From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Nostradamus Strikes Again
Thomas Friedman, the Very Deep Thinker who writes Columns of Great Importance for The New York Times, has set another timetable for our withdrawal from Iraq...and this time he's serious, gosh darn it.
According to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Friedman has moved his goalposts no less than fourteen times since 2003. Here's a gem from November, 2004:
"Improv time is over. This is crunch time. Iraq will be won or lost in the next few months. But it won't be won with high rhetoric. It will be won on the ground in a war over the last mile."
Well thank you, John Wayne. And my favorite two-fer:
"I think we're in the end game there, in the next three to six months, Bob." (January, 2006)
"I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq." (March, 2006)
Ah, to be a multi-millionaire with nothing to lose. "Fetch me another martini, Gaston...and don’t skimp on the vermouth!" Well, yesterday he earned the nation's gratitude by throwing down his monogrammed velvet glove again (I'm not providing a link because TimesSelect charges, like, a million dollars for it):
O.K., boys, party's over: we're leaving by Dec. 1. From now on, everyone pays retail for their politics. We will no longer play host to a war where we're everyone's protector and target.
For those of you keeping score at home, that's ten months. This A Very Walton's Christmas timetable---plus a federally-mandated "floor price of $3.50 a gallon for gasoline"---will shock the Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, Turks, Saudis, Iranians, Syrians and the Whole Wide Middle East World into locking arms and singing songs around the campfire. Or not: "If they want tribal instincts to reign, we can leave by Dec. 1 and insulate ourselves from Islam's civil war with a new energy policy." Uh huh.
And what about President Bush's pledge to never impose a timeline for withdrawal, his prediction that the fate of our troops will be decided by future presidents, and his same-sex marriage to the oil barons? I'm sure Mr. Friedman will set some benchmark Friedmans for that in his next column.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There’s Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, February 8, 2007
Note: Today's C&J has been outsourced to Halliburton. If it sucks, blame them.
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By the Numbers:
Days ‘til all players must report for Spring Training: 19
Days 'til Bush leaves office: 712
Number of women appointed to the federal bench by George W. Bush: 53
Number of women appointed to the federal bench by Bill Clinton: 104
(Source: USA Today)
Average age of a U.S. senator: 62
(Source: Wonkette)
4 x 6 = 3
(Source: Heritage Foundation)
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NEW! Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment: "What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols."
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Puppy Pic of the Day: What every pooch needs: an Acme 2000 Multi-Snowball Holster.
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CHEERS to the writing on the wall. If you're at all interested in gay rights, today's must-read comes from USA Today. The Clifs Notes summery: despite their best efforts to go against Jesus' teachings, the fundamentalist haters are losing, losing, losing:
Gay teenagers are "coming out" earlier than ever, and many feel better about themselves than earlier generations of gays, youth leaders and researchers say. The change is happening in the wake of opinion polls that show growing acceptance of gays, more supportive adults and positive gay role models in popular media. [...]
The news in December that Vice President Cheney's daughter Mary is expecting a baby with her female partner has even brought gay parenthood into the Bush administration family.
More: In ten years 3,200 gay-straight alliances have formed in schools, and national public acceptance---at 54%---is up 16 points (New England is highest at 69%). The best part: if all this progress is happening during the reign of a repressive monarchy, imagine what'll happen when Democrats turn it back into a progressive democracy. Now click your heels together and freep their poll.
HUZZAH! to bustin' open a can of whupass, bay-bee! The crackdown in Baghdad is on! American and Iraqi forces, donning intimidating face paint and names like "Skull Crusher McGee," launched Operation Booyeah with a fearsome display of...setting up scattered checkpoints. Later today: finger-wagging!!
CHEERS to leading by example. While the supposed grownups in the Senate spin in circles like a kitten on a catnip high, the "unruly" House will lock horns for three days next week over Bush's escalation in Iraq...and then actually vote on whether or not to endorse it. Ice cream and cookies for you, Reps. As for you, senators, it’s cod liver oil and then straight to your room until you can learn how to properly end a war. And no TV!
JEERS to a very unkind cut. Next time you see two legs protruding from under your car, chances are it's some doofus taking a hacksaw to your catalytic converter. Turns out they "contain small amounts of platinum, rhodium and palladium, and the value of these precious metals has been rising sharply, making catalytic converters a hot commodity in more ways than one at scrap yards from Maine to California." The devices fetch up to 150 bucks each. Chump change compared to what I can shake down old ladies for on the street. Amateurs.
