From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
FUNDY REVOLT!! Critics Blast Bush For Not Praying Hard Enough
President Bush, already facing the lowest approval ratings in history, is coming under fire from former supporters over what they call his "ineffectual and incompetent" use of prayer for national guidance and assistance.
Despite assurances from the president that he "prays every day" for the nation's interests both at home and abroad, the mounting crises of recent months---escalating gas prices, the botched Dubai port security deal, ethics scandals, and the rising death toll in Iraq---have left many unimpressed with the effectiveness of his devotion. [...]
While newly released portions of White House prayer logs show that Bush's praying has actually gone up in recent months, critics are seeking to subpoena the documents in their entirety to determine the strength of those prayers. [...]
Susan DiDomenico of the National Prayer Task Force said her organization is seeking "full disclosure" of any and all prayers Bush may have skipped or manipulated to seem more effective or holy.
---The Onion
Bless thee O Lord, for Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Amen...and...Ay-men!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, April 28, 2006
Note: Because of high levels of fecal coliform bacteria, the C&J Happy Fun Lagoon will be closed this weekend.
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By the Numbers:
Days `til the YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas June 8-11: 41
Days `til the Deer Island Lupine Festival: 50
Exxon Mobil profits in the 1st quarter of 2006: $8.4 billion (up over seven percent from last year)
Percent of summer travelers who are expected to have children in tow: 31%
Percent of parents who say they have drugged their children to sedate them for a flight: 18%
(Source: TIME)
Days the federal terror alert system has been in place: 1,502
Days spent at terror alert level Green or Blue: 0
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Your Puppy Pic of the Day: A wrinkle in time...
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CHEERS to erectile function. Well it's about time. Construction trucks rolled in to Ground Zero yesterday and started building the 1776 foot-tall Freedom Tower in New York City. One small hitch: due to a slight delay in rivet shipments, it won't be completed until Wednesday.
JEERS to the thugs in charge. Let's see, the Republicans are up to their necks in bribery, corruption, greed, vanity and perjury. But something's missing. Something that would make their sleaziness complete. What could that be? Hmm. Ah, yes...Whores!! Oh these guys are good. Verrrry good.
CHEERS to being a gleam in a politician's eye. All you Democratic muckety-mucks who still think lefty blogs are populated by ignorant anti-social teenage misfits in their mom's basements, listen up: the new Blogads survey shows that we're actually well-to-do, well-informed, educated, politically active and damn sexy. (So what the hell am I doing here?)
JEERS to the man America loves to hate just a little more each day. "Please let mah poll numbers go up. Please let mah poll numbers go up. Please let mah...GODDAM IT!!" New NBC News/Wall Street Journal numbers peg President Bush at the "lowest mark in this survey": 36. Not percent, mind you...people.
CHEERS to camel-flavored birthday cake and Doritos. And a 1... And a 2... Crummy birthday to you! Crummy birthday to you! You look like a madman, and you smell like one, too! Hooorayyy!! Be miserable on your 69th birthday, Saddam...this rotten tomato's for you!
JEERS to spending our tax dollars over there so we won't have to spend them over here. The cost of the War on Exploding Donkey Carts is now exceeding even worst-case scenarios. Current price tag: $319,999,999,999.99 ($320 billion minus the volume discount). Of course that number is misleading. Take out the profiteering and it's only costing $50 billion. Wait...that still sucks.
P.S. At least we're getting something for our money: a thriving Iraqi democracy safe haven for terrorists [that] has attracted a "foreign fighter pipeline" linked to terrorist plots, cells and attacks throughout the world. And purple-stained fingers. Let's not forget the purple-stained fingers.
CHEERS to President Good Feelings. Happy 248th birthday to #5 James "Marilyn" Monroe. He told Europe and Russia to keep their paws off the west and then sucked up to the AARP by snagging Florida. Pay your respects here. And marvel at that ghoulish Addams Family grave.
JEERS to grasping at straws. How desperate is the GOP to look like they feel our pain? The Senate's latest hair-brained scheme is to bribe every American with $100 to offset gas prices. Memo to Grover Norquist: would you please take your people and drown them in the bathtub??
