Cheers and Jeers: Tuesday
Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 04:39:26 AM PDT
From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Lieberlogic!
When Barack Obama says...
"My interest is in making sure that we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices. ... If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage---I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done."
Joe Lieberman says...
What he---what Barack Obama did over the weekend about offshore drilling is a tease.
But when John McCain says, "Senator Obama will raise your taxes, I won't," and later says "Everything's on the table," Joe Lieberman says...
John McCain has said very clearly he doesn't want to raise any taxes, but he's also said, because he's a great negotiator, "I want to sit down with everybody the way Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did in the '80s, and we're going to solve this problem."
The Democrat is a "tease." The Republican is a "great negotiator."
And 1 + 1 = 3.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Note: There will never be a book of embarrassing verbal gaffes published called Obamaisms.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Summer Olympic games in Peking: 3
Days `til the 27th annual Maine Antiques Festival: 3
Number of laws the 110th Congress passed: 260
Number of them that were to rename post offices: 74
(Source: Parade magazine)
Percent of voters who think Obama would do a better job on energy: 41%
Percent who think McCain would: 28%
(Source: USA Today poll)
Percent of the nation's lobster catch that comes from Maine: 80%
(Source: Portland Press Herald)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
"Rampant homosexuality is one of the last signs that judgment is at the door. Not many realize this, but there is only one time in human history that homosexual marriage was legalized and was the norm. No, it was not in the days of Lot. It was in the days of Noah. And what did Jesus tell us? He said that the end would be "as in the days of Noah". Christians in America will see judgment and persecution before God takes us home. Work doubly hard on this issue, Friends. More is riding on this than we can even imagine right now."
---Commenter at OneNewsNow. (h/t Kossack cynic)
All together now: One...two...three... Classy!!!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: (via Kossack Noahdb) Lying down with the lamb
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CHEERS to firing back. Let's hope this new Obama ad is a sign of things to come. It's a simple narrative that's easy for the common folk to understand: John McCain = George W. Bush's third term. If they train their guns on telling that story we win big. Stray from it and we may damn well lose. (Truth be told, there is an alternate narrative, but I don't think we're at the point where we need to play the "McCain and prostitute drown kittens so slave child labor can produce fur coats in Iran" card. Yet.)
JEERS to the second wave. Thank god our plunge over the subprime-mortgage waterfall is over, eh? Now we can all take a deep breath and...Whoaaaaaaaohhhhh!!!
The first wave of Americans to default on their home mortgages appears to be cresting, but a second, far larger one is quickly building. ...
The percentage of mortgages in arrears in the category of loans one rung above subprime, so-called alternative-A mortgages, quadrupled to 12 percent in April from a year earlier. Delinquencies among prime loans, which account for most of the $12 trillion market, doubled to 2.7 percent in that time.
Mommy, I don’t like this ride anymore.
CHEERS to possessors of off-the-charts courage. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote about the horrors of Stalin's work camps (okay, okay...so there is something that makes Guantanamo look like a country club in comparison) at a time when to do so was---to put it mildly---a "nyet nyet." So, while we're sad he died, we're happy that he spent nearly 20 happy years here in the states and returned to Russia a hero. But if I may add a bittersweet note: I got docked more points in high school and college for misspelling his name on tests and reports than I can count. Alexander Smith would've had such a nice ring to it.
JEERS to stupid white men. On August 5, 1994, Kenneth Starr, solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush, was named as independent prosecutor investigating Whitewater. His final report said virtually nothing about that non-scandal. But it did mention the word `sex' over 500 times. Are there any Republicans who aren't perverts?
JEERS to giving up. Americans didn’t shop as much in June, says the Commerce Department. Mr. Terrorist, meet Mr. Welcome Mat.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
This is another edition of George Will Says The Darndest Things! This line from Sunday's Washington Post column is a classic:
After eight years, if such there are, of an Obama presidency, if such there is, the world will look much as it does today---if we are lucky.
Craaaaaap...TACULAR!
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
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CHEERS to smart war management. 147 years ago today, in 1861, President Lincoln signed into law the first federal income tax. He felt it was fiscally responsible because we were in the middle of a civil war. How twisted is it that today's Republican party would brand a man like him a tax-and-spend liberal?
JEERS to sad departures. A bit of sadness around these parts as an era comes to a close. Sunday the president departed from the airport in Sanford, Maine, where he's landed for the last eight years (add in the four years his daddy made the trip and that's 12 years in the last 20). The residents are fighting back tears because it was probably the final farewell. And by that, of course, I mean the final farewell to Air Force One. A lovely, elegant bird. As for the Bushes, dragging them to the New Hampshire border on a horse-drawn rail would've been our preferred mode of transportation.
CHEERS to the thrill of victory. On August 5, 1923, Henry Sullivan became the first American to swim across the English Channel. The feat occurred moments after someone put a bowl of kidney pudding in front of him.
CHEERS to Liebermans who work for good, not evil. This is cool---a NASA veteran, who has a last name that normally draws catcalls from the DKos crowd, has developed what could be the most revolutionary invention from the space program since freeze-dried ice cream:
Scientists working to help astronauts regain balance after extended flights in zero gravity say they've found a way to use the research to help elderly people avoid catastrophic falls. An "iShoe" insole contains sensors that read how well a person is balancing. The point is to gather information for doctors and to get people to a specialist---before they fall.
Erez Lieberman, a graduate student who developed the technology while working as an intern at NASA, says a damaging fall is preceded by numerous warnings, similar to how high cholesterol and elevated blood pressure point to a coming heart attack. ... The National Osteoporosis Foundation estimates 300,000 people annually suffer hip fractures, which are often caused by falls.
There's also a version of the iShoe that's designed for bar hoppers. Instead of sophisticated monitoring software, it just comes equipped with a kickstand.
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Two Years Ago in C&J: August 5, 2006...
CHEERS to new candidate same as the old candidate. An appeals court has ruled that Tom "Cut And Run" DeLay has to stay on the ballot in Texas. As Kos says, "DeLay will now have to move back to Texas to run for his old seat, and be forced to explain to his district's voters why he was so eager to abandon them for the life of the lobbyist in the DC suburbs." I may even contribute 50¢ to his campaign just for the pleasure of watching this.
CHEERS to doing the right thing. Last night, by a vote of 56 to 42, the Senate said "No, Dammit!" to a toxic minimum wage bill that included the "poison pill" estate tax repeal. Republicans, claiming they've outfoxed Democrats, can now run around during their campaigns saying, "Look! They voted down yer minimum wage hike!" In reality, they've "outfoxed" millions of poor people who haven't seen a minimum-wage increase in nearly a decade. In other news, D.C. sanitation crews spent 6 hours last night cleaning up a mysterious proliferation of champagne bottles along K Street.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to my August 5 birthday posse. Neil Armstrong. Director John Huston. Loni Anderson. Patrick Ewing. The Elephant Man. And one or two others. After we swarm Denny's for our birthday discount (44 percent for me, so make it two Grand Slams!), we intend to spend time stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. And since then the poor will be rich, we'll do it all over again in reverse. But only up until our 9am tee time.
P.S. Also on this date Marilyn Monroe, Carmen Miranda, Alec Guinness and Richard Burton died. Maybe I'll just go back to bed instead.
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Oh, and Randy Newman's new CD, Harps & Angels, comes out today, and it's already in the Amazon Top 10. I hope he does a disco version of Short People. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"First, let me say that Bill in Portland Maine remains all-male. There's no question about that. Secondly, he, he's, he's as smart, curious and intellectually alert as possible."
---Joe Lieberman
8/3/08
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