From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Aaaaaand...They're Off!
Day 1 begins, and our fondest wish for attendees at Netroots Nation in Vegas is that time doesn’t whiz by with the same speeding-bulletness of past years. (If you're not able to be there in person, you can follow the action online, including a plethora of livestreams.) Just remember the #1 rule: Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Look for the drinking fountains marked "single malt" and top off your sippy cups often!
Y'know what was a blur for me? Austin '08. I cannot believe it's been two years since I gripped 'n grinned with Al Gore, swooned over Paul Krugman's Birkenstock-wrapped toes, and got to personally thank John Dean for his testimony during the Watergate hearings, which I watched with my mom when I was nine. Austin was Ausome. And in Part 2 of our look back at the ghosts of Netroots Nation conventions past, here are some of my notes from that zany time in The City That Never Sleeps Without Air Conditioning:
>> The event was insanely well-organized and orderly, especially the anarchy workshop.
>> Austin was hot. An oppressive, prickly, stifling, blast-furnace heat that instantly turned human hair to glass. But at least the humidity was in check.
>> In my swag bag I received a condom with a note on the wrapper that said, "Protect the U.S. Constitution." I wasn't aware that the founding fathers wrote it on a penis.
>> The capitol of the Lone Star State has an obsession with their "lone star." They plaster stars on trash cans, planters, sewer covers, sprinkler heads, trolleys, buses, banners, fences, road signs, park benches, toilet paper, doormats, baby strollers, babies, footwear, office buildings, churches, mugs, bricks, lampposts, shirts, purses and dog collars. They don’t have stoplights, they have starlights. Buy a can of Campbell's Chicken with Stars soup in Austin and you get a tablespoon of broth and a giant pasta star that weighs half a pound. Whoa. That's some serious star envy.
>> The boxed lunches had names like "The Norwegian" and "The Wellington," but there was nothing labeled "The American." I guess they couldn't round up enough transfats and high-fructose corn syrup in time.
>> There was a right-wing "counter-conference" in Austin at the same time as Netroots Nation. It sucked so bad that Bob Barr came to our place instead, and even Michelle Malkin closed her laptop and spent an afternoon pole dancing for airfare home.
>> John Dean can catch flies with a pair of chopsticks. Richard Clarke can stop your heartbeat with his index finger. Don Siegelman is always the classiest guy in any room unless Jotter's there. Darcy Burner and Donna Edwards must be cloned forthwith. And if you meet Jim Hightower and don’t want to pinch his cheeks you're not human.
By the Numbers: Netroots Nation '08---Austin
Official organizers' estimate of attendance at the Netroots Nation convention: 2,500
Number of political or advocacy web sites that, according to their owners at NN, I must go to right now to "register, donate and volunteer just 2 hours of your time per week": 185
Chance that the Austin Hilton Hotel has a 13th floor: 100%
Average number of skin layers that were rubbed off the average attendees' knuckles from all the fist-bumping: 2
Percent of Austin Carriage Service's Percheron horses that are liberals: 90% (one's a Libertarian)
Oh, and reporter Patrick Beach of the Austin American-Statesman probably doesn’t want me to remind you of this. Whoops! Too late.
And the most treasured prize from our Austin C&J autograph book:
"Just quit already."
---Markos Moulitsas
You kids have fun in Vegas. Someone keep an eye on McMom---I have a feeling she might go rogue.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, July 22, 2010
Note: A quick heads-up that there will be no C&J on Monday as I'll be using the day to silence the voices in my head. Back Tuesday in a Zenlike state.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Chelsea Clinton's wedding: 9
Days `til the Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio: 15
Percent of Americans who believe World War III will break out by 2050: 58%
Percent who believe Jesus will return to Earth by 2050: 41%
(Source: Pew/Smithsonian via The Week)
Length of the Autobahn between Dortmund and Bochum, Germany that was closed to traffic to make way for a cultural celebration that attracted 3 million people: 37 miles
Minimum number of soda cans full of crude everyone would get if all of the oil choking the Gulf of Mexico was divided up equally among America's citizens: 4
(Source: AP science writer Seth Borenstein)
Forecast high today in Las Vegas: 105
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
His entire first eight months was tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich, and he lied and said the tax cuts would help average Americans. Again and again, the "average" tax cut would be $1,000. That means you get $100 and the millionaire gets $92,000, and that's how they "averaged" it out. Then came 9/11, and we all rallied. Ready to give blood, get out of our cars and ride bicycles, whatever. Shop, said the president. And more tax cuts for the rich.
---November, 2003
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Arson dog training in Maine:
[Winchester the 11 year-old chocolate lab's] most famous case was a triple homicide in 2002. He detected an accelerant on a man who initially was considered a witness, rather than a suspect. "It's like watching your kid hit a home run when he does a good job," said Steve Gallagher, his handler, "whether it's conviction or exoneration."
Needless to say, the firebugs are keeping a low profile here this week.
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CHEERS to inkin' the deal. [Yawn] Another day of the Obama administration, another piece of landmark legislation signed into law. Yesterday the president green-lighted the historic Dodd-Frank bill yesterday, giving the government a little more muscle to deal with Wall Street shenanigans. There was a bit of tension, out of microphone range, just before the signing, however. C&J is really good at lip-reading, though, and we publish this EXCLUSIVE transcript of what went down::
"Hey, Chris, buddy, I thought we agreed to call it the Frank-Dodd bill."
"No, Barney, we agreed on Dodd-Frank."
"You may have agreed on Dodd-Frank, but I distinctly remember hearing no objections to Frank-Dodd on the floor of the House."
"That's because I work in the Senate, Barney!"
"Frank-Dodd!"
"Dodd-Frank!"
"Frank-Dodd!"
