From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Just a little reminder for the Republican presidential candidates, who seem to have misplaced their history books:
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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!!
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Now that we've cleared that up, we now return you to our regularly scheduled GOP Terrorporn.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Note: Don’t ever get a tattoo on your optic nerve. Because, man, you'll have to look at that thing every day for the rest of your life.
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By the Numbers:
Days `til Daylight Saving Time ends: 74
Days `til 2008: 131
Number of Iraqis---nearly a third of the population---who are without water, sanitation, food and shelter: 8 Million
(Source: TIME)
Amount Merv Griffin made on his music theme for Jeopardy: $80 Million
(Source: Entertainment Weekly)
Price an Illinois company charges to turn the cremains of a loved one into a 1.5-carat diamond: $24,999
(Source: LifeGem via Harper's Index)
Number of weeks it would take to invade Iran and turn it into a Jeffersonian democracy: 3
(Source: The Weekly Standard via Rush Limbaugh via Fox News via the Wall Street Journal editorial page via The Brookings Institution via The Heritage Foundation via The American Enterprise Institute via PNAC)
Mid-week Rapture Index: 161 (including 1 inch of Hillary cleavage and 2 Romney Brothers preparing to extract semen from the world's largest stud bull). Soul Protection Factor 16 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today (...and an umbrella might be a good idea if you're near the Romney boys).
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "Damn, weight loss is a bitch..."
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CHEERS to must-see TV. Senator Barack Obama will appear on The Daily Show tonight. He'll arrive reeking of Jack Daniels and spouting a variety of obscenities as he promotes a plan to outlaw SUVs and Christmas. Or so the Republican TiVo horde hopes.
JEERS to lying liars, part 3,438. Karl Rove on Sunday's Meet the Press: "[Y]ou look at the compassion agenda...this president has been able to offer a bold and optimistic agenda and get it done." Reporter Robert Pear in yesterday's New York Times: "The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families." Feel the love.
JEERS to hero worship. Maine Sunday Telegram columnist Nancy Grape reminds me of someone who sees the past through a soft-focus lens, pining for mythical "good old days" that were never all that good to begin with. This week she starts out by getting moist over a pre-planned photo op by Senator Olympia Snowe:
Casually dressed and looking comfortable in the down-home environment, Snowe went from booth to booth in the diner speaking and listening to folks with mugs of coffee in their hands.
Snowe didn't proclaim. She didn't lecture. She didn't impose. She made her way among the patrons like a neighbor, a bit more glamorous perhaps, more schooled on the issues and in the ways of the world. ... [These events] are memorable encounters that show national figures transformed into men and women among equals when they come home. And when you witness it, you can feel it right down to your toes.
Good lord. Get a room, you two. In the column's second half, she takes a willow switch to those evil modern-day "trackers" following Senator Susan Collins. Funny how she spoke with the Collins campaign, but not Democratic challenger Tom Allen's:
As Collins' top aide, Steve Abbott, declared, such practices "contribute to voter cynicism and have no place in the type of substantive, issues-oriented campaigns that our voters deserve."
What Grape fails to mention is that Collins has cried wolf before (with an assist from a partisan Bangor Daily News reporter)---when her first campaign was on the skids. Fool us once...
CHEERS to magic Johnson. Guess who's coming home to South Dakota in six days? Senator Tim Johnson, now sufficiently recovered from his brain hemorrhage to do-se-do down at the Grange Hall. I know it's usually your role to ask this question, sir, but...now that you're better...can we count on your votes this fall?
JEERS to dishonesty in the ranks. So I'm watching local TV and I see an ad from a "non-partisan" group called Vets For Freedom. They're shaming Senator Olympia Snowe because of her war stance (she now favors a timeline for withdrawal) with classic false-choice language that sounds oddly Cheney-like:
We all have one message: Congress, don’t force us to withdraw from Iraq before we complete our mission. Do not turn your back on those of us who have served and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Don’t second-guess our commanders on the ground. And most importantly, don't undermine America's mission in the war on terror. Don’t think you can sugar-coat retreat by calling it re-deployment. In plain language, you're calling for our surrender and defeat. As veterans who have wore the uniform, we believe in our mission. We and the Iraqi people can prevail...unless Congress surrenders.
