Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Note: My teddy bear's name is Muhammad. I guard him with a Ruger 10/22 rifle. Now, what's your problem, again?
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Christmas: 20
Days 'til the South Carolina primary: 52
Percentage of teens who say they use instant-messaging to express something they wouldn't say in person: 43%
Percentage of teens who say they use IMs to break up: 13%
(Source: TIME)
Number of U.S. Senators age 65 and older: 42
Number of senators in their 30s: 0
(Source: Parade magazine)
Number of questions about the economy asked during last Wednesday's Republican debate: 0
Mid-week Rapture Index: 159 (including 7 ridiculous Republican presidential candidates and 1 tub of okra). Soul Protection Factor 16 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Sorry, Anderson, but you're not the cutest Cooper.
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CHEERS to Joe Biden. Last night on Hardball the Delaware Senator and presidential candidate surveyed the damage Bush's little World War III stunt caused:
"What have we done? We have added to the urban legend in the streets of all the Muslim capitals in the world that this is a war against Islam. ... The good news is it makes it harder for these [neocon] cowboys to go to war. The bad news is we have been further damaged. And that hurts America's interests in a big way." ...
I think these guys are irresponsible. But the thing that angers me the most is how incomprehensible it is for anyone to think that the president did not know that his intelligence agencies didn’t believe what he was saying. I believe that's why these guys came out with it now. Sixteen American intelligence agencies unite in saying, "I'm not gonna wear the jacket again on this one."
Once again , Bush finds himself in a no-win situation: either he knew Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program and lied about it...or his handlers deliberately kept him in the dark. Either way, we may be about to see what it's like when a president's poll numbers dip into in the teens. (I bet it tingles.)
JEERS to lapdogs at the gate. With the Iran fiasco laid bare (no WMDs two times in a row???), we see that many in the traditional media bungled their coverage again, swallowing the White House spin and helping to re-mislead an entire country in the process. Where else but the media could so many people be so wrong yet still keep their jobs? I mean, besides weather forecasters.
JEERS to Reverend Getaclue. I guess there's a reason Mike Huckabee is called the dark horse candidate---he's literally in the dark. His reaction to WWIIIGate: I know nnnnothing! I see nnnnothing!:
"I don’t know where the intelligence is coming from that says that they suspended the program and how credible that is versus the news that they actually are expanding it," [Huckabee] said. "And then I’ve heard the last two weeks supposed reports that say that they are accelerating and could be having a reactor in a much shorter period of time than originally they thought."
He added: "But I think our major task now is finding out where Saddam Hussein is hiding and bring him to justice." Huckamentum!
CHEERS to sweet victory. On December 5, 1792, George Washington won reelection. It was a brutal campaign. His challenger was a real jerkoff named...um...George Washington. Watching him debate himself was actually a little creepy. ("Shan't! Shall! Shan't! Shall! Thy wife weareth the boots of a paymaster in the Continental Army!" "Okay, okay...thou hast me there.")
JEERS to America: Land of the paranoid, home of the neurotic. In today's must-read, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson summarizes what the last seven years has done to this country: turned us---most of us, anyway, including Democrats in Congress---into a bunch of cowering weenies:
We Americans like to think of ourselves as strong, rugged and supremely confident---a nation of Marlboro Men and Marlboro Women, minus the cigarettes and the lung cancer. So why do we increasingly find ourselves hunkered behind walls, popping pills by the handful to stave off diseases we might never contract and eyeing the rest of the world with an us-or-them suspicion that borders on the pathological?
Last week, I heard some of the nation's leading cultural anthropologists try to explain these and other phenomena. I came away convinced that we, as a nation, definitely should seek professional help. ...
We're afraid of one another, we're afraid of the rest of the world, we're afraid of getting sick, we're afraid of dying. Maybe if we study our insecurities and confront them, we'll learn to keep them in check. Before we turn the whole nation into one big, paranoid gated community, maybe we'll learn that life isn't really any better behind the walls.
Which reminds me: I need to talk to my paper carrier. He keeps delivering it to the wrong bunker.
