From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
In the interest of giving you a brief moment of respite from the utter nuttiness enveloping this crazy planet, this space contains no ebola, deportations, nimrod Republicans, voter suppression, climate destruction, puppy-size spiders, czars, Koch brothers, mind-numbing political ads, creepy dictators, oil-car explosions, lost voter registrations, income inequality, Fox News gibberish, racism, Benghazi hysteria, stand your ground laws, deficit scolds, neocons, domestic violence, ocean acidification, Israel-Palestine hostilities, drones, fearmongering, LGBT-condemning cardinals, unemployment worries, inbox-clogging money begs, slut shaming, mansplaining, hate crimes, car trouble, foreclosures, wars on women, police brutality, mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds, Chuck Todd, melting ice caps, gerrymandering, pay cuts, hurricanes, tar sands, truthers, birthers, skyrocketing tuition bills, Palin brawls, droughts, floods or methane pockets.
We hope you enjoy it.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, October 23, 2014
Note: Today is random testing day. If your last name starts with A, C, H, I, J, M, P, R, T, W, Y or Z, please take a random test and grade yourself on a curve. If your chosen test requires a cup, please see the nurse who's out back smokin' a butt with Betty from HR. Thank you. ---Mgt.
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2 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the midterm elections:
12
Days 'til the 31st annual
Barbeque Festival in Lexington, North Carolina:
2
Number of states in which unemployment dropped in September:
31
Percent chance Maine under Gov. LePage is one of the 19 states where unemployment rose:
100%
(Source: AP)
Amount belonging to GOP senate candidate from Georgia David Purdue that is
managed by a Swiss bank fund:
$1 million
What Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's ebola executive
order will accomplish:
0
(Source:
Joan McCarter)
Tons of water sent into space annually for each of the six astronauts working at
the International Space Station:
6
(Source: BBC)
Major League World Series
Kansas City Royals 7 San Francisco Giants 2
(Series tied at one game apiece)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
All the pundits and pollsters are telling us that only "likely voters" count this year. You unlikely voters are as dirt beneath the feet of the consultants, spin doctors and admeisters who apparently decide the fate of the nation these days. You unlikely voters will not even be addressed; your concerns are of no import in this election, your opinions of no account and your interests of no worth. You are, you sad sacks, unlikely. A pox upon your house.
Now is the time for all good unlikelies to come to the aid of their country. We really are in something of a dire pickle here. Setting aside this tawdry soap opera into which Clinton and Kenneth Starr have dragged us, both democracy and capitalism are at stake here.
---October 1998
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Endless humiliating ideas!
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CHEERS to tying up an ugly loose end. The first word that leapt into my head after reading this was "Finally"…
"Just try not to hit them in their hearts or minds."
(Mike Keefe/Denver Post)
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Three security guards working for the private US contractor Blackwater have been found guilty of the manslaughter of [17] unarmed civilians at a crowded Baghdad traffic junction in one of the darkest incidents of the Iraq war. A fourth, Nicholas Slatten, was found guilty of one charge of first-degree murder. All face the likelihood of lengthy prison sentences after unanimous verdicts on separate weapons charges related to the incident. […]
Prosecutors…recapped evidence from Blackwater colleagues who testified against the accused, claiming they acted with contempt for Iraqi civilians and boasted of turning “a guy’s head into a canoe” and “popping his grape”
Now if we could just do the same thing with the guys who lied us into that war. What were their names again?
JEERS to the riddle of the day. Question: What's the difference between Republican Michigan senate candidate Terri Lynn Land's wristwatch ad and this ad produced Michigan Republican Party slamming her opponent, Gary Peters?
Answer: the first one makes you wonder what they were thinking. The second one makes you wonder what they were smoking.
As usual, Ryan Seacrest
hosted Rockin' Libyan
Liberation Day's Eve.
