From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
The Week Ahead
Monday Kim Jong Un's one remaining uncle calls MIT every five minutes to find out how that cloak of invisibility research is coming along.
Today is National Chocolate Covered Anything Day.
Tuesday: The Pope turns
77. Rush Limbaugh's card
gets "lost in the mail."
Tuesday The House budget starts winding its way through the Senate, but its introduction is briefly delayed because it's covered in chocolate.
The consumer price index report for November is released by the Labor Department etched on a grain of rice because guess which cabinet secretary just took up a new hobby.
Tonight's Mega Millions jackpot is worth $550 million. Please: have a snowball's chance in hell responsibly.
Wednesday Trouble brews for the think tank "Third Way" when it's discovered the group has secretly been living a fourth way that mostly involves booze, drugs and twerking for bitcoin.
Opening in theatres today: clueless Ron Burgundy's return in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. Or as Fox News calls it, our new journalism training film.
Ben Bernanke gives a press conference. Something about a missing quart of strawberries.
Thursday New numbers are released showing that the expectations of future numbers will be higher than originally forecast, lower than originally projected, but surprisingly accurate in predicting the migratory patterns of the red-tailed bisondoodle.
Company holiday parties break out across the country. As usual, Gladys has to stay behind to answer the phones and plot revenge.
Friday Yeah, like anything's getting done today.
We shail into hishtory. (Or, at minimum, a vat of nog.)
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, December 16, 2013
Note: Due to an unfortunate situation involving a shipping crate without air holes, today's special in the C&J cafeteria is calling bird, French hen, turtle dove and partridge stew.
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And after the sing-along,
some Zehnder's chicken.
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the State of the Union address:
43
Days 'til the next
sing-along with the Bronner family at Bronners CHRISTmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, Michigan:
6
Percent of Republicans who view their party favorably:
76%
Percent of Democrats who view their party favorably:
84%
(Source: Bloomberg National poll)
Average public cost for a new sports facility, in 2013 dollars, in the 1990s:
$152 million
Average cost today:
$258 million
(Source: Time)
Increase in ADHD diagnoses in kids ages 4-17 between 2003 and 2012:
42%
(Source: CDC via Time)
Totally Random NFL Score
Chicago 38 Cleveland 31
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Puppy Pic of the Day: [Snowpalm]
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In C&J Land, a white
Xmas is in the bag.
JEERS to walkin' in a
#!%^$! winter wonder
#!@!$! land. (Skiers and snowmobilers may disagree). While people in some parts of the country will greedily bask in warmth on the first day of Winter next Saturday, others---like the northeast---are already reeling from several inches of snow, howling winds, and frigid temperatures. Here in Portland we got
a foot of snow, which was hilarious to our puppy Haley, who's a foot tall. Downside: drivers forgetting how to drive in snow. Upside: for a brief moment, the snowblowers drowned out the Salvation Army bell ringers.
CHEERS to furriners in space. Congratulations are in order this morning to the people of the distant and exotic land known as "China." They just became the third country to
land a piece of hardware on the moon:
The Chinese probe lands at
the moon's Bay of Rainbows.
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China's Chang'e 3 moon lander and its Yutu rover touched down on the moon Saturday (Dec. 14) at about 8:11 a.m. EST (1311 GMT), though it was late Saturday night local time at the mission's control center in Beijing during the landing. It is the first soft-landing on the moon by any spacecraft in 37 years. … Following a lengthy engine burn Saturday, the mooncraft lowered itself to the lunar surface on autopilot, making what appeared to be a smooth touchdown on the Bay of Rainbows in the moon's northern hemisphere. The descent from lunar orbit to the moon's surface took about 12 minutes.
Upon landing, the craft released a robotic rover called "Jade Rabbit," which immediately started on its mission to build iPads. Meanwhile Iran just made a little history of their own, sending
another monkey into space. Sounds like Ahmadinejad is having to take work wherever he can find it. [
Boom! Nailed it!]
Naughty boys...
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CHEERS to civil disobedience...with pinky extended. We hope you remember to throw a few bags of Earl Grey into the ol' woodchipper today, the 240th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. That was the day in 1773 when rebellious colonists
dumped a few hundred chests of tea into Boston Harbor. It was an act of defiance against the British Crown for imposing taxation without representation. Which is exactly what the modern day "tea party" is all about, plus birtherism, Islamophobia, secession talk, and making the rich as comfortable as possible...but minus the taxation without representation part since they
do have taxation with representation. (Hint: they're called "representatives.") We trust they'll have fun celebrating their high holy day. But you won't see 'em dumping any tea in any harbors, that's for sure. The fines for littering are steep, and the John Galt crowd is cheap.
JEERS to stealing a big guy's act. As Nelson Mandela was laid to rest yesterday, I stumbled on this bit delivered last week on The Tonight Show, which sounded awfully familiar to me:
The world said goodbye today to Nelson Mandela. What a life he lived. He spent 27 years in prison and then ascended to become president of his country. He went from prison to politics. It was exactly the opposite of how we do it in this country.
