From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
The Democrats' plan to fight terrorists:
Increase the size of Special Forces to destroy Osama Bin Laden and terrorist networks like al Qaeda. Implement the bipartisan 9/11 Commission proposal to secure America's borders and ports and screen every container. Fully man, train, and equip our National Guard and our police, firefighters and other first responders.
The Republicans' plan to fight terrorists:
Tax cuts for the rich, no-bid contracts for the cronies and, what the hell, let's invade Iraq and toss in some torture.
A plan by Democrats' for dealing with Iraq (Kerry-Feingold):
Only U.S. troops essential to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces, conducting targeted counter-terrorist operations and protecting U.S. personnel and facilities would remain [after July, 2007]. The United States to maintain an over-the-horizon military presence to prosecute the war on terror and protect regional security interests. The President to work with the new Iraqi government to convene a summit that includes the leaders of the governments of each country bordering Iraq, representatives of the Arab League, NATO, the European Union, and leaders of the governments of each permanent member of the United Nations Security Council to try something new.
The Republicans' plan for dealing with Iraq:
Tax cuts for the rich, continued war-profiteering, indefinite deployments, stay-the-disastrous-course, cut and run from reality, raise the top recruiting age to 42 (forty two!!) and keep civilian death counts artificially low by not counting car bombs. After all, the war and occupation are just a comma, anyway.
Any questions?
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Note: This C&J is a limited collectors edition, hand-crafted and painted by Thomas Kinkade. The bidding will start at five four two dollars.
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By the Numbers:
Days `til Thanksgiving: 57
Percent of September that's over: 89%
Number of laptops the Commerce Department has lost since 2001: 1,137
Number of pairs of Crocs expected to be sold this year: 20 million
Estimate value of Crocs, Inc.: $1 Billion
(Source: Fortune)
Year in which humans are expected to start having sex with robots: 2011
(Source: European Robotics Network via Harper's Index)
Mid-week Rapture Index: 156 (including 4 plagues and 5 cases of liberalism). Soul Protection Factor 15 lotion is recommended if you'll be walking amongst the heathen today.
Update: Uh oh...more locusts. Better make that SPF 30.
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Your Puppy Pic of the Day: Pugnacious.
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CHEERS to death by inaction. Let's check in and see how John Bolton's re-nomination for Chief U.S. Berater of the U.N. is coming along in the Senate: StompStompStompStompStomp!!! Oh my...it's deader than a doornail. Thanks for the memories...and don't forget your `stach comb on the way out.
JEERS to lying like a rug. Yeah, of course I'm talking about Condi Rice-A-Looney, who rebutted Bill Clinton's victory at the Battle of Fox News with a pathetic counterattack yesterday. Maha, one of the virulent, viturperative and, let's not forget, vitriolic lefty bloggers here at DailyKos, provided a magnificent rebuttal of the concert pianist whom we expect to one day star in Shine II: The Sequel. I love it when Republicans bring their toy swords to a gunfight.
CHEERS to making David Broder's head spin. Wow...Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson has a thing or two---or three, four or five---to say about the myth of the "moderate" Republican. This is a must-read:
Problem is, [Lincoln] Chafee and his moderate band are an ever weaker force in a party whose very essence is extreme, whose electoral strategy is solely to mobilize its base, whose legislative strategy is never to seek votes across party lines. And unless these moderates boldly go where they have not gone before and cast their vote for majority leader (and I don't mean in caucus, I mean on the Senate floor) for someone other than the nominee of their party caucus, they are not moderates at all. They are loyal and indispensable foot soldiers in the Republicans' continuing campaign to drag the nation rightward and backward.
And guess what. The moderates will vote for the extremist [to replace Frist]. "Moderate," after all, is only an adjective; "Republican" is a noun. Chafee, Snowe, the whole lot of them, are moderate enablers of an extremist party. That leaves those voters in Rhode Island, Maine, Ohio and other states where these self-proclaimed Republican moderates are running only one choice if they seek a Congress to check and balance the president, if they want a more moderate nation: Vote for the Democrat.
Whew...I need a cigarette.
JEERS to the knuckledragger wing of the Republican Party. So last weekend there was a soiree hosted by the right-wing fundamentalist treehouse gang (Family Research Council, et al.). An attendee sent Andrew Sullivan a report. Hold your nose...
The first woman I spoke to (from Erie, PA) railed on about how Chuck Hagel is a flaming liberal and John McCain should be tried for treason. I thought that maybe I'd run into an isolated crazy. Oh no - it only got worse from there. The level of contempt for anyone who diverges from the Holy Word of W is beyond description. I was sort of 'undercover' so I could just let people talk to me, not leading the conversation, not baiting, and it horrified me to hear how many were perfectly comfortable with any form of torture in the name of patriotism if the Commander In Chief gave it the ok. [...]
