Today is Bloomsday. Guinness ate my liver for breakfast in commemoration. I have made exactly five attempts to read Joyce's Ulysses, all of them blissfully unsuccessful.
Welcome to Awards Edition Plus, your one-stop snark shop for politics and the hacks who make us do teh facepalm. This week, AEP is a placeholder for the venerable Cheers and Jeers while Bill in Portland Maine is [getting sloshed] doing important work at Netroots Nation.
Today in Awards Edition Plus:
AEP Executive Editor Sirius the Cat speaks her mind on conventions, News of Dubious Veracity Department makes us wonder if fiction sometimes is stranger than truth, a cartoon from the AEP vault by Cartoon Editor ericlewis0 and of course.....
The Golden Douchenozzle Award. OK, this time I decided to say it. Hope it's safe for work....
Skip gaily over the squiggly do-dad with me and let's get a-going....
Totally Off-Topic Department
I have a little equation for everyone......
Boston Bruins+Tim Thomas/Canucks=Stanley Cup
Now, before you start setting cars on fire, I just want to say that the Canucks are a great hockey team. It was a good fight. But as a life-long Bruins fan--even when they sucked, which has been, oh, I don't know, thirty years?-- I haven't been this pleased since the days of Bobby Orr.
You know why the Bruins got so good lately, though, right? It's because the Boston Garden is now owned by Toronto Dominion Bank.
And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.....
Awards Edition Plus Editorial
by Sirius the Cat
Conventions
If humans knew what we cats know, they would stay away from conventions. When I think of a convention, I think of teh kitteh shelter. Lots of cats, making lots of noise, with no one to rescue them. There is a lot of sound and fury (sound and furry?) signifying very little. Folks running around, rubbing up against each other, it's just gross.
But I jest, really. Human beings come together in these situations, especially at places like Netroots Nation and actually try to get something done. This is no Amway convention, or TupperWare party. This is actually serious business. I challenge anyone to come up with another blogger/activist convention (that is not about games or Star Trek) that commands as much serious attention from serious Liberal/Progressive policy makers besides Netroots Nation. I just hope it doesn't turn out like the Episcopal Church's General Convention (which is actually more like a kind of Congress) and table everything for "further study".
I hope these folks in Minneapolis are going to actually do some serious networking. I know they will. My human tells me that the Daily Kos is actually important. I hope he's right.
---Sirius the Cat
News of Dubious Veracity Department
From the Alaska Abnegator
Palin to Get Facelift After Bus Tour
An anonymous source told the Abnegator that after former Gov. Palin's national bus tour she will be entering a Los Angeles area hospital for plastic surgery. Speaking off the record, a surgeon at the institute offered this:
"Mrs. Palin is very concerned about her public image. She feels that if we could do a little work on her face, and make her look more like Michele Bachmann, it would improve her chances of remaining relevant during the campaign season....
Cartoon Department
from the AEP archives, a cartoon with great relevance to the recent GOP debate in New Hampshire from AEP Cartoon Editor ericlewis0 :
Now, on to the Award nominees....
The Golden Douchenozzle Award: The Nominees
First, a thanks to all who participated in last night's Nominee Diary. Not that it generated many nominees......
Commonmass' Nominees
NC GOP Legislators who have voted to override Gov. Perdue's veto of the state budget so that they can eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood. I think I have figure out why they really want to defund it: it is not in the best interest of the GOP to help low-income women plan their families. Because the GOP cannot afford to lose an entire new generation of people to hate.
SCOTUS who had decided that all a company has to do to avoid liability is to set up a shell company to take the blame.
AZ. State Senator Russell Pearce who insists that the folks who successfully gathered enough signatures to recall him are "outside agitators" and "Left -wing anarchists". Anarchists? Holy Sacco and Vanzetti, Batman!
The Staff of the Pavillion Public Pool in Hazard, KY who threw out an adult, developmentally challenged gay couple for a minor PDA 'cause, you know, That's What Jesus Would Do.
From our Readers:
A rather cryptic nomination from C&J in Exile team member weatherdude:
Trumped-up Razors that claim to give you a close shave. Electric razors give me a complete shave that doesn't leave any stubble at all. Regular razors don't do it for me, and you KNOW the buff shirtless guys on TV shaved with an electric razor before using the one in the commercial.
That's a vague nomination, so I'll make it more vague: trumping up a bad product. It doubles as a nomination for every Republican candidate in the country.
From Kiddie-Pooler gchaucer2:
One-trick Pony Kossack Trolls who fail at everything, including getting banned.
From Kossack AnaThema:
Climate Change I haven't had headaches on a regular basis since I left my home state back in the early 80s (That's 1980s, wiseacres!). In the last month, I have had a headache almost every day. They're not up by the bridge of the nose, where I used to get sinus headaches, they're just ahead of my left ear, south and east of my left temple.
We've had the wettest spring on record here in Vermont, making hot days steamy, and the barometric pressure registers in the suck range.
From Kossack Marko the Werelynx:
Fitzwalkerstan Governor Scott Walker for his war on beer. Walker: definitely NOT "Milwaukee's Best".
So, who wins the coveted Nozzle? Tell us in the poll....
Cheers and Jeers in Exile Housekeeping Department
A big thanks to BlueJessamine for partnering up with me this week to keep the kiddie pool open, and to all that nominated folks in my nomination diaries.
The Friday Left-Coast-Friendly Cheers and Jeers in Exile diary will be written by Daily Kos superstar snarkmaster weatherdude. This you do not want to miss.
The Cheers and Jeers in Exile Team:
commonmass
BlueJessamine
weatherdude