CHEERS to turning the tables. In Washington state, the marriage equality crowd is usin' the old bean by introducing a law that reserves marriage for baby-makers only:
"For many years, social conservatives have claimed that marriage exists solely for the purpose of procreation ... The time has come for these conservatives to be dosed with their own medicine," said WA-DOMA organizer Gregory Gadow in a printed statement. "If same-sex couples should be barred from marriage because they can not have children together, it follows that all couples who cannot or will not have children together should equally be barred from marriage."
In other news, Christian fundamentalists have set a new world record for backpedaling.
CHEERS to 97 years of helping old ladies across the street. The Boy Scouts of America was incorporated on this date in 1910. My partner, Michael, and I are Eagle scouts (our certificates are signed by Ronald Reagan) but the national leadership says we don't count because we're gay. They wisely leave us alone, though. We know how to start a fire by rubbing two bigots together.
AWWW... to those poor widdle politicians (h/t Elwood Dowd and Ivorytower). Some of our elected representatives in D.C. think working a five-day week might give them calluses. But before you cry any crocodile tears, consider the meager workhouse wages they get for slingin' legislative hash all the livelong day...
• $165,200 per year with an annual cost-of-living-adjustment.
• Retirement and health benefits under the same plans available to other federal employees. [In fairness, they only have 284 plans to choose from, including dental and vision insurance.]
• A pension which, in 2003, averaged $3,909 a month."
Please...take the time to write a sympathy card for our beleaguered leaders this morning. And then shred it.
JEERS to silly ideas. Joe Lieberman wants us all to pay---I kid you not--- a "War On Terrorism Tax." Fine...just as soon as he agrees to pay a Lily-livered Turncoat Tax.
CHEERS to February fireworks (via Kossack ProgressiveSouth). Congressman Henry Waxman was in hog heaven yesterday as he grilled private contractors for their shameless "alleged" misdeeds in Iraq. The Capital custodial staff promptly doubled up on their next order of OxyPro Professional Strength Ass Stain Remover™.
JEERS to Lou Dobbs. For perpetuating a bullshit lie---six days in a row!---about Nancy Pelosi's use of a military jet to travel back and forth between D.C. and California, even though the facts were revealed days ago. Oh no, that can only mean one thing: the bull stud of CNN is hot for Speaker. Run, Nancy, run...to your nearest Taser dealer!
CHEERS to The music man. 18-time Grammy winner John Williams (who also has 45 Academy Award nominations and 5 Oscars) gave us Darth Cheney's Vader's theme, the Indiana Jones March, the "dumdumdumdum" of Jaws, and the iconic NBC News theme. Happy 75th birthday, Maestro. Half of my CD collection has your name on it.
P.S. All you Williams detractors who run around screaming, "He's ripping off Shostakovich! He's ripping off Dvorak! He's ripping off Wagner!": I fart in your general direction. In C major.
JEERS to bait 'n switch in the pulpit. The pastor at the First Baptist Church in South Portland is in hot water for advertising his Sunday sermon in the Portland Press Herald as "The Only Way to Destroy the Jewish Race." The catch: he was hoping to lure anti-Semites so he could preach to them that there is no "only" way to destroy the Jewish race. This Sunday's sermon: How Would Jesus Eat Crow?
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One Year Ago in C&J: February 8, 2006...
CHEERS to a grand sendoff. Yesterday's funeral for Coretta Scott King was a celebration in the truest sense of the word. And everything was perfect. If you disagree, please send a letter of concern to your favorite African-American Republican Senator.
CHEERS and JEERS to the two faces of Earth. At the Alaska Forum on the Environment, scientists agreed that "there's no uncertainty" about whether we've left the planet in the oven too long. Meanwhile, scientists in West Papua have discovered that there's a teeny tiny piece of the world that hasn't been spoiled by the species homo sapiens stupidus. The wildlife there had never seen humans before and decided we were friendly and non-threatening. A few hundred tour buses and a Wal-Mart will fix that.
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And just one more...
JEERS to weird science (via Boing Boing). We know that nailing Republican liars to a wall is easy as pie...but what about JELL-O? Finally, someone took the bull by the horns and decided to answer that age-old question. The answer: a resounding ixnay on the ELLO-J. Next test subject: goldfish.
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Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless Testimonial:
"Ah! I can only live with Cheers and Jeers. You can only live with Cheers and Jeers. You, Mr. President, can only live with Cheers and Jeers. You can't live without it long. I mean by that, without it, a few, F-E-W, minutes, Cheers and Jeers. It's been around since Adam and Eve inhabited the garden of Eden."
---Senator Robert Byrd
2/5/07
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