From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
And the Official C&J Loon Will Come From…..
In yesterday's C&J we squawked about how this site is devoid of loons and that it was high time we flocked together and took one under our wing. Most of you agreed that it was an eggcellent suggestion, and over 2,300 of you flew to our poll to pick from the seven states where loons are available for adoption via the Maine-based Biodiversity Research Institute. And the winner, beating Maine by a long pointy beak is...
Minnesota!!!
A logical choice, seeing as the common loon is the state bird and Michele Bachmann is the state loon.
Loon with no name. Yet.
Now comes the fun part: we gotta give it a name. You can submit yours in the comments below or via kosmail. Since we can adopt a male or a female, names can run the gender spectrum. I'll pick the best candidates (trust me, I'm a professional, especially when I'm not sober) and put 'em in another poll next week and let you decide.
Thanks to everyone who voted. We're well on our way to feathering our Great Orange Nest with our very own loon. About damn time. The right-wingers are way ahead of us.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, December 4, 2014
Note: Due to the startup of C&J's new eggnog fracking operation, you may experience mild earthquakes through December 25th. Plus eggnog will likely start oozing from your taps like lava on a Hawaiian hillside. We assure you it's all perfectly safe to drink until you hear otherwise from an authorized emergency room stomach-pumping attendant when you wake up. Thank you for your understanding, and bottoms up! ---Mgt.
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9 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN!!!:
7
Days 'til the
Army-Navy game:
9
Minimum number of Obamacare signups during the first week of the 2015 enrollment period:
462,000
(Source: HHS estimate)
Number of the 19 Blue Dogs in Congress who will still hold office in 2015:
12
(Source:
Skaje via David Nir)
Number of the 34 House Democrats who voted against Obamacare who will return to Congress this year:
3
(Source: Bloomberg News)
Year during which RV sales are expected to return to levels not seen since the Bush recession and crash:
2015
(Source: RVIA)
Rank of "Frozen"-related toys among parents' intended purchases for their daughters this war-on-Christmas season, toppling Barbie from her perch for the first time in 11 years:
#1
(Source: National Retail Federation)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
The late H.L. Hunt was one of the battiest billionaires this state ever produced. The old trigamist (one better than a bigamist) used to crawl around his Dallas mansion, a replica of Mount Vernon, spouting John Birch drivel. He thought that crawling was good for the back.
In addition to spreading the word that Dwight D. Eisenhower was a commie, funding extremist radio programs like "Life Line" and making other ineffable contributions to the national mental health, H.L. also wrote a utopian novel outlining his vision of what America should be. In it, he proposed that rich people should have more votes than poor people. In fact, the richer a person was, the more votes he should be entitled to, thus making H.L.'s votes approximately equal to those of greater Houston.
---December, 1996
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Puppy Pic of the Day: And the top puppy names for 2014 are….
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Just a "wrestling move."
JEERS to justice denied…again. I try to learn a new lesson every day, and the lesson I learned yesterday is that a white cop can put a black guy in an illegal chokehold that ends up killing him, and the other cops standing around with their fingers up their butts can refuse to intervene or administer first aid, and the whole thing can be caught on video, and the cop will
still get a
free pass from a grand jury. The lesson I'm learning today: I have no reason to believe that I'll ever have reason to unlearn what I learned yesterday.
CHEERS to breaking free of the bonds of gravity and touching the face…of God. The weather is looking a little iffy (to use official scientist parlance), but NASA is trying to get the Orion spacecraft off the ground from Cape Canaveral this morning. Its mission: prepare humanity to colonize Mars by lunchtime, give or take a few decades…
The Orion is also a giant Phillips head screwdriver.
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If all goes according to plan, the uncrewed Orion [will] orbit the Earth twice, hitting an altitude of about 3,600 miles above the surface of the planet. That’s farther than any spacecraft designed for humans has gone in more than 40 years. … William Hill, a top NASA official, recently told reporters that the test flight is “absolutely the biggest thing that this agency is going to do this year.”
Unlike the capsules being developed by SpaceX and Boeing that would ferry astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station, Orion is designed to go deep into space, “farther than humans have ever traveled,” according to NASA.
To get an idea of how thin the atmosphere is at 3,600 miles above the planet, sneak into a closed-door tea party caucus meeting sometime.
