that she can supervise the proper cleaning and tidying of the BiPM/CSM household this weekend. All complaints should be directed her way, upon which you'll be assigned the windows. Back Tuesday. With calluses.
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9 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Thanksgiving and the start of Hanukkah:
77
Days 'til the
Life Is Good Festival in Canton, Massachusetts:
9
Amount Bank of America will pay to settle claims of gender bias by female employees at its Merrill Lynch brokerage division:
$39 million
Average monthly payment for a new car in America:
$450
(Source: TrueCar.com)
Number of states that have raised the speed limits on some stretches to 70mph or more:
37
(Source: Time)
Rank of Peru among the world's sources of counterfeit U.S. dollars:
#1
Amount of counterfeit dollars Peru has produced in the last decade:
$103 million
(Source: AP)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
To oversimplify, those who are getting their information from the Internet and/or a broad range of publications are having conversations with one another that are radically different from those heard on many radio talk shows. This is more than the simplistic jingoism that is a constant in American life; this is simplistic jingoism with a dangerously short attention span. The "let's nuke 'em" crowd is still looking for a short, simple solution, and there just isn't one. ...
While some of us are talking about how to build a civil society, achieve energy independence and settle long-standing international disputes, others are reacting like the waitress in an Austin drinking establishment, who refused to serve the East Indian guest of a regular patron, repeatedly calling him a terrorist and insisting that he leave. That's the reaction gap that concerns me.
---October, 2001
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Puppy Pic of the Day: In D.C….Doggy Day swim!!!
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CHEERS to dodging a bullet. So, to recap: the NOAA predicted this year that the Atlantic hurricane season would teeter between "active" and "extremely active. After three and a half months, that prediction---happily!---appears to be a bit off the mark:
All quiet (knock on wood).
Humberto became the first hurricane of this year’s Atlantic season early Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The Category 1 hurricane is currently west of the Cape Verde Islands in the eastern Atlantic but is not expected to make landfall. ...
Humberto missed out by a mere three hours on the record of being tardiest first arrival in a hurricane season in the satellite era. Hurricane Gustav formed at 8 a.m ET on September 11, 2002.
That can mean only one thing: the current generation of gays, feminists and pagans are
slackers!
CHEERS to "impromptu demonstrations." Until recently, Maine had an efficient, locally-run system for scheduling and providing rides to low-income residents for medical appointments. Then somehow it got turned over to out-of-staters (who got multi-million-dollar contracts) recently, and the whole thing turned to shit. The result: thousands of complaints and lots of unnecessary health scares. Yesterday during a hearing on the debacle, a state representative gave the president of one of those incompetent companies an earful:
"Yeah...be right with ya..."
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“I’ve called that number a dozen times in the last hour we’ve been sitting here. I’d just like to tell you what I’ve been hearing when I call the number,” said [Rep. Matthew] Peterson, D-Rumford, before putting his cellphone on speaker so people attending the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee meeting could listen.
The automated voice said “I’m sorry for any inconvenience. Goodbye.”
Peterson said he was “baffled” and he asked for an explanation from CTS President David White, who was in Augusta this morning to testify before the committee. … “I can’t (explain) at this moment,” White said.
Translation: he took Mainers for a ride, just not the kind we signed up for.
JEERS to the human snotrag. Three years ago, Newton Leroy Gingrich put on a display of the class and charm that makes him one of America's most admired leaders since, oh, the First of Never:
Newt and Calista Gingrich
on the 2012 campaign trail.
"What if [President Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?" Gingrich asks. "That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior."
"This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president," Gingrich tells us.
Curious as to how Newt's observations were holding up three years later, I called Kenya for their current assessment of our nation's new Kenyan, anti-colonial bent. They hung up. But Ill try again next year. This is, after all, a serious matter.
CHEERS to commemorations well-commemorated. Well, that was rough. I watched some of the 9/11 coverage yesterday. Yup---it's still just the way I remembered it, the good, the bad, the badder, the baddest and the ugly. The only thing that stuck in my craw: having the moment continually interrupted by commercials for mascara and cholesterol drugs and furniture superstores. Then again, that was one of the lessons in the wake of 9/11: freedom shop 'til you freedom drop.
P.S. Off-topic but also on-topic because he anchored his network's 9/11 coverage: I really miss Peter Jennings.
Terrible role model.
JEERS to smoke rings. How's this for a perfect vicious cycle? On the one hand, kids are flocking to try "e-cigarettes" as an alternative to regular ones, but there's a good chance they'll end up
transitioning to tobacco, anyway. But a recent study also says that e-cigarettes may be an excellent way to
wean yourself off of tobacco use. So after you get hooked on regular cigarettes via e-cigarettes, you can go back to e-cigarettes to wean yourself off of, and then back onto, regular cigarettes and round and round you go. I'll say this for the suck-shit-into-your-lungs industry: they never cease to amaze me.
CHEERS to fabulous footwear. The Miss American Pageant---back in Atlantic City---is Sunday. One of the traditions is the customized shoes each contestant wears during the pre-pageant parade to brag on their state. Here's what Miss Maine Kristin Korda has on her tootsies:
I was happy to loan them out. But one scratch and it's lawsuit time. (Just wanted to get that in writing.)
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Six years ago in C&J: September 12, 2007
JEERS to the cost of staying the course. By remaining full-strength in Iraq through next July, the families of---[Pulls out calculator, multiplies 80 x 10]---at least 800 American soldiers will attend their loved ones' funerals. You and I will cough up another---[Pulls out calculator, multiplies 3 billion x 10]---300 billion dollars to keep it going. Having carefully weighed the pluses and minuses---[Throws calculator against the wall, throws computer against the wall, throws lamp against the wall, lifts house off of foundation and throws against the wall.]---I'm still a bit skeptical.
JEERS to heavy metal. A new report says Ludwig van Beethoven's demise at 57 may have been the result of lead poisoning. China quickly issued a statement: "Hey, don’t look at us!"
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And just one more…
The farmer is 222 years
old and still running
marathons, we hear.
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CHEERS to that little nip in the air. I'm told that fall is on our doorstep (10 days and counting, not that we're counting), although it's a bit hard to believe after yesterday's 91-degree (98 with the heat-index thrown in) day melted our collective brains. But, no matter---the future-tellers from the 222-year-old
Old Farmer's Almanac trotted out their latest meteorological predictions this week. This year, having read the moss on the bark, the fuzz on the caterpillars and the sound of Mrs. McGillicutty's creaky knee,
the old farmer predicts that the entire country will have a winter season starting two-thirds of the way through December and ending roughly ten days before the end of March. I'm as skeptical as anyone, but that's just freaky.
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:
"Some members of Congress have said, there's no point in simply doing pinprick snark in Cheers and Jeers. Let me make something clear: Bill in Portland Maine doesn't do pinpricks."
---President Obama
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