From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Behold the stunning power of Congress:
The bipartisan legislation would order Bush to draft plans to withdraw from Iraq but not require them to be implemented.
Since they're being so generous, I've got a few riders I'd like to attach to that bill:
The bipartisan legislation would order citizens to fill out tax forms, but not require them to actually pay anything.
The bipartisan legislation would order employees to punch a time clock, but not require them to actually work.
The bipartisan legislation would order pot smokers to give up their sinful ways, but not require them to actually stop tokin' up.
The bipartisan legislation would order drivers to stop eating, drinking, watching DVDs, talking on cellphones and putting on makeup, but not require them to actually pay attention to the road.
The bipartisan legislation would order Americans to stop farting in elevators, but not require them to actually hold them in.
The bipartisan legislation would order people to be clothed in public, but not require them to actually wear pants.
The bipartisan legislation would order people to be responsible for what they charge to their credit cards, but not require them to suffer any consequences for flushing their statements down the toilet every month.
The bipartisan legislation would order unscrupulous health insurance companies, heartless mine operators, hypocritical politicians, spammers, global warming skeptics, war profiteers, neocons and Bush enablers from both parties to go screw themselves...and actually require them to go screw themselves.
Lawmaking's kewl.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, September 7, 2007
Note: Do not buy any food from China that contains "nougat." It's just whipped toejam.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Bush leaves office: 500!
Percent of his presidency he has left: 17%
Days `til Festivus: 107
Percent of people summoned who actually show up for jury duty: 46%
(Source: The New York Times via The Week)
Percent of federal inspectors general appointed by Bill Clinton who had prior audit experience: 66%
Percent appointed by George W. Bush who had prior audit experience: 36%
(Source: Harper's Index)
Expected high Saturday in Baghdad: 108°
And from the Department of Hopeless Security:
Days the color-coded gut-feeling terror alert system has been in place: 2,005
Days spent at terror alert level Blue or Green: 0
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "Yep, that's an abscess. Two hundred bucks, please..."
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JEERS to the dark at the end of the tunnel. To summarize Michael Duffy's cover story in TIME that previews next week's White House Whitewash Report:
Everything sucks---or not---in Iraq, and because of the anti-war left, we're gonna be kickin' ass there for another ten years. Oh, and The Iraq Study Group says it's time for an exit strategy and Bush is listening---seriously!
That's why Mike earns the big bucks.
CHEERS to Brave New Films. Robert Greenwald & Co. score another left hook with a video highlighting Rudy Giuliani's obsession with putting NYC's emergency command center inside the city's #1 terrorist target. Most disturbing is his sinister chuckle as he flat-out lies about it to Fox News's Chris Wallace. Hero worship rescinded, pal.
P.S. Help me out here. Is this Rudy Giuliani or Ray Babitt from Rainman? YOU make the call! But be quick about it...only 15 minutes to Wapner.
JEERS to Osama bin Midlifecrisis. Sporting a dye job that suggests he's having to work harder these days to score with the virgins, the leader of al Qaeda showed up on a new video (now available from Netflix), in which he offers ways to resolve the Iraq kerfuffle:
"There are two solutions to stopping it. One is from our side, and it is to escalate the fighting and killing against you. This is our duty, and our brothers are carrying it out," bin Laden said. "The second solution is from your side," he said. "I invite you to embrace Islam."
No way. You guys have lousy pancake suppers. Go Episcopalians! Whooooo!!!! (Pass the butter...)
JEERS to tubes at the speed of tortoise. Alberto Gonzales may be gone but the wankery continues at the Justice Department. Yesterday they issued their opinion---in crayon, we assume---to the FCC on whether or not the big Telcos should be able to regulate the speed of the internet. Behold the possible future of the intertubes:
[Page loading... Please wait]
[Page loading... Having fun yet?]
[Page loading... Y'know, if you went to this site's rich competitor your page would have loaded by now]
[Page loading... You're still here? What an idiot.]
Progress! Hooray!!
CHEERS to the buzz on the bees. Researchers finally narrowed down the probable causes of the nationwide bee colony collapse. They say it was the result of either a virus or putting them under the supervision of Robert Murray and Richard Stickler.
CHEERS and JEERS to castles in the air. Last Saturday, Ed Jarrett from Casco, Maine broke the Guinness Book record for building the World's tallest sandcastle. It's a thing of beauty from its base to its 31.7 foot-tall peak. It was all done by hand, with a major assist from the youngsters at Camp Sunshine, a resort for kids with life-threatening diseases and their families. So naturally, some assholes in another part of the country just had to rip the childrens' hopes and dreams from their frail, disease-ravaged bodies by immediately hauling in 130 dump-truck loads of sand (which, apparently, is in short supply at Myrtle-fricking-Beach!), throwing together this tacky piece of shit, and claiming the record for themselves. Not that I'm bitter. Fuckers.
