From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
I Haiku So You Don’t Have To
Spring is in the air
Leopard thong fits perfectly
Down go neighbors' blinds
Turn your head and cough
Millions getting first checkups
Thanks, Sebelius
Maine guv make statement:
"Og! Og og og og! Og og!"
He'll take no questions
Where's that dang jet plane?
Only one place no one's looked
Wolf Blitzer's lunch box
Rand Ted Rick Huck Scott
Republican power ON!
Five watt light bulb glows
It snowed overnight?!!
Global warming is a hoax
Until this shit melts
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Note: The nude libertine volleyball tournament in Rick Santorum's back yard has been cancelled on account of crankypants Rick Santorum don't think it's proper. So we're holding it in his front yard instead.
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11 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Easter:
4
Days 'til the
Kelseyville Olive Festival in California:
11
Percent of Americans surveyed in July 2013 and January 2014, respectively, who say they've had personal information stolen online:
11%, 18%
(Source: Pew survey)
Expected number tax returns the IRS predicts they'll receive this week alone:
35 million
Increase in retail sales in March, the biggest jump in a year and a half:
1.1%
Size of the Vidalia onion market:
$150 million
(Source: AP via
The Portland Press Herald)
Years since the
"Pierre Brassau" monkey art hoax:
50
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 187 (including 5 false prophets and 1 badass lunar eclipse). Soul Protection Factor 8 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: In Brazil, the waiting is over.
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CHEERS to more for less. Not only has the first enrollment period for the Obamacare exchanges produced more sign-ups than expected, but now the abacus thwackers at the Congressional Budget Office say the program will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $104 billion less than projected. Of course, that means nothing to the oh-so-cost-conscious tea party. They're only happy if it's $104 billion saved by a Republican.
JEERS to bad things happening to good people. As the nation paused yesterday to mark the one-year awfulversary of the Boston Marathon terrorist attack, the community of Overland Park, Kansas was trying to come to grips with the Sunday murder of three people at a Jewish community center and a nursing home. The shooter was a bitter old Hitler-worshipping anti-semite who opened fire hoping to kill him some Jews in his last act as a free man. Instead he killed
two Methodists and a Catholic. And
then there's this:
He obtained firearms from a "straw buyer," a middleman with a clean record who could buy weapons legally and then sell or give them to Cross, allowing Cross to avoid federal background checks, a U.S. law enforcement official said. He had three guns when he was arrested Sunday, authorities said.
Shut up, NRA. Just…shut up.
CHEERS to the wisdom of the sages. I stumbled on this yesterday. It's from last November. It made my belly do that laughing thing:
The Republican professional political class increasingly views Gov. Chris Christie, who is on the verge of a sweeping reelection victory on Tuesday in the Democratic-friendly state of New Jersey, as its best---and maybe only---hope to win back the White House in 2016.
Here’s how one plugged-in Republican consultant responded by e-mail when asked how we should rank the current 2016 field: “Christie is in the [one] slot now and forevermore---he’s about to get huge margins in his historic reelection in a blue state---he’s the successful model for our party (from a political perspective) and his governing success is exactly what our country needs from a fiscal perspective. He can compete in about 40 of 50 states. Who else can do that and run as a conservative? No one.”
Five months later, the question becomes: Who else named Chris Christie who isn’t the Chris Christie embroiled in several nasty Chris Christie scandals can do that and run as a conservative? No one.
JEERS to the Bush legacy, Part I've Lost Count. As the Decider woos the world with his little drawings, something that the dirty fucking hippies were screaming about before our little adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan is happening on a huge scale:
Gonna be a busy agency
for a long, long time.
The Army’s mental health caseload has doubled since 2007, and Sen. Dick Durbin says the United States is not “up to that challenge” that “may be with us for some time.” … Congress and the Pentagon have been struggling to provide resources and focus to address the problem of mental health among military veterans. Army spending on mental health has gone from $322.6 million in fiscal year 2013 to $358.4 million in the current year, with just short of $375 million requested for next year.
But this next statement---from Durbin, no less---infuriates me:
“What we are learning,” Durbin, D-Ill., said in an interview, “is that the cost of war goes way beyond the end of conflict.”
We are not "learning" that, Dick. We
already learned it---generations ago as a country and centuries ago as a species. It is the reason you
don't start wars: they destroy people who don’t die in them as often as they destroy people who do. Post-war programs for damaged veterans costs a boatload of money, there are never enough resources available, it's never efficient no matter who's in the White House, and it never completely heals the wounds. Bush is famous for saying, "Is our children learnin'?" I hope so, because the adults in the room appear to be a lost cause.
Google Glass's competitor
is called Jerry Glasses.
CHEERS to witnessing the march of progress. Sorry I didn't tip you off about this yesterday (anyone know how to turn back time besides Cher? She's not answering my calls), but Google was
offering up its Google Glass thingy to anyone who wanted one for $1,500. Not sure how many people took the company up on its offer (probably a lot). Also in the news: today for $1,500 an ophthalmologist will remove your Google Glass from your eye socket after you walk into a lamp post.
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Five years ago in C&J: April 16, 2009
CHEERS to quik 'n EZ solutions. Hey, everybody, I read yesterday that we can eliminate the effects of global warming in one simple step! All we need to do it is get a commitment from everyone on the planet and their governments to cut emissions by 70 percent by the end of the century. And since the chance of that happening is the same as John Boehner selling his golf clubs on eBay, we'll stick with Plan B: wait for the benevolent aliens from Orklork to arrive and save us with their giant CO2-filtering supergills. I hope they get here before the Thrangbolians eat us.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to fresh numbers. Got this notice in my inbox yesterday:
Not that kind
of poll, dummy.
Pan Atlantic SMS Group will be releasing its Spring 2014 Omnibus Polls on Wednesday April 16, 2014. The latest poll represents the opinions of a stratified random sample of adult Maine citizens who identified themselves as “likely voters” in the November 2014 election. Highlights of the poll will include Mainers’ opinions on:
November 2014 Gubernatorial election
Governor LePage’s job performance
Gubernatorial and US Senate candidate favorability levels
President Obama’s job ratings
Should MaineCare be expanded?
Perceptions regarding “welfare fraud”
Bear baiting referendum
I'll make my fearless predictions here and now: Good, bad, good and bad, good, yes, no biggie and
Growl!!! You can trust me---I wrote them on a whiteboard.
Have a nice Wednesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Cherry Trees bloom quicker in Cheers and Jeers
---The Telegraph
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