From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Late Night Snark Takes Flight in Shiny Jiffy Pop Saucer!
"It was announced that Rush Limbaugh would be a judge for the 2010 Miss America pageant. This is an early boost to Miss Connecticut, whose talent is filling out illegal prescriptions."
---Seth Myers
-
"Colorado will become the first state to lower the minimum wage. They plan to lower it from $7.28 to $7.25. As a compromise, workers will be able to leave work nine seconds earlier."
---Jimmy Fallon
-
"Historic news from Wall Street: the Dow Jones Industrial average closing above the ten-thousand mark. You know what that means: it's a second chance to party like it's 1999. Because, as far as the stock market is concerned, it's exactly where it was in 1999. So...woo hoo! Cigars and cocaine for everybody!!!"
---Jon Stewart
-
"President Obama wants to put an end to the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy in the military...not to be confused with Dick Cheney's policy, 'Don't Look, Don't Aim.'"
---David Letterman
-
"A group called the Conservative Bible Project is re-editing the Bible because they say it's too liberal. They say previous editions have a liberal bias. For example, when Jesus is washing the Apostles' feet, it sounds a little gay. So now he washes their truck."
---Bill Maher
-
"A new Pew research report claims that nearly one in four people in the world are Muslim. And when you consider that the world is 70 percent covered by water, that can only mean one thing: Aqua Muslims!"
---Stephen Colbert
Oh, and I should probably disclose that Jiffy Pop paid me ten bazillion dollars for that plug. Yummmm Yum!!
Your West Coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Note: CRISIS! DEFCON 1!!! There will be no C&J on Monday! [Crickets] [Tumbleweed rolls by] [In the distance, a dog barked] Well...okay, then.
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the first official Harvey Milk Day in California: 218
Days `til the Maine Brewers Festival in Portland: 21
Number of minutes the Fox Opinion Channel devoted to the massive gay rights march in Washington D.C. last weekend, after providing wall-to-wall coverage for the smaller teabaggers' rally last month: 3 minutes, 42 seconds
Percent royalty an author typically gets off the sale of an e-book: 25%
Percent royalty an author typically gets off the sale of a printed book: 10-15%
(Source: The Week)
Number of active NFL players who recently agreed to donate their brains and spinal cord tissue to Boston University so they can research the long-term effects of the sport: 3
(Source: CBS News)
Number of them who will wait until they expire before they allow doctors to remove their: 2
And from the Department of Homeland Security:
Days the color-coded federal terror alert system has been in place: 2,775
Days spent at terror alert level Blue or Green: 0
-
Puppy Pic of the Day (hat tip NonnyO): Call now and get your very own PugWOW!
-
CHEERS and JEERS to pandemonium in the Pine Tree State. Many thanks for all the recs and tips for my diary on Maine's marriage-equality referendum, which goes before voters in a mere 18 days. Shortly after I posted (and, I'm sure, because I posted), the opposition unleashed a new smear 'n fear ad. Their message is no longer that "homosexual marriage" will be taught in schools. Now it's that "gay sex" will be taught in schools. Oh joy. These people are a real piece 'o work. The 'No on 1' campaign (our side) will deal with them effectively, I'm sure---and fast. So, while there's a brief lull in the battle, check out this tribute to the netroots that the No on 1 campaign put together. And they even called this place by it's real name: the Great Orange Satan. So thoughtful.
CHEERS to the Cover Guy in Chief. Get ready for more righteous, paranoia-fueled rage when the teabaggers find out about this. President Obama's face graces the American Society of Magazine Editors' Magazine Cover of the Year. (Kudos, Rolling Stone) But for sheer chutzpah nothing will ever beat the cover of Time from December, 2006. Not so much for the haunting visual, but for the headline that dishonors it: "The Iraq Study Group says it's time for an exit strategy. Why Bush will listen." It should've said: "Why Bush will use it as a doorstop." Anyway, I bring that up simply to fill time until...[Ding!!!]...my, that was fast! Precious!
JEERS to early departures. Yeesh---what a big ball 'o confusion yesterday when a silver flying saucer thingee took off (no one really knows how it got loose) from a tornado chaser/extraterrestrial seeker's home in Colorado and ascended to 15,000 feet and achieved speeds of 30 miles per hour---and everyone thought the guy's 6-year-old son was occupying the basket inside it. He was actually playing in his attic. So everyone lived happily ever after. (Next stop: Oprah! Ellen! Larry King! Anderson Cooper! Fox & Friends! Etc. Etc. Etc.) But I have something I wanna say to that family right here and now---publicly---and I want a straight answer with no bullshit: Where can I get me one 'o them cool flying saucers???!!! (Get on it, Hammacher Schlemmer!)
P.S. Traditional media! Please stop living down to your reputation!