JEERS to poor party planning. (via Think Progress) On Wednesday George and Laura Bush issued official greetings to kick off Rosh Hashanah. Only problem: it starts next Wednesday. I guess that explains why they were out hiding Easter eggs in August.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. John Aravosis over at Americablog asks: "GOP front runner or Buffy Villain?"
Aaaaaaghhhh!!!
Now back to Cheers and Jeers...
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
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CHEERS to Madame Spinner. Today is speechwriter Peggy Noonan's 56th birthday (we never jeer anyone on their birthday, although I can't bring myself to bless her camels). She coined the phrase "A kinder, gentler nation" for Dubya's dad, and blindly carried his son's water for years on the op-ed pages before finally giving up on him. We find her famous advice on editing a bit flawed:
Remember the waterfront shack with the sign FRESH FISH SOLD HERE. Of course it's fresh, we're on the ocean. Of course it's for sale, we're not giving it away. Of course it's here, otherwise the sign would be someplace else. The final sign: FISH.
But fish is also a verb, so posting a sign reading "FISH" might cause people to go fishing, thus eliminating the need to buy fish from the fish market, which would cause it to go broke and eventually lead to a complete collapse of the fish market industry. And people wonder why Republican economies suck.
CHEERS to space...the final frontier. Forty one years ago tomorrow the first episode of Star Trek aired on NBC. It was regularly beaten in its time slot, and placed 52nd among all series in 1966-1967, its best season. Today its message resonates louder than ever:
[I]t had a crew that said discrimination was a thing of past; it had a future that said we were not all annihilated by nuclear holocaust; it had an economy that was driven by progress and achievement, not simple wealth accumulation; it had science as a guiding force, not mysticism or superstition; it had technology as a means to explore, not just make life easier; and, perhaps most importantly, it had a peaceful mission at its core, not one of conquest. The show screamed peace in a time of war.
Vulcans are shrill.
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One Year Ago in C&J: September 7, 2006...
JEERS to telepiffle. Question: What if the TV movie The Path to 9/11 turns out to be simply...boring? From Entertainment Weekly's review:
This unwieldy opus is hamstrung by the very thing ABC is so proud of: using The 9/11Commission Report as its source and the chairman of the commission, former governor Thomas Kean, as its "senior consultant." The results strain so hard to be objective and evenhanded (see, the Democrats and the Republicans both made mistakes) that they're useless as drama.
The performances are actually wonderful. That they're in the service of presenting a monumental horror so tediously is appalling, really. Grade: D+
Kossack Ollieb summarizes more tepid reviews here. That's right, kids...they've even lost the fake war on terror.
CHEERS to doing the people's business. The 109th Congress has been in session two days. So far they've passed constitutional amendments banning same-flag marriage and gay-burning. Who says the art of the creative compromise is dead?
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And just one more...
CHEERS to unbridled fame. Kos has generously promoted yours truly to the rank of "Featured Writer." For those of you wondering just who the hell I am, here's my official bio:
Bill Harnsberger, 43, was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, hometown of both the guy who wrote "Dixie" and the queeniest Hollywood Square ever, Paul Lynde. In 1975 he and his family fled the oppressive Ford regime by moving to Düsseldorf, Germany, where he spent his time stealing hood ornaments off of Mercedes. During his time in exile, two popes died in rapid succession. Harnsberger was not charged in the incidents but was forbidden from ever again throwing lawn darts on European soil. In 1980, sensing that Ronald Reagan was poised to make everything right with the world again, he moved back to Ohio, where he became an Eagle Scout and graduated Summa Cum Wanker from Otterbein College in Westerville. He then spent seven years announcing the time and weather for old people on "beautiful music" radio station WGER-FM in Saginaw, Michigan. He now lives with his partner of 15 years, Michael, in Portland, Maine, and recently became the only known person to successfully auction off both of his kidneys on eBay (the secret: labeling them as "collectible figurines").
And if you're visiting from The O'Reilly Factor, my Daily Kos Nazi rank has been upgraded from Untersturmbandwienerschnitzelnauptfuhrer to Ubersturmbandwienerschnitzelnauptfuhrer. Please adjust your blacklist accordingly.
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Have a great weekend. For kicks, walk around asking strangers if they'll make a donation to Nymphomaniacs For Jesus. (You'll be surprised how many people say "Yes! Yes!! OH JESUS YES!!!") Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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