Japan disaster relief sites list
From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Little Gay Billy's BIG Gay News-O-Rama!
The House bill has at least 105 original co-sponsors. We're sure Mr. Maher regrets the error. With love.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Note: Hey, this is super funny. When writing about some loser candidate, call them a "candudate." My liquor came up with that all by itself!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the new launch date of the Shuttle Endeavour: 23
Days `til the Netroots Nation convention in Minneapolis June 16-19: 71
Portion of residents in America who are Hispanic: 1-in-6
Increase since 2000: 32%
(Source: Census Bureau via MSNBC)
Average major league baseball game length in 1952: 2 hrs. 26 mins.
Average major league baseball game length in 2010: 2 hrs. 55 mins.
(Source: Time)
Amount for which Muzak was sold to Canada's Mood Music: $345 million
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 183 (including 5 Satanisms and 2 evil numbers). Soul Protection Factor 30 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Firm hand/paw shake to #500.
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CHEERS to the new chair… Wait for it… Woman! Don’t get me wrong, Tim Kaine had some real killer moments as DNC chairman. But he also seemed almost invisible for long stretches. I couldn’t really tell you what kind of stamp he put on the organization, could you? What is the "Tim Kaine era?" Who knows? So what a happy surprise to read that Florida congresswoman and---say it loud and say it proud---liberal firebrand Debbie Wasserman Schultz is taking the helm for the next election season:
Wasserman Schultz, 44, was chosen for her strength as a fundraiser and as a television messenger and for her clout in the crucial swing state of Florida, the sources said.
Wasserman Schultz becomes the first female DNC chief in 15 years and the third in history. The congresswoman is beloved by the Democratic rank and file for her aggressive, outspoken advocacy for liberal points of view. She’s frequently deployed as a surrogate, particularly to groups of women and Jewish voters. “Since she was first elected to Congress in 2004, Debbie Wasserman Schultz has emerged as one of the most outspoken leaders in the Democratic Party,” Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said in a statement.
A lovely and thoughtful gesture to the base from President Obama. I only wish he'd warned me first because I just had a little accident. Yes...pander pee.
JEERS to number crunching…and squishing and squashing and making up altogether. The Republicans unveiled their 2012 budget yesterday. The cocktail-napkin formula: destruction of social safety net + extraction of America's soul + screw the least among us + bestow gold and jewels on the richest among us – regulation x barely-concealed sadism = a rainbow in every back yard and a unicorn in every garage. But only if you squint hard enough and chew enough peyote.
CHEERS to the rumble in the jungle. Yes, in the savage, humid, unforgiving jungles of Wisconsin, David Prosser thought he'd coast to an easy victory in his state Supreme Court race. Instead, last night he ended up biting his fingernails down to the nub and this morning he finds himself facing an almost-certain recount in his race against Joanne Kloppenburg. The latest I've read is that what's separating the two at the moment is 600 votes. Correction: 600 votes and one of them isn’t a stooge for the current governor.
JEERS to stupid human tricks. If you haven't heard yet, here's my understanding of what happened from a non-religious person's perspective:
1) An unhinged, universally-despised religious kook in Florida burns a Koran.
2) Afghanistan gets wind of it (yeah, that's right, Terry Jones, you idiot---the Taliban knows how to use the Twitter) and a bunch of people there freak…out!
3) And by freak out I mean kill a bunch of people, including U.N. workers. The equivilent of getting bit by a mosquito and taking it out on the butterflies.
4) American right-wingers get wind of what the Afghans did and freak…out!
5) And by freak out I mean scream at American Muslims for allowing the Afghan Muslims to kill a bunch of people, or at least tacitly allowing them to by not going over there and personally stopping them.
6) The aliens from Planet Quaarkan-7 abort their landing, deeming Earth still too unstable to explore.
And then it gets weird.
CHEERS to little reminders. Thirty-one years ago today, Post-It Notes were introduced by 3M. The road to market was a textbook case of serendipity. Little-known fact: A Post-It Note is expected to play a role in archiving 43's accomplishments at the George W. Bush Preznidential Libary:
Took Oath. Broke Stuff.
Took Oath Again. Broke More Stuff.
Meanwhile 73 years ago Roy Plunkett invented Teflon. It has saved many a meal...and many a presidency.
CHEERS to friends in high places. Hey, guess who's a huge fan of unions? None other than retired "Miracle on the Hudson" pilot and airline safety instructor Chesley Sullenberger. From last Thursday's edition of The Ed Show:
As an airline pilot, I was a proud union member for over 30 years. I saw that even at good companies, it levels the playing field. No individual can stand up to the power of the organization of management. It‘s only collectively we have an effective voice. You know what? People should have a say in how they live their work lives. It has important other benefits.
First of all, having a collective bargaining agreement provides a defined mechanism for resolving disputes. I was a member of a safety committee. And over the years, we did many important things, made many important safety contributions that would not have happened had we not been organized.
That's what you call "Instant 30-Second Ad in a Box." (Just add money and airtime and watch the union support grow...)
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Six years ago in C&J: April 6, 2005
JEERS to the coming whitewash. Certain provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire in December, and Congress is reviewing them this week. By "reviewing," we mean using them as coasters for their martinis. So keep ratting on your neighbors, kids---it's the American way.
JEERS to the company we keep. The Observer writes an update on the Iraqi spy---code-named "Curveball"---whom the GOP neocons embraced as a credible source for justifying the Iraq war. Man, what's this world coming to when you can't trust crazy drunken liars for intel anymore? [4/6/11 Update: Six years later, he comes out and admits he lied to get his war on. Well, at least no one was killed and the damage was minimal.]
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And just one more…
JEERS to things you, trust me, don’t want to see for the first time. I saw a lady get hit by a car yesterday. We'd gotten off the bus together on Forest Avenue, which is one of the busiest streets in Maine, and we both had to play Frogger cross it. The left lane was clear, the right lane was not. I stayed put, she ventured out. She thought a car would stop for her. She was wrong. The bumper hit her in the knee with a dull Thwump. She didn’t fly onto the hood, she just kind of went ass-over-teakettle and landed on her butt. I literally had to put my arms up to get traffic to slow down so I could get across the street to help the driver help the lady. Using the two of us as crutches, she hobbled out of the street and we sat her on a bench in front of the restaurant at the corner. Her knee hurt, she said. We lifted her pant leg---the skin was a shade of blue that you instinctively know belongs on a Na'vi, not a human. The cops came, sirens blaring. One of 'em had a nametag that said (not kidding) "Reagan." I was half hoping to hear the lady say to him, "Honey, I forgot to duck." They took my name and number. I would've taken theirs, too, if they'd been strippers during their off-hours, but no such luck. The lady will eventually be fine, I'm guessing---I just hope nothing's broken. And today I think I'll scoop Thinking Fella and say that, after watching someone's life pass before their eyes yesterday, "It's a great day to be alive."
Have a nice Wednesday. Fight the power…ayuh! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"I think that Cheers and Jeers is driving what goes on in the House of Representatives. And we cannot do what they want done."
---Sen. Harry Reid
3/5/11
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