From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Same Planet, Different Worlds
How American conservative leaders view gay rights:
What gay people do in the privacy of their home should be a crime.
Gays are icky!
Hell, gays aren't even citizens.
Venkman: A disaster of biblical proportions!
Mayor: What do you mean biblical?
Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes!
Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
How British conservative leaders view gay rights:
David Cameron pledged his support for gay rights tonight before jokingly referring to his deputy, Nick Clegg, as 'my own civil partner'. Gay celebrities and members of the Armed Forces partied at Number 10 as Mr Cameron became the first Tory Prime Minister to reach out to the gay community. ...
Gay representatives of all three branches of the Armed Forces also attended, in full uniform. ...
Mr Cameron told guests that he backed 'equal rights and equal treatment', adding: 'I'm standing here as leader of the Conservative Party that has not always got that right.' ... The event was held as the Government unveiled a 'Transgender Action Plan' to crack down on discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals.
---The Daily Mail
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We have reached a point where an individual's sexuality does not make them more or less welcome in one party or another. You no longer have to vote Labour or Lib Dem just because you are gay, out of gratitude for reforms or fear of what a Tory government might do.
---Julian Glover in The Guardian
As gay pride month comes to a close, there's still a lot of work to be done on this side of the pond towards achieving equality for GLBT Americans. I just never thought I'd find the how-to manual sitting on the bookshelf of Britain's right-wingers, who make ours (and even some on the left) look like complete and total---oh, what's the word?---wankers.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Note: Y'know what this blog needs? More bunting.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the major league all-star game at Angel Stadium: 13
Days `til the Grainger County Tomato Festival in Tennessee: 16
Number of Supreme Court justices, out of the 111 who've served, who did not have experience as a judge: 38
(Source: Parade)
Tax on a pack of cigarettes in New York now, and the approximate total cost of a pack in New York City: $4.35, $11.00
Approximate number of tickets that will be available for the 2012 Olympic Games in London: 8 million
Percent of Americans who, respectively, favor and don’t favor the start of a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in July of 2011: 58%, 38%
President Obama's overall approval rating: 46%
(Source: USA Today/Gallup poll)
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 171 (including 4 Nuclear Nations and 1 bit of evidence that the Rapture will be executed by PowerPoint). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Dangerous thugs
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CHEERS to the brightest bulb in the room. I mean it---Elena Kagan is lighting up the committee room at her Senate confirmation hearings. She's not entirely dodging answers, she's not defensive or hesitant as she speaks, and she's also pretty funny:
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked the solicitor general where she was Christmas Eve during a discussion about the bombing attempt of an airliner in Detroit.
"Like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant," Kagan quipped.
A woman after my own heart---and I'm Episcopalian! When you're confirmed, ma'am, the kumg pao chicken with pea pods and crab rangoons are on me.
P.S. You do know Jeff Sessions cries himself to sleep every night, don’t you?
CHEERS to the new guy in charge. Here is the entire transcript of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings to confirm General David Petraeus yesterday:
Petraeus: Good morning.
Chairman: Well, I've heard enough. All those in favor say 'Aye.'
Committee in Unison: AYE!!!!!!
Tough bunch.
JEERS to the new red menace. What's even scarier than pirates, bears, global warming or the words "Hi, I'm Rand Paul and I'll be your ophthalmologist"? I'll tell ya: Russian spies!!! It was an amazingly sneaky ring. There were ten in all, each neatly stacked one inside the other. (Sadly, the Feds haven’t found damning microfilm in any pumpkins yet. Oh, but they will. By god, they will!)
CHEERS to fun with math. Einstein's theory of relativity was presented 105 years ago today. His words:
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."
Obviously he never spent an hour with Sarah Palin. That'd be relatively interminable.
JEERS to legislating from the Pulpit 'O Cuckoo. U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle---the greatest gift ever given to Harry Reid because she makes him look like Neil Armstrong, Elvis and George Washington all rolled into one by comparison---has a little message for you womenfolk: your vagina is God's property and he'll decide which penis will impregnate you, and if happens to be your daddy's, well, that's because he loves you so very, very much, and if having the baby means you die in the process, well, that means you get to enter the Kingdom of Heaven that much faster and isn’t that WONDERFUL! I suggest you tape that to your refrigerator so you won’t forget it. That Sharron Angle is a monster, I mean.
CHEERS to sending in the cavalry that talks funny. Golly, it only took 71 days for the United States to accept aid from the international community to help clean up the oil. Sing it, Hillary:
The State Department says 12 countries and international organizations are helping with the Gulf oil disaster. The particulars of the help are being worked out. The only nation identified was Japan, which is providing two high-speed skimmers and fire-containment boom.
We're gonna need a helluva lot more help from them ferriners by the time it's over (2075), but for now, eh, it's better'n a poke in the eye with a sharp tarball. Meanwhile, take a gander at the container ship that may be headed there soon: they call it A Whale, and it can remove the oil from 15 million gallons of fouled water per day. To put that in perspective, it's the same as removing the bullshit from a thousand BP press releases. Yeah...huge!
P.S. Great news! Month 1 of hurricane season is over!!! Pay no attention to the five months remaining or you'll kill the buzz.
JEERS to he who is laughing last. On June 30, 1520, Montezuma II was murdered as Spanish conquistadors fled the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. Today he gets his revenge by inflicting diarrhea on tourists who visit Mexico and drink the water. Coincidentally, European tourists who visit America experience the same effect when they walk into a bank and convert their Euros to dollars.
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Five years ago in C&J: June 30, 2005
JEERS to déjà vu all over again. Maine's Christian Civic League got the 50,000+ signatures it needed to put our new gay rights law to a citizens referendum on the November ballot. This will be the third time, and once again the knuckledraggers will show up in force and Maine will go back to being the only New England state without basic protections for gay people. Say what you will...our Bible-thumpers are tenacious. Like root rot. [6/30/10 Update: the Bible-thumpers lost. We won. Funny how all the dire predictions they warned about (locusts, recruiting children, the usual pablum) haven't come to pass. That's 'cause we're biding our time...heh heh heh.]
CHEERS to leading by example. Meanwhile, up in the land where oxygen actually reaches their politicians' brains, Canada's House of Commons passed a law last night that allows for gay marriage throughout the country. A few opponents on the far right were so outraged they actually raised an eyebrow.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to flipping the b...whoa---that ain't no bird!! (Warning: images might not be safe for work unless you work at a condom factory or make Viagra or Cialis.) Over in St. Petersburg, Russia, protestors upset about an increase in police powers got, um, creative. Instead of the usual chanting in the streets or work stoppage, they gathered a few buckets of paint and drew a giant penis on a drawbridge. A drawbridge, you might recall from your third-grade engineering classes, goes up...and down....and up...and down...all the livelong day. Although the head of the paint crew was apprehended and fined, police are still looking for the person whose penis mocks the security building several times a day. We have two words for investigators: sketch artist. No need to thank me, Ivan. I'm just here to help.
Have a nice Wednesday. Take time to understand thine enemy. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Cheers and Jeers gets such a bum rap; more people would likely read it if it were marketed as elegant Jell-O.
---Eatocracy
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