JEERS to the post-Ghaddafi world: Year 3. A reminder that there's no mail delivery in Libya, seeing as it's
Liberation Day. Three years ago today, Libyans were out in the street celebrating their new independence from Muammar Ghaddafi by chanting, singing, dancing, and shooting their guns into the air (we still have a few bullets lodged in our roof here in Maine). So how are things working out three years after the new head poobah promised that "We are now united [and] have become brothers in love"?
Well…
[T]he third anniversary of Gaddafi's death on Monday produced little joy. Libya is again mired in violence and political crisis as rival factions battle each other for power. Rebels from the towns of Zintan and Misrata, who once joined together to topple Gaddafi, and "shared the spoils of the revolution," says Olivesi, are now fighting over the results of parliamentary elections in June.
I guess they meant "brothers in love" the way I mean "my brother who once shot me in the leg with a BB gun in the Feldmiller's yard across the street in 1974 and I shall inflict my vengeance when he least expects it." Except probably with less maniacal laughter.
CHEERS to the greatest game ever played on plastic mats besides Twister. On October 23, 1930, the last round of the first miniature golf tournament was played in Chattanooga. The winner was J.K. Scott. But only because his rival, Samuel Cloutier lost his head on the windmill hole. The following year the blades were changed so they would twirl vertically instead of horizontally. But the 1-stroke penalty still stands.
CHEERS to strange doings in the sky. "Ma! Ma! Get World Net Daily on the phone! It's another sign from God to impeach Obama!"
"Honey, how's that
ark coming along?"
The sun and moon play hide and seek on Thursday, as the lunar silhouette glides across the solar disk in a partial solar eclipse visible across much of North America. […] while Westerners will watch the entire eclipse play out in the overhead afternoon skies, Easterners will be treated to only the first half of the disappearing act while the sun sets in the west. In Chicago, in the Midwest, 55 percent of the sun's disk will disappear at 5:42 p.m. CDT just as it sets, and in Toronto the eclipse will reach 44 percent at sunset, at 6:20 p.m. EDT.
You know how you can tell a solar eclipse from the Republican party? One's a cold, ancient, lifeless mass standing in the way of illumination, warmth and green energy, and the other's a solar eclipse.
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Five years ago in C&J: October 23, 2009
Obama with James Byrd Jr's sisters
and Matthew Shepard's mother.
CHEERS to October 22, 2009. A date the LGBT community won’t forget. For the first time in, like, ever, the president is poised to sign a bill that will officially expand the 1968 hate crimes law to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. Says
PFLAG about the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act: "The historic passage of this bill marks the first time that sexual orientation and gender identity have been included as protected categories in federal law." Naturally, the conserva-religious Chicken Littles are predicting that they'll be forced to install disco balls and make their flock wear assless chaps on Sunday because of the law. To which I can only say:
"Damn right. Saddle up, Preacherman! Hi'yaaa...!!! "Nonsense."
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And just one more…
CHEERS to climbing back on the wagon. Every year at this time I challenge myself to give up my worst addiction: candy corn. My brain thinks that candy corn is a gift from God for which we are just barely worthy. But my pancreas is thinking, "Have you no decency, sir? At long last have you left no sense of dietary decency?" So I owe it to myself to give it the old college try, cold-turkey style. I've got my stopwatch with me, and I'm hoping to beat my old record of…[opens tattered 46-year-old record book]…2.5 seconds without eating candy corn. So let's do this! Ready, set, GO...
That was tough. I should rest now.
Tick tock, tick...
Nom nom nom nom nom nom NomNomNomNOMNOMNOM!!!
…tock.
1.8 seconds. Better than last year but still disappointing. Oh well---we'll try again during Lent.
A quick reminder that it's "Save For Retirement Week." Please rob enough banks to hit your 2014 goals or you'll regret it later in life. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Only someone with too much of someone else’s money and not enough accountability for how it was being spent could come up some of the zany projects the government paid for this year, like laughing classes for Bill in Portland Maine."
---Tom Coburn
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