CHEERS to new discoveries. Speaking of space, on this date in 1996---ah, those golden Clinton years---during its Pathfinder mission NASA sent a six-wheeled rover called Sojourner to roam the Martian surface and find rocks. Moments after landing, the space agency got a call from Newt Gingrich asking them to please come get it off his head.
CHEERS to Vlad's Waterloo. OPEC is going to flood the market with cheap oil for the foreseeable future, saying it's happy to absorb lower revenues in the service of starving the freaking fracking business. For the U.S., it's an opportunity to expand green energy as the hole-in-the-earther outfits shrivel up. But over in Russia, Putin is poutin':
Someone put the dog in charge.
(The one on the right, I mean.)
Plummeting oil prices are pushing the Russian economy into a recession, officials in Moscow announced Tuesday. Russian leaders had been expecting their economy to grow in 2015---but that was when they were assuming oil would remain at $100 a barrel. … With the ruble losing value and oil now around $71 per barrel, Moscow says under a more "pessimistic" scenario, with $60-per-barrel oil, its economy could drop by up to 4 percent.
And let's not forget that the now-Russian chunk of woe known as Crimea is also a fresh drain on the Kremlin's dwindling bank account. In the immortal words of President Obama: "Please proceed, governor…"
CHEERS to going in circles. On December 4th, 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in Menlo Park, New Jersey... ersey... ersey... ersey... I love downloading music, but I do miss vinyl. It had character. (Said the sad, bitter old Maine blogger to whomever he'd just drunk-dialed on his rotary phone.)
JEERS to the League of Unhelpful Citizens. Down south a few clicks from Portland is the town of Biddeford, Maine. It's a hardscrabble blue-collar community and the place where I got my first job (at radio station WIDE during summer break from college). But a few weeks back they made life a lot harder for the people trying to hold the infrastructure together:
It's not a pothole.
It's a beer cooler.
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On Nov. 4, voters narrowly rejected a $12.25 million bond that would have allowed the city to repave nearly 35 miles of roads during the next five years, and a separate bond to pay for $3.6 million in sewer repairs and work to separate stormwater and sewer lines. … If the city does not meet deadlines in the EPA compliance order for line separation, it will face fines and will still be required to complete the projects, said city engineer Tom Milligan. Biddeford has completed nearly $27 million in upgrades to the sewer system since 1994, but still has about $40 million more to do under the compliance order, Milligan said.
And guess who's going to be complaining loudest about the potholes not getting fixed in Biddeford this winter? Hint: everyone but the guys who replace axles for a living.
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Five years ago in C&J: December 4, 2009
CHEERS to Mr. Fixit. Wow---that was fast! President Obama holds a big "Jobs Summit," and less than 24 hours later the news breaks that the unemployment rate fell two-tenths of a percent!!! The White House is so excited that next week they've scheduled a Jobs Conference, Jobs Roundtable, Jobs Gaggle, Jobs Bazaar, Jobs Meet-Up, Jobs Huddle, Jobs Show 'N Tell, Jobs Orgy, Jobs Amish Barn-raising, Jobs Broadway Production Number, Jobs Spacewalk, Jobs Pootie Diary, Jobs Sleigh Ride, Jobs Flash Mob, and Jobs Canasta Tournament in Joe Biden's Living Room. That's hope, baby!
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And just one more…
CHEERS to good news that leaves me shaken and stirred. Last week we got a glimpse at the new Star Wars movie. This week---actually, earlier this morning---we got a glimpse into the next Bond flick:
"Oh, James................."
James Bond returns next year in SPECTRE.
Announced today at Pinewood Studios by Director Sam Mendes, returning cast members Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris and Rory Kinnear will be joined by Christoph Waltz [as Ernst Blofeld---the original baddie is back, baby!], Léa Seydoux, Monica Bellucci, David Bautista and Andrew Scott. Locations for SPECTRE will include Pinewood London, Mexico City, Rome, Tangier and Erfoud, Morocco. Bond is also back in the snow, this time in Sölden, Austria as well as other locations Obertilliach and Lake Altausee. The 24th Bond outing will also see a brand new Aston Martin designed specially for this film, called the DB10. SPECTRE is out on 6th November 2015.
I once tried my hand at being a spy. I would always introduce myself by arching an eyebrow and growling, "The name's Billeh. Billeh Billeh." Oh, that was a short gig.
Have a nice Thursday. Watch out for henchmen with steel teeth. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Rick Santorum: Separation Of Cheers & Jeers And Bill in Portland Maine A Communist Idea, Not An American One
---Right Wing watch
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