From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
Late Night Snark...and Dooku, tooku
I'll spare you from having to endure any of the 132,980 Chris Christie stomach-stapling jokes. You're welcome…
Better dancer, too.
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"My sister lost! How could this happen?!! I was so sure Lulu had won because CNN called it for Sanford! […] From now on---and I never thought I would ever say this---I am from North Carolina. I'm a tarheel now…whatever the fuck that means."
---Stephen Colbert
"The NRA this week elected a new president, choosing Alabama lawyer Jim Porter, who recently referred to Attorney General Eric Holder as 'rabidly un-American,' and still calls the Civil War the 'war of northern aggression.' He's known around the NRA as Reasonable Jim."
---Seth Meyers
"Unemployment is at the lowest rate in four years and the stock market hit 15,000 for the first time. Or as Fox News put it: 'Fucking Obama---always undoing George Bush's greatest accomplishments."
---Bill Maher
"The cicadas are back after 17 years, but they don't have their original drummer."
---David Letterman
"The owner of an ice cream truck named Snow Cone Joe was arrested for allegedly stalking his rival truck, called Mr. Ding-a-Ling. It's being called the saddest turf war ever."
---Conan O'Brien
And five years ago:
Clip of President Bush: America needs to conduct this debate on immigration in a reasoned and respectful tone. We cannot build a unified country by inciting people to anger or playing on anyone's fears.
Jon Stewart: That's what terrorism and gay people are for.
Weekend's here. Pool's open. It's all good. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, May 10, 2013
Note: Due to the sequester, all condoms must now be made out of cheesecloth and a zip tie. We have no idea why but, hey, rules is rules. ---Trojan Corp.
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Blorp!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the next full moon:
14
Days 'til the annual
UFO Festival in McMinnville, Oregon:
7
President Obama's approval rating:
51%
Republican/Tea Party congressional leaders' job approval rating:
22%
(Source:
Pew poll)
Length and range, respectively, of the Fateh-110 short-range missiles that Israel destroyed in Syria this week:
29 feet, 185 miles
Percent of baseball, football, and horse racing fans, respectively, who would recommend that other people follow that sport:
82%, 81%, 46%
(Source: Time)
Percent of parents with kids aged 18-29 who say their children are "not a source of stress":
64%
(Source: Clark University survey)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Live from San Francisco---it’s time to stack on Jack!
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CHEERS to chicken soup for lots of souls. Yay, look! I gotted a postcard in the mail. Pay attention, I think it involves you, too:
The National Association of Letter Carriers, in conjunction with the United States Postal Service, will be collecting non-perishable food items like canned meats and fish, canned soup, juice, pasta, vegetables, cereal and rice during the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive on Saturday, May 11, to help families in need in our community. You can help...
Who...
me? Help feed America by helping
Feeding America? But I am no more than a peasant boy and tinsmith's apprentice. How can I help ye?
...by placing your food donation at your mailbox on Saturday, May 11 before your letter carrier arrives with the day's mail. It will be taken back to the Post office and then delivered to local food banks or pantries. Please do not include items that have expired or those in glass containers.
It's signed by the AFL-CIO, Feeding America, USPS, United Way, the NALC and others, and there's
more info at their official site. So be sure to put a reminder on your fridge reminding you to put a reminder on your forehead reminding you to leave a voicemail reminding you to leave a text message reminding you to tweet a reminder to your Facebook status reminding you to leave a reminder pic on your Pinterest peg. Or just do it now. I'll wait.
JEERS to coin-tossing your way down the altar. Anyone who lives between Delaware and Minnesota got a case of equality whiplash this week. First Delaware's government approved gay marriage (it goes into effect August 1), and before you could shout "Sodom!" in a crowded church, Minnesota's House went and passed their own marriage bill 75-59, which the senate will vote on Monday followed by Gov. Mark Dayton's signature. The opposition has been tepid, to say the least, but I actually learned something this week from the losing side:
That's amore!
"Let's be careful about the concept of social evolution," said the Rev. Leonard Klein, a Roman Catholic priest speaking on behalf of the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington… "When you remove male and female from the definition of marriage, all bets are off," added Klein, who urged lawmakers to show an "appropriate humility" for thousands of years of human experience.
Wow---I always knew the church considered marriage a sacred institution, but I never realized they were talking about a casino. Even funnier: in the end their full house of worship got beat by a li'l old pair of queens.
CHEERS to fuzzy math. Or, to be more precise, fuzzy mathematicians. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity was presented 96 years ago tomorrow. His words: "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity." To which we would add: Sit with a member of the tea party caucus for a second and it seems like forever. That's eternity.
CHEERS to ol' Whats'ername. So what's Mom worth these days? As it turns out, this much:
This year Ma Whistler
finally gets her recliner.
Stay-at-home moms work an average of 94 hours a week and would collect a "mom salary" of $113,586 a year. Working mothers spend 40 hours a week at the office, but then come home and perform an average of 58 hours per week on household and childcare duties. Total salary: $67,436.
So why don't we actually
pay them for their toil? Because they'd just plop the money into a tax-free "Mommy Account" in the Cayman Islands and use it to build a giant mom clone army with which to take over the world. But my point is: Mother's Day is Sunday. You should buy a bathroom toilet brush and other cleaning supplies for her. And probably a helmet and shield for yourself.
