From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
The Bill 'O Rights Top Ten Countdown
224 years ago, on December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified. Let's take a moment for our annual review of The Precious:
I You can say anything you want except "Fire!" falsely in a crowded theater or "Let's elect Donald Trump President" seriously in a crowded room of people with functioning brains; You can peaceably assemble in public spaces to call out the government when it's acting badly, but we reserve the right to pepper-spray you in the face, zip-tie your hands behind your back and haul your ass off to jail if we feel like it; The press has the freedom to treat the statements and policies of the left and the right as equally valid because we know you gotta sell papers and achieve your daily clickbait goals. Bonus right: The United States is technically neutral on religion, except for prayers in Congress, and invocations at inaugurations, and language in proclamations, and at the end of political speeches, and during the Pledge of Allegiance, and in assorted draft legislation, and on your money, and...oh, never mind.
II This amendment is the reason why this document is shielded by six-inch-thick glass.
III You don’t have to let soldiers in your house. But police dressed like Seal Team Six can drive up in a surplus tank and bust down your door any old time.
IV Prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures of your person, house, papers, and effects without a warrant. However, if one or more agents of the government slips on a banana peel and accidentally searches and seizes everything in sight to keep from falling down, well, c'mon, give 'em a break.
V The amendment to invoke when your lawyer knows you're in deep doo-doo.
VI You have a right to a trial by a jury of your peers. Also called the Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid amendment.
VII The right of The Force to awaken shall not be infringed.
VIII No cruel or unusual punishment shall be authorized by anyone except whoever happens to become the 20th Republican Vice President.
IX You have a lot more rights than these ten, but Jefferson lost the master list and we're kinda scrambling here at the last minute. So sue us. No, seriously. Sue us.
X States don’t gotta do nuthin' if they don't wanna, and if you don’t agree then we're gonna secede. Also known as the Sore Loser amendment and the official motto of Texas.
And we’re all living happily ever after. Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Note: Jingle bells, Batman smells. Film at 11.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Christmas: 10
Days 'til the San Diego Tango Festival: 16
Number of the 241 near-collisions between drones and aircraft that involved commercial jets, according to the FAA: 90
Number of near-collisions between aircraft and drones in which the aircraft had to maneuver to get out of the way: 28
Rise in retail sales last month, according to the Commerce Dept., which AP calls a "respectable" start to the holiday shopping season: 0.2%
Percent chance that CNN had to frig with its rating system in order to let Rand Paul be on the main stage for tonight's debate: 100%
Number of Beatles who never wrote or recorded a song specifically about Christmas: 1 (George Harrison)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
Going to World Net Daily to catch their reaction to the climate deal was too tempting to pass up:
Such phony global warming science, such phony world leaders, the Islamic invasion of Europe is underway and this global warming scam is more important. ---Mac
These globalist warmers need to be put into prison for fraud. I deny the LIE! Come and get me you piles of human excrement. I'll reave my engine is pure spite. ---Harold
I expect in a couple years that the climate will be under control, so that the Murdering Muslims, who are affected by climate change, will once again be peaceful. ---Patriot
All together now: 1…2…3… Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day:
Harp + Lola
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JEERS to running out of time. Just a little reminder that if you have a flexible spending account as part of your health insurance plan, it's likely that you'll lose whatever money you have socked away if you don’t spend it within the next 16 days. Some things that are usually eligible: birth control, smoking cessation, cold remedies (NyQuil: humankind's greatest gift to itself), contact lens solution...stuff like that. But if your remaining balance is sizable enough, we'd advise you to buy something that'll deliver the most bang for your pre-tax buck: senators.
P.S. Today is the last day to enroll in a new 2016 Obamacare health plan in time to start coverage on January 1st. I stayed with the basic silver plan I have now, and after consulting with my death panel I decided to add the hospice-care male stripper option. It costs a few bucks extra, but I get to pay by slipping dollar bills into their g-strings. What a way to go!
CHEERS to a moment of optimism. The last thing I plan to do is poo-poo the climate experts who say that the 196-nation pact agreed to in Paris isn't enough in and of itself to fix the planet's chronic fevuh. At the same time, Jonathan Chait at New York magazine says these things have to be viewed from a larger perspective:
[R]ecent history shows that political willpower and innovation feed off each other. Support for green energy in the United States (through the stimulus), Europe, China, and elsewhere spurred research and investment that have triggered a revolution in affordable solar and wind power, among other green energy technologies.