CHEERS to Planet of the Apes '07. Great news. The U.S. is helping the government of Congo to create an 11,000-acre sanctuary for some special ancestors:
"This is a monumental step towards saving a significant portion of the world's second largest rainforest, of critical importance to the survival not only of humankind's closest great ape relative, the bonobo, but to all life on Earth given the increasing threat of climate change," said Sally Jewell Coxe, president and co-founder of the Bonobo Conservation Initiative.
Bonobos are distinguished by their peaceful, cooperative, matriarchal society, intelligence, and sexual nature. Other than humans, bonobos are the only primates known to have sex not only for procreation, but also for pleasure and conflict resolution---and with members of either sex.
Of course they’re some of the most revered creatures on Earth: they're liberals!
CHEERS to Karl Rove. He just keeps on slingin' that line of crap that says the White House didn't want to vote on the Iraq war resolution until after the 2002 mid-term elections. Keep talkin', pal. The more people see of you the more they'll realize just how insane your whole party is. For Christmas I'm getting him a megaphone.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Kossack Annrose wonders: When is an Egg Not an Egg?
Thursdays.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers...
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
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CHEERS to the end of the dark times. 74 years ago, Americans crowded into bars to buy their first legal alcoholic beverages in 13 years, following the repeal of Prohibition. I'll drink to that. Then again, I'll drink to anything.
JEERS to overexposure. I wake up in the morning and Dr. Robert Jarvik is standing over my bed taking my blood pressure. He'll appear approximately a thousand times on the teevee throughout the day asking about my cholesterol level. He'll stare at me in countless web and magazine ads, and tell me I'm not doing enough to protect my heart if I'm not sucking down handfuls of some pharmaceutical drug. Before long I'll need one of his patented artificial hearts, because mine's gonna go kablooey if he keeps this up.
CHEERS to "Martin Van Ruin." The 8th president---who prevented a third war with Britain but did nothing during the panic of 1837---turns 225 today (but he doesn’t look a day over 180). Anyone who thinks Hillary Clinton is a waffler should read this from The Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents by Cormac O'Brien. She ain't got nothin' on this guy:
Martin Van Buren was renowned for not taking a stand. One story, which Van Buren admits to in his autobiography, tells how one senator accepted a bet that he could actually make Van Buren admit to something with finality. "It's been rumored that the sun rises in the east," said the senator to Van Buren. "Do you believe it?" "Well, Senator," came the reply, "I understand that's the common acceptance, but as I never get up till after dawn, I can't really say."
Nicely played, sir! Now go say hi to the old man.
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One Year Ago in C&J: December 5, 2006...
CHEERS to snail-mail democracy. (via Crooks and Liars) In today's must-read Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury makes a mighty persuasive argument for voting by mail:
The system has proven to be fraud-free. Oregon is one of only two states in the nation to verify every single voter signature against the signature on that voter's registration card. Our process is transparent and open to observation. Finally, the returned paper ballots, which are the official record of the election, can be recounted by hand.
With voting by mail, Oregon's turnout is consistently among the highest of any state without same-day voter registration. We don't suffer with long lines at polling places, with voter harassment or intimidation, with fears about malfunctioning or easily hacked voting machines, or from lack of a paper trail. ...Voting by mail is also a cost-effective way to run elections, costing taxpayers about 30 percent less than polling-place elections.
Election days were originally scheduled on Tuesdays because that was when farmers brought their crops into town to sell. Today on an average Tuesday people balance multiple jobs, soccer practice and child care. Voting by mail gives them ample opportunity to stay engaged in our most crucial democratic process.
And if you get nostalgic for the old voting-booth atmosphere, no problem. Just fill out the ballot behind your shower curtain.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to homemade bombs. Joel over at Turn Maine Blue has produced a 30-second ad that simply and effectively paints Senator Susan Collins as a useful idiot for George and Dick's seven-year reign of terror and error. This kind nof positioning should be the blueprint for the Allen camp (they assure me it is). I think it's worth going viral for, don't you? Cut and paste and pass it on...
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Ha....ppy Hanukkah!! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"There are still many people, including many biologists, who believe that Bill in Portland Maine is superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions."
---Tetsuro Matsuzawa
Kyoto University
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