CHEERS to the trailblazer. In today's must-read Newsweek's Jonathan Alter compares and contrasts the styles of FDR and GWB. A few snips:
Like Bush, FDR took an expansive view of presidential power. But he didn't circumvent Congress, as Bush did on warrantless wire-tapping.
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Roosevelt wasn't big on excuse-making. Shortly after assuming office, he said he wanted a quarter of a million unemployed young "hobos" working in the forests by summer. Every cabinet member said it couldn't be done. But because he understood the levers of power (partly from his experience in the Wilson administration, bureaucratic training that Bush lacks), he made it happen and the Civilian Conservation Corps changed the face of the country.
Had such competent leadership been present after 9/11, it's a fair bet that it would not have taken more than four years for the FBI to fix its computers and for the government to secure ports and chemical plants against terrorism. FDR would have demanded it be done in, say, four months.
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Bush is not much of a believer in accountability; FDR knew it could make him a more effective president. He held two press conferences a week and instead of shunning Congress's oversight of Halliburton-style profiteering during the war, he put the main critic, Sen. Harry Truman, on the 1944 ticket.
Alter's book, The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, comes out Tuesday. Of course, triumph will always stand out in President Bush's life, too. As the word that got him kicked out of the 10th grade spelling bee.
CHEERS to cold comfort. The air conditioner was patented 91 years ago today. It made the front porch obsolete and started the anti-social phenomenon known as `cocooning.' But do YOU want to go without it?
JEERS to silly moments in history. Monday brings with it a very special anniversary: Three years ago, against a "Mission Accomplished" banner, President Bush crowed:
"My fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."
Media Matters looks back at how the press acted like total morons. Not on the list was the moment on Fox and Friends when Brit Hume growled, "I kissed his codpiece...and I'll never wash these lips again!"
JEERS to Nazi Nuptials. Adolf and Eva got hitched in der Bunker 61 years ago tomorrow. Then he shot himself and she swallowed cyanide. It just wasn't working out.
P.S. The old man is lonely. Go say heil (and don't forget to follow it with the traditional Thhhppttt!!).
JEERS to George Allen. The Republican Senator from Virginia with the groovy 70's-style sideburns is supposedly one of the hot GOP contenders for president, and apparently comes from a humble life of racism:
The mostly black inner-city school adjacent to Watts was coming to the almost entirely white Palos Verdes High to play. When students arrived at school on game day, they found graffiti spray-painted on the school library and other places. All five people who described the incident say the graffiti was racially tinged and meant to look like the handiwork of the black Morningside students. But it was actually put there by Allen and some of his friends. "It was something like die whitey," says Campbell. The school administrator, who says he is a Republican and would "seriously consider" voting for Allen for president, says the graffiti said, "burn, baby, burn," a reference to the race riots.
Not so fast... He could've been working on the first draft of "Disco Inferno."
CHEERS to lessons for Timmah. On HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher: George Clooney, Sir Ian McKellan, Rep. Barney Frank, and ABC News correspondent Michel Martin. See that, Mr. Russert? You really can convene a panel of liberals without the sky falling. You should try it sometime.
SPLOT! to full-body ponchos. You're all on notice---as soon as my trusty new Oozinator arrives ("Hit targets up to 20 feet away with a 10-ounce bio-ooze capacity!"), I intend to use it. Here kitty kitty...
One Year Ago in C&J: April 28, 2005:
JEERS to big bid'ness as usual. George W. Bush revealed his energy policy yesterday and C&J is dubbing the oil- and nuclear-heavy plan "Flow and Glow." The Emperor will explain it all to us wee village folk at tonight's televised press conference. Take a swig every time he says "Nukular."
CHEERS to excellent headlines. 365gay.com reports on "New Revelations About White House's Gay Hustler". The opening sentence is great, too: "Despite assurances by the Bush Administration that the gay hustler who posed as a journalist was given only limited access to the White House, new evidence shows that over a two year period he visited 196 times." Now the question is...exactly who was he "posing" for in the West Wing when the sun went down?
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And just one more...
CHEERS to your inner Gonzo. What kind of Muppet are you? Take this little survey and all will be revealed. I'm Statler and Waldorf...the old farts in the balcony. That's scary accurate.
Enjoy the last weekend of April. Tiptoe through the neighbor's tulips. Floor's open...what are you cheering and jeering about today?
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