CHEERS to bulldogs unleashed. On May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill was called in to replace Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister, after Mr. "Peace in our time" lost a confidence vote in the House of Commons. Churchill offered blood, sweat, toil and tears in the run-up to war. Years later, David Cameron offered austerity, austerity, austerity and austerity. Potato, puhtahto.
CHEERS to great moments in history. 219 years ago tomorrow, the self-flushing toilet was patented. Today they're still in use, although some of them work a little differently. For example, to flush out the turds at WorldNetDaily, just walk over and pull the fire alarm.
Tonight Spock does a Maher mind meld
CHEERS to home vegetation. I 'spect we'll be tiptoeing through a few tulips this weekend. But we wouldn't
think of missing our TV time, and here's some of what's on tap, starting tonight with HBO's
Real Time, where Bill Maher lights up a doobie with Zachary "Star Trek" Quinto, Glenn Greenwald, Charles Cooke, food columnist Mark Bittman and Joy Reid. New
DVD releases include a Tom Cruise movie I completely never knew existed but sounds kinda pornographic called
Jack Reacher and which apparently is now cohabitating in the Stinker Hall of Fame with
John Carter and
Howard the Duck. Then there's the Blu-Ray of
The Great Escape, which is awesomeness on steroids. The baseball schedule
is here. (The Red Sox will feather their nest with pluckings from the Blue Jays ha ha ha---no offense, O Canada!) The leaderboard is dotted with familiar names at
the Players Championship. (Love that island hole!) On
60 Minutes: teaching veterans how to start their own businesses, and Bill Gates on his $30 million Leonardo da Vinci manuscript showing him how to totally fuck up Windows 8. Sunday on HBO's
Game of Thrones, a character actually manages to make it through an episode without getting gored, stabbed, seared or speared. But several do get their eyes plucked out by dragons. (Oops---shoulda yelled SPOILER ALERT!)
On Bill Moyers & Company, activists Marshall Ganz, Rachel Laforest and Madeline Janis share how organized people can successfully fight organized money to deliver social change. And here's your Sunday morning lineup, which looks like a full-court press by the political/media machine to destroy Hillary Clinton:
Meet the Press: Darrel Issa sits and yells "BENGHAZI!!!" for fifteen minutes while Sen. Dianne Feinstein takes umbrage; Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who led the State Department's Benghazi investigation, sets the record straight on BENGHAZI!!!; roundtable with David Brooks, Katty Kay, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Afghanistan veteran Wes Moore, including vapidity on BENGHAZI!!!
McCain shows up on
"This Week" to flog
Benghazi some more.
This Week: It's George Stephapoowhdgdtskfh's turn to babysit John McCain while Cindy goes shopping; Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY); the roundtable with George Will, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chair Gen. James Cartwright; Ruth Marcus, Jonathan Karl, Donna Brazile, Matt Dowd, former Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, Martha Raddatz, Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Linda Sanchez (D-CA), and Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) includes a few words and several buckets of spittle on BENGHAZI!!!
Face the Nation: Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates talks about (benghazi) sanely and rationally; Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) screams about BENGHAZI!!! while Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) takes umbrage; Maya Angelou refuses Bob Schieffer's prodding to suggest words that rhyme with Benghazi; roundtable on BENGHAZI!!! with David Sanger (NYT), Bobby Ghosh (Time), David Rohde (Reuters) and Sharyl Attkisson (CBS News).
CNN's State of the Union: The two female Iraq War combat veterans in Congress---Democrats Tammy Duckworth and Tulsi Gabbard---react to the Pentagon’s sexual assault report.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Mark Sanford takes a victory lap; Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Rep Adam Smith (D-WA) on BENGHAZI!!!; roundtable with Bill Kristol, Juan Williams, Dennis Kucinich and Kimberly Strassel.
Happy viewing! (Also too BENGHAZI!!!)
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Five years ago in C&J: May 10, 2008
CHEERS to sneaky moves. Barack Obama had it all. More states! More popular votes! More pledged delegates! Even more superdelegates! Yes, the skinny guy with the funny name had the nomination in the bag. That is, until former senator from Alaska and fellow candidate Mike Gravel tried to woo BO's biggest admirer:
After that video was posted, Obama's nomination was...okay, it was still in the bag. But nice try, Gravel.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Friday Carlin. Raise whatever ya got handy and wish a Happy Birthday to the late George Carlin, who would've turned 76 this Sunday. He spent many a glorious decade dissecting language, culture, politics and human nature, wielding a comedic scalpal and jackhammer with equal dexterity. All the reason we need to take a moment to revisit a mere smidgeon of his comedic Esprit de George…
Working-class people "look for work." Middle-class people "try to get a job." Upper-middle-class people "seek employment."
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Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster is a maniac?
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It's the old American Double Standard, ya know? Say one thing, do somethin' different. And of course this country is founded on the double standard---that's our history! We were founded on a very basic double standard. This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free.
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You know how you speed up baseball? Everybody gets one swing. That's it. One swing, fuck you, you're out, sit down.
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Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn---they will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.
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Have you ever wondered why the Republicans are so interested in encouraging people to volunteer for their communities? It's because volunteers work for no pay. Republicans have been trying to get people to work for no pay for a long time.
…and, of course, the (NSFW, natch)
seven words you can’t say. Oh, my delicate feefees."
Have a great weekend! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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