[Followed by an on-screen graphic that says: Senator Snowe don’t surrender to al Qaeda.]
Smelling something fishy, we took a little trip to SourceWatch and---Bingo---the group appears to be a den of neocons. So you boys want to win the war on terror, huh? Great! Afghanistan's thataway >>>>>
CHEERS to weathering the weather. Hurricane Dean---a pissed-off, 166mph, Category 5 muthuhfukkah the size of Texas---tiptoed through the Yucatan peninsula yesterday, leaving in its wake less destruction than feared and, amazingly, no deaths. In response, Mexico has started cleaning up the mess with quiet efficiency and life will slowly but surely return to normal. [sigh] Heckuva job, amigos.
P.S. Hold onto your butts, Veracruzers. You're next.
CHEERS to sweet numbness. Holy mackerel...sales of prescription painkillers have skyrocketed:
More than 200,000 pounds of codeine, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and meperidine were purchased at retail stores during the most recent year represented in the data. That total is enough to give more than 300 milligrams of painkillers to every person in the country. Oxycodone, the chemical used in OxyContin, is responsible for most of the increase. Oxycodone use jumped nearly six-fold between 1997 and 2005.
Also skyrocketing: sales of ACME shoe weights to keep people from floating off and getting tangled in power lines.
JEERS to the worst Democrats in the World. McClatchy found a couple 'o crazy Aszes:
"Hillary can go to hell," said Alice Aszman, 66, a Democrat from Ottumwa. "I'll never vote for her. I don't think a woman should be president. I think a man should. They've got more authority." Her husband, Daniel, 50, also a Democrat, agreed: "I think women should stay home instead of being boss."
When asked why he violated his own rule by allowing his wife to come to the Iowa State Fair, Mr. Aszman shrugged, placed the bit in his mouth and, to Mrs. Aszman's cries of "H'yah!!!", pulled the Aszman carriage back to the homestead at a full gallop.
JEERS to vegetables of mass distraction. A Pennsylvania woman slicing an eggplant noticed that the seeds in the middle formed the word "GOD". (Naturally, she followed the Biblical procedure for these things and gave it up as an offering to The Holy Cathedral of eBay.) Not mentioned in the media coverage is that the seeds in subsequent slices formed the words "ARE" "YOU" "PEOPLE" "GULLIBLE." Which leads me to my point: atheists are very silly.
CHEERS to making some noise. Kennebunkport has sure seen its share of protests this summer. A third one is planned for this Saturday. For trivial reasons, really:
The unseemly and arrogant image of President Bush and his father waving to photographers from his cigarette boat, oblivious to the fact that there are fathers here and in Iraq who will never see their sons again, warrants a response from people of conscience! While Bush and his cronies dine on lobster and anesthetize themselves on fine wine, Iraq is disintegrating into something resembling hell on earth. We cannot sit idly by and hear stories of suffering, torture and senseless loss of precious life. We wonder, how can they?
Probably something to do with the whole anesthetizing thing.
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One Year Ago in C&J: August 22, 2006...
JEERS to the Commander Decider Buck-passer in Chief. Hey kids, guess what? President Bush says we get to stay in Iraq until at least 2009! He also said we'd all lose our soul if we pulled out. That's right---the president just played the "We Won't Go To Heaven Because Of You" card. Mr. Grasper, meet Mr. Straw.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to Fido in the field. Milk Bones to the AP for this article on the fearless working dogs supporting our troops in Iraq:
With noses that detect scents up to a third of a mile away, many sniff for explosives in Iraq. Their numbers have been growing about 20 percent a year since the terrorist attacks of 2001, says Air Force Capt. Jeffrey McKamey, who helps run the program.
In doing their jobs, dozens of these dogs have also become war wounded---scorched by the desert, slashed by broken glass, pelted by stray bullets, pounded by roadside bombs. Their services are so valued, though, that wounded dogs are treated much like wounded troops.
Except instead of cursing all the paperwork, they just pee on it. Good boy!
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Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless Testimonial:
"I don't think Bill in Portland Maine's going to endorse me. But I find it interesting he's so obsessed with me."
---Hillary Clinton
8/19/07
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