From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Channel Surfing in Hell
Coming up: the latest on the Casey Anthony trial, including shocking new details… [Click!] Next: the Casey Anthony judge has issued a stern warning about… [Click!] …the situation in Libya: why can't Ghaddafi and the rebels come to an agreement on the Casey Anthony trial? [Click!] In a moment: fighting continues to rage in Afghanistan as the Taliban switches sides on the Casey Anthony trial. [Click!] Here's your Final Jeopardy category: The Casey Anthony Trial… [Click!] Next on The weather Channel: your local Casey Anthony trial on the 8s… [Click!] The debt ceiling: a minor annoyance, or a dangerous distraction from the Casey Anthony trial? Geraldo weighs in… [Click!] "If the president would just hire a few million Americans as professional Casey Anthony trial observers, this country would not be going down an economic sinkhole!" "Would too!" "Would not!" "Would too!" [Click!] …Next: critics mock Harold Camping as he predicts the end of the Casey Anthony trial… [Click!] Tonight on Animal Planet: Shark Week begins as the Casey Anthony jurors hear arguments from inside a steel cage surrounded by Great Whites! [Click!] Fortunately the flooding in North Dakota has not affected the Casey Anthony trial, but officials are sandbagging the courtroom just in case… [Click!] And this just in: Nancy Grace hired to cover the Casey Anthony trial 24/7 on every TV channel until 2025... [ClickClickClickClick!!!]
This is why my welcome mat says "Blog Sweet Blog."
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Note: Yesterday's lottery was a rousing success for our community. Our thanks to the late Tessie Hutchison and the townsfolk for upholding our motto: "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon." Got buttuh?
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til gay marriages can be performed in New York: 26
Days `til the Cherry Festival in Traverse City, Michigan: 4
Average home equity in the first quarter of 2001: 61%
Average home equity in the first quarter of 2011: 38%
(Source: Federal Reserve)
Total amount raised during the 10th AIDS/LifeCycle event earlier this month, which covers 545 miles between San Francisco and L.A. in 7 days: $13 million
Number of riders and volunteers, respectively, who participated: 2,361 / 500
(Source: sfbob)
Size of the lawn-care industry: $40 billion
(Source: The Week)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
You have been misinformed and are somewhat brainwashed. I pray you will wake up. If Obama gets 4 more years, this country will be destroyed. At this stage of the presidential campaign, please don’t say you have made up your mind to vote for Obama! Please, just keep an open mind about this. There is MUCH for you to learn about the common sense solutions offered by the people on the right!
---Commenter Hscrapper at the Michelle Malkin blog
All together now: 1…2…3… Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Yeah…that's ugly.
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CHEERS to sanity on the bench. While Republican Supreme Court Justice David Prosser was going all Darth Vader on his colleague Ann Walsh Bradley in Wisconsin ("I find your lack of faith in legislating from the bench disturbing…"), U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt was un-choking Planned Parenthood's funding in Indiana:
Planned Parenthood of Indiana has been without Medicaid funding since May 10, when Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels signed the law that cut off about $1.4 million and made Indiana the first state to deny the organization Medicaid funds for services such as breast exams and Pap tests. ...
"This decision will have immediate, positive consequences for our patients and our organization, the state's largest reproductive health care provider," said Planned Parenthood of Indiana President Betty Cockrum.
The Mitch Daniels administration says it'll probably appeal the ruling in the hopes of re-restricting women's access to the care and maintenance of their state-owned lady parts. Which reminds me: starting July 1, fines for Hoosier women not having a proper registration sticker on their vagina go up from $15 to $25. Men will continue getting their Viagra subsidies as normal because, hey, let's not get crazy.
JEERS to feelin' the pain. Here's the latest on the economy, if you can stomach it: the jobs expectations are worse than expected, the GDP projections are worse than projected, the rich are richer, the poor are poorer, the tension over the debt ceiling is getting tensier, inflation predictions are worse than predicted, Ben Bernanke broke a nail and, according to Ron Paul, someone might have cleaned out Fort Knox (Damn you, Goldfinger!) Put it all together and you get: just another Tuesday. Except today is also Paul Bunyan Day, so there's that.