[W]hat conservatism has become with these people is horrifying. They'd trade liberty for a handshake from W., compassion for power. And they've got one amazing plan in place to make sure that future generations have a tighter, more limited, and clearly more hostile worldview. I went there hoping to prove myself wrong about what I thought was happening, but I just couldn't do it.
Did you know that left-wing bloggers are shrill?
CHEERS to revolutionary dissenters. Happy birthday, Sam Adams---born 284 years ago today. Among his pearls of wisdom: "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." Pay your respects at his Boston burial plot at the Granary cemetery. Then toast him with a...um...how `bout a Sam Adams?
CHEERS to deer caught in the headlights. Media Matters for America has quickly become the go-to site for debunking media spin in all its smarmy forms. It's also become the organization that right-wing hacks like to say is run by "smear merchants." In today's must-watch, MM's Paul Waldman destroys John Stossel and Bill O'Reilly in less than 60 seconds. Pathetic.
CHEERS to Monday night under the lights. Did you see that the Louisiana Superdome is back in business? For the first time in over a year, a good time was had by all. Nice.
P.S. Some sad news in the sports world today. Legendary golfer Byron Nelson died at 94. He won 11 tournaments in 1945, back when their clubs were simply branches they ripped off trees. Sorry to kick you out of the cart, God, but Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones and Sam Sneed now have their fourth. But you can still caddie.
JEERS to Kossacks with claws. Yesterday Swag Again noted the less-than-supersonic speed at which comments were being posted at C&J. My response, "I'm just getting old and boring", drew 49 `Excellent' ratings, including one from my own partner. I'm not hurt...I'm devastated. It's nothing some expensive gifts won't fix, though. But jeepers...
JEERS to mixed-up mavericks (via Think progress). He's gonna have a devil of a time explaining this:
"Look, it's despicable and the United Nations should not be used as that kind of forum." ---Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), 9/24/06, reacting to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's reference to President Bush as the devil.
Versus...
"I think he was joking. I'm...from what I was told, he was laughing."
---McCain, 9/24/06, reacting to Rev. Jerry Falwell's reference to Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) as Lucifer
Yeah...he's running.
CHEERS to new discoveries. Another nail in the cross coffin of the Intelligent Design crowd: a three million year-old female was found recently in Ethiopia:
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[T]he little girl has a lower body much like a human, well adapted to walking upright, while the upper body is closer to that of a chimpanzee.
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You sure it's not just Ann Coulter on safari?
JEERS to Tuesday Whitewash. Under pressure, President Bush authorized parts of the National Intelligence Estimate to be released. Four out of 30 pages were sent out and---BIG SURPRISE---the part about the Iraq war making America less safe has been scrubbed. Even so, the published conclusions ("The Iraq conflict has become the `cause celebre' for jihadists") will be nothing but trouble for Republicans and Joe Liebergooper. To all the original leakers: I owe you dinner.
JEERS to messing around with an institution. I'm starting a crusade against the gajillion Monopoly spin-offs out there. Look, there's only one goal in Monopoly: land on Park Place and Boardwalk, then build Ritz Hotels on `em. Not Cape Hatteras Lighthouse or Middle Earth or the Death Star or Barbie's Dream House or Fenway Park. Park Place and Boardwalk, dammit. That'll be two thousand bucks, please. Enjoy your stay.
CHEERS to questions. Young Virginians for Racial Equality has a few for George Felix Allen. Let's see, what's the phrase they use when someone's lurching down the green mile to The End? Oh yeah... "Dead Southern California racist dimwit walkin'!"
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One Year Ago in C&J: September 27, 2005...
JEERS to burning the horseman at the stake. Former FEMA fuckup Michael Brown will have his buttocks removed today when he testifies before a House committee on the response to Hurricane Katrina. Once his incompetence is formally entered into the record, he'll accept a new job...as a consultant for FEMA. No, you cannot make this stuff up.
JEERS to silence on the other end of the shoe phone. Three-time Emmy winner Donald James Yarmy, aka Don Adams, aka Maxwell Smart, aka Agent 86 from Get Smart, has died at 82. To prevent classified information from reaching the ears of KAOS agents, his eulogy will be delivered under the Cone of Silence. When the DVDs come out next year, we'll be first in line. [9/27/06 Update: Sorry, no release date yet, Chief.]
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And just one more...
JEERS to sullying our delicate Puritan sensibilities. Saturday morning we're walking through the mall, and we see something at Brookstone called the iGallop. It's an "exercise device" where you sit on a vinyl saddle and hump it like Mary Carey in New Wave Hookers VII. We hear that if you order through the 700 Club you get a 10% discount.
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Floor's open... What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless testimonial:
"Yes, it's hard sometimes to be Bill in Portland Maine's strongest ally."
---Tony Blair
9/26/06
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