From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Fox News Roasting On An Open Fire
"Wal-Mart announced this week that the best-selling item on Black Friday was a pack of towels that sold for a dollar seventy-four. So heads up, kids: Christmas is gonna suck."
---Seth Meyers
"Santa just IS white."
Megyn Kelly: For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white.
Stephen Colbert: Yes. Thank you. For all those kids watching Fox News at 9:40 at night, Santa is white. Besides, a black Santa is a terrible idea. If a home owner in Florida sees a black man coming down their chimney, he is going to get shot. 'Officer, I was only defending my milk and cookies!'"
---The Colbert Report
"Santa is just white? Who are you actually talking to? Children who are sophisticated enough to be watching a news channel at 10 o'clock at night, yet innocent enough to still believe Santa Claus is real, yet racist enough to be freaked out if he isn’t white."
---Jon Stewart
President Obama shook hands with Cuban dictator Raul Castro. Or as Fox News reported it: "Foreign communist shakes hands with the leader of Cuba."
---Conan O'Brien
"North Korea should make this their new tourist slogan: North Korea---Come for the corruption. Stay because we won't let you leave."
---Craig Ferguson
C'mon downstairs. I'm giving popemobile rides. (Please don't tell the Pope.)
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, December 13, 2013
Note: It's Friday the 13th. We trust you've been freaking the fuck out appropriately. (How'sabout a little fire, scarecrow? Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!)
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Ends December 22!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Festivus/Christmas/Kwanzaa:
10, 12, 13
Days 'til the end of the 35th annual
Great Dickens Christmas Fair at the Cow Palace in San Francisco:
9
Rank of Oregon, North Carolina and Michigan among the nation's top War-on-Christmas tree producers:
#1, #2, #3
(Source:
USA Today)
Previous year when the rate of home foreclosures was as low as it is now:
2007
(Source:
The Portland Press Herald)
Rank of Coloradans among the nation's highest restaurant tippers, at 19.6%:
#1
Average restaurant dinner tab in America:
$40.53
(Source: Zagat survey)
Percent of men who are happy and unhappy with their penis size, respectively:
35%, 30%
(Source:
Details)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Mad bombers
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CHEERS to Gooper vs. Gooper Theatre. And the Tony Award for Worst Actor in an intra-party spat (and, while we're at it, Worst Application of Spray-on Tan) goes to….
Yes! Speaker John Boehner, who fired a carefully-scripted and Waiting For Guffman-worthy shot across the tea party's bow yesterday, letting them know that the fun's over and the country clubbers are re-asserting themselves as the alpha dogs. So how did that go with the base? Well, RedState's Erick Erickson says he can see the forest tear ducts for the trees:
Boehner needs to draw fence sitters to him, make conservative groups unpopular, and then dare the fence sitters to go sit with the unpopular crowd during the immigration fight. He’s been staffing up for the immigration fight in the House. Today, he fired the first real shots in that battle. He’s done as Speaker. This is all legacy building now. And if he has to cry on television and attack his conservative base, he’ll do it.
Will Boehner get his legacy and toss the tea party aside like a used bag of Tetley's
Earl Crazy? Or will Ted Cruz coming riding over from the Senate on his white stallion
Princess Vader and save the day? Find out next week on
Gooper vs. Gooper Theatre. Because I won’t be able to stop laughing until at least Monday.
"Whee! Vacation! See ya
next year, commoners!"
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JEERS to the United States of Suckit. Speaking of the House, yesterday the Murray-Ryan budget passed. I don’t profess to be terribly up to speed on what's in it but what I've heard makes it sound like it's filled with unappealing sausage. But I do know that there's no extension of long-term unemployment benefits in it, and that is just fucked up to a degree I can't express beyond a gobsmacked gurgle. But on the bright side, the House is adjourned for the year and all their flights will take off on time and they'll wave to us from 30,000 feet and then have a swell Christmas, gainfully employed with a $174,000 salary and benefits out the wazoo. So…a wash.
CHEERS to happy gays. On Sunday's date in 1973, the American Psychiatric Association declared that homosexuality is not a mental illness. But to this day they still declare that being a Log Cabin Republican is "puzzling."
The nephew from hell.