CHEERS to the other American revolution. On June 28, 1969, customers at a Greenwich Village gay bar---the Stonewall Inn---decided they'd had enough police harassment for one lifetime. So they tipped over a paddy wagon, hurled some rocks and gave new life to the fledgling gay rights movement. And here we are, a mere (ha!) 42 years later, and those aging protestors have finally been granted the right to take their fights where straight people have waged them for centuries: the institution of marriage. Mazel Tov! And would it kill ya to pick up your eff'ing underwear? I'm not your mother.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Matt Gertz at Media Matters asks: Why Is The NY Times Helping Andrew Breitbart Lie?
Brainrot.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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CHEERS to the frumpy ol' Wolverine. Happy 77th Birthday to Senator Carl Levin, proud Democrat from the Great State of Michigan. Yeah, he's a politician and there's some stuff I don’t like about him…but I like him enough to love him. No need to get him a birthday present, though, seeing as he just bought himself a spiffy new Chevy Volt. But we'll let him say a few words via his recent commencement speech at Lansing Community College:
"Many years ago, in my first campaign for the Senate, I was speaking to a group of voters, answering their questions. One asked a question about a complex policy issue, and I spent the next five minutes giving my views on the ins and outs, trying to show my grasp of detail. When I finally finished my excessively complicated answer, the next voter to raise a hand asked, “So who else is running?” It was a good lesson in the value of brevity."
A lesson he concluded a mere 1,731 words later (but who's counting?) And lest you think he's just a kindly Gepetto-like figure, let's not forget the verbal drubbing (not safe for work---my favorite kind) he gave a smug Goldman Sachs executive, during which he imparted a different lesson: Sometimes a shitty deal is just a shitty deal. Amen. And many blessings on your camels.
CHEERS to a rocky start. And so it begins: yesterday Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann threw her googly eyes into the ring. Bachmann, roaming the streets of Waterloo, Iowa, dutifully followed the traditional Republican campaign playbook by 1) hijacking a pop song without permission and 2) making an out-of-the-box blunder by claiming shared hometown roots with American icon John Wayne, when her real hometown celebrity is American sicko John Wayne Gacy. Oh, well---it's a simple mistake that could happen to anyone who's never heard of Google. By the way, moments after her announcement, PolitiFact decided to save themselves some time and preemptively rate her entire campaign "Pants on Fire."
CHEERS to #4. James Madison died in Montpelier, Virginia 175 years ago today. He was the chief architect of the United States Constitution, and he's no doubt rolling in his grave over our government's recent manhandling of it. Oh, and though the original source is unverified, he reportedly said this:
"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries."
Cue the exploding teabaggers' heads in 3...2...1...
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Six years ago in C&J: June 28, 2005
CHEERS to leading by example. Meanwhile, up in the land where oxygen actually reaches their politicians' brains, Canada's House of Commons passed a law that allows for gay marriage throughout the country. A few opponents on the far right were so outraged they actually raised an eyebrow.
JEERS to much ado about...what, again?? Amid all the hubbub about "saving" the 10 Commandments comes this gem: fewer than 10% of Americans can name more than four of the goddamn things. Oops...I just broke one of `em, didn't I? Bad agnostic! Bad!
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Billy's Rules of Basic Dignity Maintenance. Three of them today:
1) If you're a TSA worker and a 95 year-old dying woman comes into your airport-security line, you'll reduce your chance of coming off as an arrogant prick if you resist the urge to make her remove her adult diaper for an extended pat down.
2) If you're a state Supreme Court justice---or, really, a justice of any kind---it's not nice to strangle a fellow justice with your bare hands---or, really, anyone else's bare hands.
3) If you knock an 11 year-old boy off his bike with your car, causing him to break his leg, you should spend more time recovering the child, and less time recovering your hubcap.
Follow these basic rules and you'll win a valuable prize: not being among those who don't. And, while supplies last, a lollipop.
Have a Wonder-ful day, earthlings. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Bill in Portland Maine can't handle the truth."
---Nancy Pelosi
6/26/11
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