Then I remembered: Mandela himself famously said, "In my country we go to prison first and then become President." Sounds like Leno's got himself a new ghost writer.
That's for you, Megyn.
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JEERS to life inside the bubble. Last week Fox News host Megyn Kelly caused a stir when she made a big fat hairy deal out of the alleged "fact" that both Jesus and Santa Claus are "just white." Friday she
backpedaled and claimed that---of
course!---her race-baiting was the
ha-ha jokey kind of race baiting, people. Which it wasn't, because neither she nor her guests cracked a smile at the time (except Candy Crowley, but that's just the perma-botox). But her real problem this morning isn’t with the left's criticism of her comments. Rather it's with her conservative viewers, who thought she was gloriously correct about white SantaJesus, but are now wondering why she's gone all Massachusetts Kum By Yah Liberal on them. It's left them fearful, confused and agitated. In other words: Megyn Kelly has done her job well.
CHEERS to the music man. When I was 10 (circa 1970-something), me and a busload of 5th grade classmates went to see the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel. It was the first time I'd ever heard classical music played by a live orchestra. They performed Beethoven's 6th 'Pastoral' symphony. It was love at first downbeat. Today is Beethoven's 243rd birthday. Here…have a flash mob:
Best money that kid ever spent.
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Five years ago in C&J: December 16, 2008
CHEERS to clearing one more hurdle. The electors have voted. The results are signed, sealed and delivered. Barack Obama has officially been elected the 44th President---and the first African-American President---of the United States. Here's the report from our neck of the woods (via Maine Democratic Party email):
Maine results: 2008
Monday, Maine's Electoral College met, casting four Electoral votes for Barack Obama, President and Joe Biden, Vice President. The historic vote concludes a process which began on Election Day. … Volunteers and staff of both the Maine Democratic Party and the Obama Campaign made more than 2 million phone calls; they knocked on more than 200,000 doors; and, on Election Day alone, 3,600 volunteers, operating out of 74 locations statewide, executed the most intense and sophisticated get out the vote effort ever witnessed in Maine.
In fact, some of our volunteers still have a handful of undecided voters in a headlock. (We're nothing if not persistent...
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And just one more…
CHEERS to our nation's Billy Rights. Where does the time go? On yesterday's date in 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified. In addition to racing around the neighborhood at 3am banging on people's doors to share the good news, I also like to take a few moments to review each right and what they mean to me:
I. You can say anything you want except "Fire!" falsely in a crowded theatre or "Let's elect Rand Paul President" seriously in a room full of people with functioning brains;
You can peaceably assemble in public spaces to call out the government when it's acting badly (like, say, drone-striking wedding parties), but we reserve the right to pepper-spray you in the face, zip-tie your hands behind your back and have SWAT thugs haul your ass off to jail if we feel like it;
The press has the freedom to treat the statements and policies of the left and the right as equally valid because we know you gotta sell papers and clobber the competition in the ratings;
Bonus right: The United States is technically neutral on religion, except for prayers in Congress, and invocations at inaugurations, and language in proclamations, and at the end of political speeches, and during the Pledge of Allegiance, and in assorted draft legislation, and on your money, and...oh, never mind.
Oh, hey, nice coffee stains, MADISON!
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II. This amendment is the reason why this document is shielded by six-inch-thick glass.
III. You don’t have to let soldiers enter your house. But if they're offering to clean the place and do the dishes, you'd be crazy not to.
IV. There can be no searches or seizures without a warrant unless the information is gathered via a government-approved, retro-immunized telecommunications company which is paid via your tax dollars to suck up all your communications like a vacuum cleaner and spit 'em out at the NSA, where an agent will sort through it all, especially your "secret" cache of archived porn, for which he thanks you kindly.
V. The amendment to invoke when you've been naughty but you don’t want anyone to know just how naughty you've been.
VI. As an American citizen you have an ironclad, unshakable, and inviolable right to a trial by a jury of your peers. Unless you've been targeted for elimination by a drone, in which case never mind.
VII. What? Two jury amendments in a row? I'm losing interest in your list, founders.
VIII. No cruel or unusual punishment shall be authorized by anyone except an evil Vice President with a mechanical heart sitting in a wingback chair stroking a white kitty cat and laughing maniacally in an undisclosed location.
IX. If the score is tied after nine amendments, we go into extra innings.
X. States don’t gotta do nuthin' they don’t hafta if they don't wanna, and if you don’t agree then we're gonna secede. Also known as the "sore loser" amendment.
To quote James Madison: "Eh...it was late and we were drunk. But have fun with 'em, and good luck figuring out Number Two!"
Have a nice Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Surprise! Google Searches for ‘Is Bill in Portland Maine Gay?’ More Common in ‘Intolerant’ States
---Mediaite
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