From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Headlines You Won't Read Today
Police shout obscenities, point guns at angry tea party protesters
Ferguson police release incident report on Michael Brown death
Bundy ranch militia members arrested for pointing weapons at police
A headline we did read 54 years ago.
Rick Perry presidential prospects brighten
George W. Bush sees irony in crying out in agony as water dumped on head, threatening ability to breathe
Caligraphist runs out of room while listing Eric Cantor's achievements as House majority leader on grain of rice
More Democrats than Republicans booked on Sunday morning shows
ISIS leaders smarter than a fifth grader
Cows admit role in global warming, form climate task force
Saturday Night Live expected to be the same without Don Pardo
Majority of Americans agree: summer going by too slowly
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, August 21, 2014
Note: Old-fashioned light bulbs making a comeback? Filament at 11.
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8 days!!!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Rosh Hashanah:
35
Days 'til Maine's
Camden Windjammer Festival:
8
Average American's net worth before and after the Great Bush Recession, respectively:
$88k, $56k
Growth in net worth in the 95th percentile during the same period:
14%
(Source: Time)
Increase in home construction in July, an eight-month high:
15.7%
Percent of home mortgage holders at least two months late on their payments between April and May, the lowest level since early 2008:
3.46%
(Source: AP)
Estimated amount a family with children will spend on back to school-related stuff:
$670
(Source: National Retail Federation)
Length of the fossilized mammoth tusk Andrew Harrelson
found in Alaska last week, 22 years after his mom found one in the same spot:
12 feet
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Seems like every year at the end of summer there's this sense of coming back from somewhere, whether we've gone anywhere or not. Whatever the summer pattern is---a swim, the kids, a stroll---it's as though we sort of blink and there's the world again, still there. Very much still there.
---August, 2005
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Sleeplicking
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Iraq: it's complicated.
CHEERS to getting rid of the dam bastards. A little coordination between the Kurds, the Iraqi government and U.S. advisors in Baghdad and---voila---the ISIL terror jackasses (the same group that executed American journalist James Foley) have been sent
fleeing from the huge Mosul dam that they so proudly captured early this month. Now I understand the Iraqi and Kurds' next project is liberating Tikrit. I'm no fan of U.S. military action, and Congress needs to weigh in when they get back from their five weeks of champagne wishes and caviar dreams. But in the short run, I'm fine with throwing a few missiles down ISIL's gullet if it destroys some of their fighting machines (read: our fighting machines that they captured and are refusing to make the monthly payments on) and puts a little terror in their world. Next: unleash the Sarah Palin books on tape!
JEERS to belated bleating. I'm putting this Fox News story in the time capsule for future reference in case, as I suspect, it turns out to be total bullshit. Apparently a "source close to the department's top brass" now says---ten days after the fact---that slain Ferguson teen Michael Brown pummeled cop Darren Wilson (with a terrorist fist jab, perhaps?) in his squad car, tried to run away and, when ordered to stop, charged toward Wilson giving him no choice but to blow the kid away in wild a spray of bullets. Curious, though, that Ferguson police continue to stonewall on public information about this supposedly open-and-shut case of self-defense. Curious also that eyewitnesses not hiding behind anonymity have offered accounts that contradict Fox News's anonymous "well-placed source." I have a feeling we'll be calling on Fox News to issue a mea culpa when this story turns out to be a red herring designed to be part of the "Michael Brown was an out of control pot-smoking thug thief" narrative. I also have a feeling we'll have to explain to Fox News what a mea culpa is.
Hawaii, you joined a
really strange country.
CHEERS to securing macadamia nuts for the motherland. Fifty-five years ago, on August 21, 1959, President Eisenhower---whose somewhat moderate views would prompt right-wing comparisons to Hitler if he was around today, which would be weird considering he defeated Hitler---signed an executive order proclaiming
Hawaii as America's 50th state, unwittingly setting the stage for a secret plot by scalawags to, three years later, import a Kenyan-born baby in swaddling clothes to take over the Executive Branch in 2009 and kill all our old people with death panels. Even though Cokie Roberts may tut-tut Hawaii---aka the "Book 'Em Danno State"---for being too much of a
"foreign, exotic place," we luv ya just the way you are. Tonight we celebrate with some tiny bubbles in the
wine, and later maybe a few more in the tub.
