From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Why can't those crazy over-the-edge lefty Communist bloggers be more like us in the respectable media???
Chris Matthews "Hillary has to make up for the fact that she really backed the war...and the base of the Democratic party, like...40...40...4-out-of-5 people is [sic] against the war right now. To win back that base, she has to stir them up in style. He [RNC chair Ken Mehlman] said, you start stirring that base up to get them back after backing the war, or we're gonna nail ya..."
The New York Times' David Brooks: Well, I think for...whoever the Democratic candidate, that is the weakness of the Democratic Party. They've got the blogs and the netroots who are semi-nuts...
NBC Washington correspondent Norah O'Donnell: [Snort!]
Brooks: ...and who insist on a Stalinist line of discipline, and...HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
Matthews: Y'know, I love this objectivity. This point of objectivity.
Brooks: That is objectivity. I did a psychoanalytic test.
Joe Klein: ...as opposed to the gun advocates...and...and...?
Brooks: It's true for both parties. You have DailyKos on the left. You've got Pat Dobson [sic] on the right.
Matthews: Which party has more nuts, by your count?
Brooks: Objectively the Democratic party.
Norah O'Donnell & Chris Mathews together: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
---The Chris Matthews Show, 2/12/06
Now picture the above conversation taking place between patients in a psych ward. Paging Nurse Ratched: somebody needs their morning meds.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Note: What's wrong with this picture? The answer's at the bottom of today's C&J.
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By the Numbers:
Days `til Spring: 34
Days `til Washington's birthday: 8
Amount men plan to spend on their loved ones for Valentine's Day: $128
Amount women plan to spend on their loved ones: $74
(Source: Knight Ridder)
Amount I plan to spend on my sweetie: 100 KAJILLION dollars
Bush's current job approval rating: 39 percent
(Source: CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll)
Can you repeat that, please? 39 percent
One more time? 39 percent
Sorry, my BelTone wasn't turned on: 39 percent!!
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Your Puppy Pic of the Day: Don't believe him...he's just grubbing for a can of Alpo.
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CHEERS to Kos's funnymakers. Among the Koufax Award nominees for Most Humorous Post are these DailyKos snarklers:
Daily Kos: BREAKING: Congressional Dems to split with Party? by Smintheus
DailyKos: Dealing With Fitzmas by Georgia10
Daily Kos: The Wizard of Oil by dood abides
Daily Kos: I Worshipped a Squirrel by Bob Johnson
Take it from me: start picking out your gown and jewelry for the award ceremony now. (I had to settle for the most tawdry Bill Blass rag.)
JEERS to garbage in...but not out. Our trade deficit ballooned to a new record in 2005...up 17.5% from 2004, due in large part to the import of American flags and yellow Support the Troops car magnets from China. If only we could figure out how to export what the Chinese really need--human rights--we'd be swimming in dough.
JEERS to the NRA's worst PR nightmare. Gun (and bomb and missile) advocate Dick Cheney shot an old man in the face over the weekend. According to Daily Show Firearms Mishap Analyst Rob Corddry (via Crooks and Liars):
"Jon, tonight the Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78 year old man...even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists-he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington's face. ... In a post 9/11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak."
Next week: the quail enter their last throes.
CHEERS to bustle and flow. The Port of Portland, Maine is deemed by officials to be very healthy. Lots of tanker and container traffic...fishing and lobstering...dry-dock services...thriving restaurants...and in three months we start getting regular ferry service from The high-speed Cat to Nova Scotia. The only failure: the year-round water slide into Casco Bay. But the new 10% discount coupns oughtta fix that.
CHEERS and JEERS to the Blizzard of '06. While folks to our south either fumed or gazed in wide-eyed wonder (and took lots of pictures) at their record snowfall, hearty Mainers yawned at the whole affair. Well, that's not entirely true. I saw a few people raise an eyebrow.
CHEERS to being drawn and quartered. The Nevada State Quarter has been issued by the U.S. Crème de Mint. It shows a herd of wild horses fleeing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. The Old West lives again.