"Frank-Dodd!"
"Dodd-Frank and that's FINAL! Um...wait. What did you just do there?"
But they both got a free pen from the president so everybody's happy. Even Wall Street. That's what scares me.
CHEERS to an intimate slot-machine-lit dinner. Last night "that silly hippie convention" unofficially got underway when several dozen Netroots Nation attendees were joined by hundreds of livebloggers for the---I believe I can now use the word "legendary"---C&J Dinner at the Carnival World Buffet in Vegas. A few highlights:
"The buffet had orange gelato!"
LMAO @ Markos' quads... with some fava beans...
I ate too much .. but I gotta say, sushi goes well with Swedish meat balls .. and flan
Oooh. Shame none of them have any body hair.
Um, Jotter? That sling, I believe, is for your ass.
Sooo...am blogging while watching a livestream of someone else blogging and responding to it . . . George Jetson, eat your heart out.
Super CHEERS to Navajo and Vicki for herding all the cats and posting the damning evidence super pics. Oh, and I hope someone remembered to put a commemorative plaque on my high chair. It's---[sniff]---just like the one I blog from at home.
JEERS to a very crowded bench. Did you hear about this? The Senate rejected the president's proposal to enlarge the Supreme Court by six(!) justices. His plan was denounced as "court-packing" by critics, and we agree. Shaaaaame on you, Mr. President! FDR, that is...July 22, 1937. But nice try.
CHEERS to the right outcome. Tom Vilsack's press conference yesterday---during which he apologized profusely and unequivicolly to Shirley Sherrod and offered to rehire her---sent a very important message: Andrew Breitbart and Fox News lost. Lost big. Fell hard. Got knocked on their asses by their own boomerang. Vilsack and the NAACP corrected their mistake and said they were sorry. They learned from their mistake. But Breitbart and Fox News (Shep Smith excluded to his credit) just dug their heels in deeper. So the next time they level bullshit charges against innocent people or organizations, all anyone has to do is point the finger at the Sherrod debacle and ask themselves, "What are they hiding? How are they lying? Why should anyone take these right-wing sleaze merchants seriously?" Because this time---unlike the Van Jones or the ACORN incidents---the mighty bad guys have struck out.
P.S. And I'm adopting Shirley as my honorary aunt. I hope to meet her one day so she can pinch my cheeks.
CHEERS to nabbing the #1 gangsta. On July 22, 1934, John Dillinger was gunned down after watching a movie at Chicago's Biograph Theatre. His final words: "What...you couldn'ta shot me before I wasted my money on The Last Airbender? Gee, thanks."
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. The AP's Leanne Italie asks: Can fart jokes save the reading souls of boys?
Yes.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
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CHEERS to purty rhymin' wurds. On this date in 1893, Katherine Lee Bates---a college-educated, latte-slurping Cape Cod liberal elitist---wrote the poem America the Beautiful after visiting Pikes Peak. It was later set to the hymn "Materna" by Samuel Ward. But only because the guy who wrote "Macarena" held out for more money.
JEERS to the idiot who cried "Help!" Oh noes! Five scary black people assaulted and raped a white woman right here in Maine! She said so herself! The police scrambled to catch the terrible, terrible black thugs and haul them off to jail. Parents clutched their children and sirens wailed! The Chief of Police even called a press conference! Just one little problem: it never happened. The woman admitted that she totally made it up. Police say they grew suspicious of her original story when they remembered that Maine doesn’t have five black people.
CHEERS to the man who wanted to be #43. Happy 87th birthday to Bob Dole. Perhaps the best thing he ever said was:
"If you're hanging around with nothing to do and the zoo is closed, come over to the Senate. You'll get the same kind of feeling and you won't have to pay."
And if the Senate's closed, the House is right next door. (But please don't feed the Boehner.)
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Five years ago in C&J: July 22, 2005
CHEERS to pushing back. America's governors say national ID cards are a great big suck-o-rama and they're mad as hornets. Says Mike Huckabee, Republican from Arkansas, "They have created a national nightmare and they'll probably be driving up the cost of the driver's licenses by three- or four-fold." To be continued...right, guys?
JEERS to losing our favorite engineer. Oh, this hurts. James Doohan---aka Montgomery Scott of the very real world of Star Trek (and don't tell me otherwise)---has died at 85. When all seemed lost, you could always count on him to patch things up in a pinch. "Earth to St. Peter...one to beam up."
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And just one more...
CHEERS to riding the president's "cone"-tails. So the conventional beltway wisdom is that Barack Obama can no longer be counted on to generate a "bump" for those he supports. Well, to that I say poppycock! Last weekend he took the family up to Bar Harbor, Maine for a little weekend vacation. (Have you noticed he's taken only a tiny fraction of the vacation time that Bush took? I have.) And his presence was felt:
Since the president's vacation on Mount Desert Island last weekend, more and more Mainers and visitors have been saying, "I'll have what he had." Mount Desert Island Ice Cream has had a strong increase in sales since President Obama and his family visited one of its stores in Bar Harbor on Friday night.
"We've got the 'Obama Bump,'" said state Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, who manages the creamery's Portland location on Exchange Street. On Saturday, the day after the Obamas' visit, sales in Portland roughly doubled Friday's sales, Russell said.
Suck on that, critics. Specifically, suck on "[C]oconut ice cream, made with sweet cream ice cream, coconut milk and toasted coconut." Mmmm...tasty. Oh, and if you're out of quarters for the parking meter outside the store, go in and see Hope. She'll give ya change.
Have a Thursday. Any Thursday will do. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
This is how the right wing does it. They pay Bill in Portland Maine to clean for them, to cook for them, to drive for them and now: to punch for them.
---Rep. Alan Grayson
7/21/10
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