JEERS to another detour for the equality bus. Achieving marriage rights for gay couples through the judicial system requires infinite patience. There's rulings, appeals of rulings, appeals of appeals, and the ultimate appeal, which is the Supreme Court. In between appeals are months (and months) of waiting. And Virginia couples, I'm afraid your wait will continue for a while longer: the Supreme Court changed the circuit court's green light for marriage equality
back to red. So it sounds like the dream team of David Boies and Ted Olson will get another chance to explain the
"legalistic argle bargle" of gay marriage to Antonin Scalia and company. In the meantime, what can I tell ya? Smoke 'em if ya got 'em.
CHEERS to not smoking 'em if ya got 'em. Big anniversary yesterday for Kossack Vacationland---ten years smoke-free:
The GUS crew will
help ya kick the habit.
When you quit smoking, you change the way other people experience you as a person. I have a niece entering high school in a few weeks...she doesn't even remember me as a smoker, which is great. I have friends who have never known me as a smoker, someone who has to take a bunch of smoke breaks or always smells suspiciously of mints & Febreze, with hints of ashtray. I don't have to deal with the negative first impression that some people get when introduced to someone who smokes, or cope with unsolicited advice about my tobacco use from family, friends, or total strangers "who just mean well." It's a relief.
She also saved enough money to put a down payment on a freakin' house. Congrats, Vacationland. And anyone reading this who wants/needs to see their death sticks from now on only in the rear-view mirror, you'll find unfiltered support in
the Daily Kos GUS (Gave Up/Giving Up Smoking) community. If I'm not mistaken, I believe Thursday is Hoist the Middle Finger at Philip Morris Day.
CHEERS to a pleasant discussion---if by pleasant you mean, "Don’t you guys ever shut up???" On August 21, 1858, the first of the famous debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place. They were going toe-to-toe in Ottawa, Illinois in a battle for a U.S. senate seat:
Then Medusa showed up
and this happened.
It was dry and dusty, between 10,000 and 12,000 people were in attendance when the debate began at 2:00 p.m. There were no seats or bleachers. Douglas charged Lincoln with trying to "abolitionize" the Whig and Democratic Parties. He also charged Lincoln had been present when a very radical "abolitionist" type platform had been written by the Republican Party in 1854. Douglas accused Lincoln of taking the side of the common enemy in the Mexican War.
In other words, Douglas accused Lincoln of appeasing the enemy and palling around with terrorists. Gee, where have I heard that before?
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Five years ago in C&J: August 21, 2009
JEERS to cramped tin cans in the sky. I hate flying I hate flying I hate flying...(Feel free to join in, now that you know the words)...I hate flying I hate flying I hate flying I hate flying...
"Tell that idiot blogger to put his
clothes on. He's scaring...everybody."
"I turned around and there was this enormous guy, he was just enormous," said one passenger. He was up in the aisle, he had no clothes on, he was boisterous, a little belligerent, I guess he hit somebody."
"The flight attendant was like, sir, you have to sit down. And, he had no clothes on. He had his baseball hat and socks," said a passenger. The flight attendants did manage to get him under control, though he refused to put any clothes back on.
...because they never let me have any fun. Next time I'm takin' the nudie train.
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And just one more…
JEERS to the little man in the big codpiece. Just a quick reminder of the day eight years ago today when the Big Lie was exposed by the liar himself:
President Bush: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.
Reporter: What did Iraq have to do with that?
President Bush: What did Iraq have to do with what?
Reporter: The attack on the World Trade Center.
President Bush: Nothing!!!
Now that we've cleared that up for the eighth year in a row, we now return you to our regularly scheduled GOP terror porn:
Have a panic-free Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Cheers and Jeers is entirely hollow, poorly put together, and will require an audience on its level of stupidity to survive. Don’t be one of its supporters.
---Eric Eisenberg
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