JEERS to late departures. Our new chant up here in southern Maine: "We're not number 1! We're not number one!" But, to our embarrassment, we are number three in the nation for late flight departures and delays. Number one was New York/Northern New Jersey/Long Island, followed by Palm Bay/Melbourne/Titusville, FL. And rounding out the top three: Portland‐South Portland‐Biddeford, ME, with 73.3% of flights delayed with an average sitting-around-cursing-under-your-breath time of 58.6 minutes. But, on the bright side, you can fume from a lovely assortment of wicker rocking chairs that look out onto the runway. If you can grab one, that is---we, uh, only have three.
CHEERS to Jon Stewart's (faux)-evil twin. How time flies. The Colbert Report debuted four years ago tomorrow as the yang to The Daily Show's yin. While Jon Stewart assumes the role of a rational observer horrified by the lunacy and hypocrisy of modern politics, Stephen Colbert dons the leopard skin of the modern-day conservative and "feels the news" from the perspective of "a well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot." He revealed his weapon of choice in his debut:
"And that brings us to tonight's Word: Truthiness. Now I'm sure some of the 'word police'---the Wordinistas over at Webster's---are gonna say, 'Hey, that's not a word.' Well, anyone who knows me knows I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books.
I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart. And that's exactly what's pulling our country apart today. 'Cause face it, folks, we are a divided nation. Not between Democrats and Republicans, or conservatives and liberals, or tops and bottoms. No, we are divided between those who think with their head, and those who know with their heart."
Neocon on, man!
CHEERS to fearless predictions. Yesterday on MSNBC's The Flying Spittle Hour, host Chris Matthews was yowling with CNBC host and Jon Stewart piñata Jim Cramer, who sounded positively upbeat on the economy. This is a direct quote:
-
"We are going to have a very strong holiday season across the board!"
-
So, we've got two choices: clap our hands and grab our plastic, or, as John Cole suggests, "start preparing for a complete economic collapse somewhere around Thanksgiving, complete with people jumping from buildings, mass layoffs, hyper-inflation and bread lines." Make mine lightly toasted, please!
CHEERS to home vegetation. Well, Maine has had its two weeks of fall...now it's straight on to winter, and that means spending a bit of the weekend in the boob-tube-cocoon. HBO's Real Time is a must-watch tonight as Bill Maher welcomes Rep. Alan Grayson and...oh, does it really matter who else shows up? New DVD releases include Sam Raimi's Drag Me to A Teabagger Protest Hell, and Land of the new RNC web site Lost. And here's your Sunday morning lineup, now with C&J's EXCLUSIVE "Evil Kumquat Index":
Meet the Press: Holy Mother of God!!! A liberal trifecta!!! John Podesta! Valerie Jarrett! Maria Shriver! Plus Chris Dodd and Jon Kyle. Evil Kumquat Index: 1
This Week: David Axelrod. Plus the roundtable with Paul Krugman and Villagers George Will, Peggy Noonan, and E.J. Dionne. Evil Kumquat Index: 2
Face the Nation: John Cornyn, Rahm, and John Kerry. Evil Kumquat Index: 1
The McLaughlin Group: As usual, four conservative blowhards versus one Eleanor Clift, who destroys them. Evil Kumquat Index: 4
Bill Moyers Journal: Health care, Obama diplomacy, and the guy who wrote Where the Wild Things Are (That's a porno, right?) Evil Kumquat Index: 0
Fox Pity Party with Chris Wallace: No clue who's on. Evil Kumquat Index: So many that it broke our Evil Kumquat Index machine!
I'm sending them a bill.
-
Five years ago in C&J: October 16, 2004
CHEERS to Samurai School Dropouts. Good lord---a Japanese man emptied an entire can of bug spray in his house while going after an elusive mosquito. Then he sat down, lit a cigarette and...BOOM. Several skin grafts later, doctors are confident the mosquito will pull through.
CHEERS to 'Bye Bye to the Spoiler Guy with the Lazy Eye.' Nader is OFF the ballot in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Ouch...I just hugged my PC so hard I think I cracked a rib.
-
And just one more...
CHEERS to Badscandinaviasses! The Nobel Prize committee has struck back at the criticism they've gotten ever since they announced that Barack Obama would get one of their pieces of tin. Their statement to their critics (read: Fox, Rush, Weekly Srandard) was firm yet restrained:
"You vant a piece of us, you pissy American conservatives??! You really vant a piece of us??!! Vell let me tell ya how it vorks: You pull ze knife, vee pull ze gun. You send vun of our guys to ze hospital, vee send one 'o your guys to ze morgue! Zat's ze Nobel Peace Prize Committee vay!"
And suddenly the teabaggers have gotten a little...bit...quieter.
Have a great weekend! Get out there and achieve your goals! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-