WHOA to despotic thug dictator family values. Ah…now I know why I keep getting his answering machine every time I call Kim Jong Un's uncle, and why my Christmas card to him came back "Return to Western Capitalist Pig Dog Sender." Poor Uncle Jang Song Thaek
was "tried" and then executed this week. He was apparently acting immoral and power-mad. All I can say is thank goodness they rooted him out in time. That kind of behavior could've made North Korea look bad.
P.S. Wild guess here: the chance of an awkward Obama-Castro meetup at Uncle Jang's funeral is under 50 percent. Like I said: wild. That's me.
CHEERS to trapping a very large rat. Nine years ago today, members of the 4th Infantry Division's 1st Brigade found Saddam Hussein stinking up a "spider hole" near Tikrit. He was given a public trial and then executed. Or as Hussein would say: "You got it backwards!"
Walter Sobchak hosts SNL.
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CHEERS to home vegetation. Well, I almost nailed it when last Friday I predicted the outcome of the Patriots-Browns game:
"True to form, the Patriots will squeak by the Browns with a field goal in the 4th quarter with two seconds remaining." They actually squeaked by thanks to a failed field goal by the Browns with one second remaining, but
close enough! This week's NFL schedule is
here, and I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that the Patriots will beat the Dolphins with a field goal in the 4th quarter with
three seconds remaining. Elsewhere on TV this weekend: the NHL schedule
is here. John Goodman hosts SNL. New DVD releases include
Despicable Me 2 and the sixth in Paul Walker's
Fast and the Furious series, which is a bit awkward for the distributor. On
Bill Moyers & Company, Bill talks with cultural historian Richard Slotkin about the state of our gun-mad culture one year after the Newtown massacre. Plus, of course, no shortage of holiday programming, both classic and craptastic. Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) on their budget; former NSA chief Michael Hayden on how the agency's been tracking them darn kids through their video games since the days of Pong; roundtable with Bill Richardson, Nancy Gibbs (Time), Kathleen Parker and Steve Inskeep (NPR).
Schieffer babysits McCain Sunday.
This Week: Secretary of State John Kerry on Iran and the Middle East; roundtable with Ana Navarro and Robert Reich (live in-studio), Cokie Roberts (taped from Myrtle Beach), and Newt Gingrich (live from his moon colony).
Face the Nation: This week it's Bob Schieffer's turn to babysit John McCain while Cindy goes shopping; Sen. Dick Durbin; plus a roundtable with roundtablers TBA.
CNN's State of the Union: Who knows? Based on the lack of an update at their site, their booking director is either off ice fishing or smoking a bong in the parking lot.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Interesting tell on where Fox News stands in the GOP civil war? Tea party hero-turned-tea party turncoat Rep. Paul Ryan is invited on, but tea party heroes Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are not. Hmm. Plus: Capt. Mark Kelly of Americans for Responsible Solutions vs. Larry Pratt of Gun Pew Pewers of America; roundtable with Brit Hume, Bill Kristol, Julie Walters and Bob Woodward.
As always…Happy viewing!
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Five years ago in C&J: December 13, 2008
CHEERS to formidable Formicidae. Here's more proof that humans have no exclusive claim on ingenuity. Last night I was tooling around the Boing Boing site, and saw the most incredible thing: researchers excavated the inside of an ant colony by literally solidifying it in cement (sorry, ants). What they found is simply stunning---the equivalent of building the Great Wall of China:
If Obama intends to appoint an "Infrastructure Czar" as part of his stimulus plan, I suggest he start with the candidates who have antennae.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to nature's fabulous light show. If you're up late tonight and you have a desire to feel small and insignificant, here's something you'll love:
"Oh no! It's headed right for Mrs.
McGillicutty's rhubarb patch!!!"
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One of the best meteor showers of the year is set to put on a performance tonight (Dec. 13), but if you can't catch the cosmic display in person, you can watch it live online.
The Geminid meteor shower---named for the constellation Gemini---is peaking late tonight into Saturday morning, potentially treating stargazers in light-free areas to about 90 to 120 meteors per hour. Observers can expect to get the best views of the shower, weather permitting, at around 4 a.m. local time in the wee hours of Saturday morning after the waxing moon sets, according to Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office.
They say you'll need twenty minutes or so of staring into darkness before your eyes get properly adjusted. Or, to speed up the process, you can just spend 30 seconds staring into Dick Cheney's soul.
Have a great weekend. If you're blogging where it's really cold, try lashing hot tater tots to your fingertips. Amazing! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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