The green energy revolution has made what was unaffordable in 2009 suddenly affordable. It is realistic to assume that the momentum from Paris will continue the virtuous cycle of political willpower and market innovation---the massive new market for reducing carbon emissions will spur more investment that will produce newer and more efficient technologies, allowing elected officials to make deeper emissions cuts.
It is hard to find any important accomplishment in history that completely solved a problem. Victories are hardly ever immediate or complete. The fight continues and history marches on. The climate agreement in Paris should take its place as one of the great triumphs in history.
And it didn’t involve guns or bombs. Make that a double-triumph.
JEERS to lechers behind lecterns. Oh, joy. Tonight two of my least-favorite things are reuniting: the Republican presidential field and CNN. Yup, it's time for another debate (8:30ET start time), and tonight's theme in Las Vegas is a discussion of all the evildoers coming to kill you, take your guns, force you to bake gay-wedding cakes, steal your job, crush your dreams, take a hacksaw to your freedoms and destroy America. Y'know…inspiring Reaganesque shining city on a hill stuff. Here's the official arrangement of the candidates on the stage, with the inclusion of Rand Paul, who barely squeaked by:
Meanwhile there's a junior-league debate with Pataki, Huckabee, Graham and Santorum, while Jim Gilmore will debate a bowl of nuts down at the nudie bar. Here's tonight's drinking game: as soon as Wolf Blitzer says "Welcome," take a swig and change the channel.
JEERS to terlet vigilantes. Right-wingers sure are a sick bunch. First they couldn’t keep their noses out of our bedrooms, and now they can't keep them out of our bathrooms:
A group of self-described California “privacy advocates” is making a final push to gather enough signatures to place an initiative on 2016 ballots that would ban transgender people from using public bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity.
But opponents say the measure actually would introduce alarming invasions of privacy, as a minimum $4,000 civil award for catching a violator incentivizes people to visually inspect the anatomy of others changing or using a restroom.
Since the "bathroom vigilantes" won't have any certification or authorization, we'll need a second "bathroom vigilante vigilante" ordinance to pay another group of "privacy advocates" even more to monitor the bathroom vigilantes. And they'll need vigilantes to check up on them, and so on and so on. All leading to an inevitable conclusion: it's gonna get so crowded in there that no one's gonna be able to pee.
CHEERS to walls worth building. While Donald Trump goes to sleep at night with visions of steel and cement towering over the U.S.-Mexican border, in Africa they're dreaming of something a little more productive: a 4,350-mile buffer of trees towering over the Sahara from east to west to mitigate the effects of climate change. The Great Green Wall…
…is a part of a wider initiative meant to help reduce seasonal winds packed with sand and dust, slow land degradation and the encroaching desert, and to improve the health and lives of those living nearby.
In Senegalese villages like Mbar Toubab, market gardening is now possible, allowing women like 38-year-old Aissata Ka to make more money as agriculture and economic opportunities blossom where acacia trees now grow. “Agriculture is easier for us,” said Ka, who lives in Mbar Toubab in Senegal’s north. “With livestock, the herd can die at any moment, and you are then condemned to live as a nomad. Here, with agriculture, we don’t need to move.”
Coincidentally, that’s the same way I felt when they invented the TV remote and the barcalounger.
CHEERS to 51 years of proudly waving, eh. On December 15, 1964, "after six months of debate and 308 speeches, passed by a majority vote in the House of Commons," Canada adopted the maple leaf flag:
We're not sure what the proper gift is for a flag on its birthday, so we defaulted to the usual: a pair of socks.
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Nine years ago in C&J: December 15, 2006
JEERS to headlines as punchlines. Nothing we say can top this from World Net Daily: Soy is making kids gay. Like I said...nothing.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the final countdown. Star Wars Episode VII opens Friday, and… Hey, look, it’s my alter ego, Darth Billeh, making his debut in C&J! Hey Billeh, that ticket says Thursday! What the hell????
Hey, man, I’m down with that. But it sounds like you really should get those sinuses checked out. Or at least flush ‘em out with a Neti-Pot.
Have a nice Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“There is not an automatic yes in Bill in Portland Maine's body, unless it’s for food or marijuana. And I’m not sure about the food thing either.”
---Carrie Fisher
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