JEERS to Presidents' Day ads. They're all over TV and print hocking everything from cars to mattresses---bad actors in bad Abe and George costumes spouting lines like "We'll free your credit with no payments `til 2007!" and "We cannot tell a lie...we're dealin'!!" And advertisers wonder why they always find themselves at the bottom of the professional food chain.
JEERS to Bush's War of choice...yet again. So if I understand this correctly, the CIA guy in charge of analyzing all the Middle East intelligence before the Iraq war just went whompass on Bush and Cheney:
The CIA official in charge of intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of ignoring assessments that sanctions and weapons inspections were the best way to deal with Saddam Hussein, and that an invasion would have a "messy aftermath".
In an article in the next edition of the bimonthly journal, Foreign Affairs, Paul Pillar, has become the highest-ranking CIA official from the prewar period to accuse the White House of manipulating the intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
The allegations contradict the findings of two official inquiries into the intelligence debacle, which have largely blamed the CIA and absolved the administration.
Now the question: whose findings do you believe?
CHEERS to the Valentine's Day Bandit. Every February 14th, a mysterious someone goes around Portland's downtown in the wee hours and tapes red hearts on virtually every street-level window, and we just love it. Mainly because it takes our mind off the previous week's visit by the Genital Warts Awareness Day Bandit.
CHEERS to new additions. On February 14, 1859, Oregon officially joined the Union, and 53 years later Arizona followed suit. One is the "Beaver" state. The other is the "Grand Canyon" state. And your mind is filthy.
JEERS to sucking on your sorrows. "Bittersweets" candy resembles those sugary Valentine's hearts, but with inscriptions for the unlucky-in-love like TABLE FOR 1, AIM LOWER, and CALL A 900 NUMBER. We have a special candy message for the makers of these fine confections: CHOKE ON THIS.
CHEERS to women on the move. On this date in 1920, the League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago under the direction of president Maude Wood Park. It still amazes me how hard women had to fight for basic equality in the land of "Liberty and justice for all." Guys: tonight you cook.
JEERS to the traditional media not getting this whole internet thingy. There was a nice article in Sunday's Maine Sunday Telegram about a nationwide progressive religious event called "Evolution Sunday:
Sunday [Feb. 12] is the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin, and it won't just be the scientific community that will be celebrating.
More than 400 congregations of different Christian faiths, including nine Maine churches, will also mark the occasion by participating in Evolution Sunday - a day to discuss and celebrate the compatibility of religion and science.
"I think there are different ways of looking at the world," said Rev. Erik Walker Wikstrom of the First Universalist Church of Yarmouth, one of the nine churches in Maine that will participate. "There is a quotation that says that science asks how things work and religion asks why. I don't see any incompatibility."
The paper version contained a web site readers could go to for more info about the event. But, as you'll notice in the link above, the online version of the same story doesn't post a link or even mention that site. [Sigh] Blogger Bill to the rescue again: Click here. Dang...I broke a nail.
CHEERS to America's mom. The perpetually sunny Florence Henderson (aka Mrs. Brady) turns 72 today. You did send her a card, right?
JEERS to Boredom Tuesday. If you're looking for something exciting on the DVD release schedule today, you're out of luck unless you really dig reruns of Charles in Charge. Keith Olbermann saves yet another evening.
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One Year Ago in C&J: February 14, 2005...
CHEERS to the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party. Knock knock. Who's there? Howard Dean. Howard Dean who? Howard Dean, Chairman of the Freakin' Democratic National Committee, Baby!! Memo to self: breakdancing after 40 = Bad Idea.
CHEERS to the Grammys. Jon Stewart (Comedy Album), Bill Clinton (Spoken Word), Green Day (Rock album), and a total of 8 to Ray Charles. Sure wish he were here to feel the love.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to words of love: "I remember one Valentine's Day I had to be away on a business trip. I wired flowers for my lovely wife, but she found the fuse."
---Author Unknown (may he rest in peace)
Floor's open. What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Answer to the question we posed in today's Note: No trigger lock. How careless!
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Today's Shameless Testimonial:
"You can buy Bill in Portland Maine for about $12, but keeping him alive is the problem."
---Milt Wittmann
Northeastern Wisconsin Orchid Society Show