From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Things I Pledge to Do for Mother Earth
Sunday is the 42nd Earth Day, a worldwide event we celebrate every year to remind ourselves that we're the biggest parasites on the third rock from the sun. To mark the occasion, this year I pledge to…
Change the channel any time one of those dishonest oil company commercials claiming environmental responsibility comes on.
Save water in my house by doing laundry at my neighbors' house while they're at work.
Rent a chopper and drop thousands of large plastic bins over the city to remind people that Portland recycles.
Fart only on odd-numbered days. (This one'll be tough. I may need to attend support group meetings.)
Retrofit the car with hybrid technology so it only runs on gas when the team of kittens gets too tired to pull it.
Use only the sun and a magnifying glass to light up my bong. Er…uh…"water pipe."
Restrict my use of "fracking" to its handiness as an adjective paired with the word "idiots" to describe people who displease me.
Contribute to healthy forests by teaching tea partiers that watering trees with the blood of tyrants actually kills them. Fracking idiots.
Help save the whales by hiding as many as I can in the basement washtub.
Close down tar sands sites by making spooky noises so the owners think they're haunted and run away.
Dispose of my spent fuel rods properly instead of selling them as glowsticks at raves.
Start a coral reef in my bathtub for eventual relocation off the Florida coast.
Or maybe I'll just
do this instead.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, April 20, 2012
Note: Today is 4/20. [gurglegurglegurgle] [coughcoughcough!] HuhHuhHuh.... Anyone got a Fantasia DVD handy?
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Cinco de Mayo: 15
Days 'til the Oregon Ag Fest in Salem: 8
Percent of Americans who believe that "Medicare should continue as it is today, with the government … paying doctors and hospitals directly for the services they provide to seniors": 64%
(Source: United Technologies/National Journal poll)
Percent of 18-to-24 year olds who believe Christianity in America is "judgmental" and "too anti-gay," respectively: 62%, 64%
(Source: Public Religion Research Institute/Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs poll)
Average cost of an American wedding: $25,631
(Source: Harper's Index)
Cost to build your own fully armed and operational Death Star: $852,000,000,000,000,000
(Source: Jonathan Turley)
Number of seconds it takes to tell a commoner, "Let them eat cake": 2
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "Sacre Bleu!"
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CHEERS to notable entries in the Great American Scrapbook. In my imagination I like to think that Rosa Parks said to that Montgomery, Alabama bus driver back in 1955: "One day the first black President of the United States is gonna sit in this very bus and reflect on how far we've come and how bigots like you failed to keep us down. Good day, sir!" And I picture the driver saying, "Yeah, right. Crazy lady." So pardon me for admitting I got tears and chills when the Rosa Parks prediction in my imagination came true Wednesday at the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan:
"I actually had the chance to sit in Rosa Parks’ bus---I just sat there for a moment and pondered the courage and tenacity that is part of our very recent history, but is also a part of that long line of folks---sometimes nameless, oftentimes didn't make the history books---but who constantly insisted on their dignity, their stake in the American Dream."
---Barack Obama
44th President of the United States
That bus, by the way, was almost
lost forever due to neglect. But after a loving restoration and the wisdom of the voters in '08, America finally has the picture that's worth
a thousand words and the fulfillment of several million dreams. (And if I may add: damn, I wish the seats were that clean on my bus.)
HILARIOUS POINT-AND-LAUGH at the cut-and-runners. And so it begins. Like salmon fighting the swift currents of a raging river and arriving at their spawning grounds exhausted but ready to get their horndog on, so too are conservatives fighting the ideological currents of political inconvenience to arrive grudgingly at their presidential candidate acceptance grounds. And leading the ragged pack is the conservative standard bearer---whose every utterance is absorbed directly into the brain tissue of both establishment types and tea partiers alike---Charles Krauthammer, who has morphed from this…
Charles Krauthammer before: He's a northeastern Republican. He is not a conservative. So, I am not a big fan. … My first choice was Mitch Daniels, and it wasn't a secret. My second [choice] was Paul Ryan, and I tried to rustle up a posse to force him into the race. My third [choice] was Christie.
To this…
Charles Krauthammer now: I actually like Romney. I think he's a very good man and I think he would make a very good president.
That's right, kids. If you think it's gonna be fun watching Romney desperately dogpaddle his way to the center, you'll bust a gut watching the Very Serious Conservaratti try and convince themselves that they actually like him. Cuz they don't like him. They really,
really don't like him.
JEERS to gun nuts going gun-nutty. The Columbine High School massacre took place on this date in 1999 as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (who, yes, went bowling that morning) killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 26 others. If you feel so inclined, you can donate to the upkeep of the Columbine Memorial (and it might not be a bad idea to give Michael Moore's Oscar-winner another look, either.) There have been many school shootings since Columbine, and there'll be more. Warped minds and loaded guns will, sadly, never be parted.
JEERS to the war on women: Sister Mary Catherine edition. Oh my God! I mean that literally. God's supposed hand-picked Facebook friend, the Pope, has begun a crackdown on nuns. Ratzinger's charge: the womenfolk have a habit (heh) of acting like "radical feminists." This is a bad move for so many reasons, but I'll point out just one: priests control the wine and the incense, but nuns control the rulers. To paraphrase that great Catholic theologian, Mr. T: I pity the knuckles.
CHEERS to a man who lived up to his job description. Happy Birthday (and many blessings on your camels) to former Supreme Court Justice---and tennis player and licensed pilot and kid who saw Babe Ruth's "called shot"---John Paul Stevens, who turns 92 today. His career on the bench is dotted with so many common-sense opinions (not the least of which was his scathing dissent in Bush v. The Guy Who Actually Won), and we cannot thank him enough for staying on duty during Bush's two terms, thus preventing Duncehead McFlightsuit from appointing a third right-wing extremist. Plus, as Kossack jamess reminds us today, Stevens said this in the Citizens United case:
“Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their "personhood" often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of "We the People" by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.”
We hear that, in his first draft, he added:
Duh!!!! For all you did to maintain the integrity of the Judicial Branch, sir, you are most deserving of the happiest retirement
evuh.
P.S. Tomorrow is Queen Elizabeth II's birthday. We took a vote and agreed that you should be the one to spank her 86 times. Cheerio, and enjoy your stay in the Tower dungeon!
CHEERS to taking a bite out of slime. Newt Gingrich, the candidate who handily won the South Carolina primary and therefore will absolutely, positively win the Republican nomination for president, got bit by a penguin this week. Thus confirming my long-held suspicion about the former Speaker: he's really a giant herring in a human bodysuit.
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Five years ago in C&J: April 20, 2007
JEERS to big jerks. Shorter Supreme Court majority opinion re: yesterday's abortion ruling: "Trust us, we're not doctors." And check out this brilliant bit of civilized debate by conservative Edward Whelan in USA Today:
The five justices in the majority who upheld the law exercised judicial restraint and properly deferred to the democratic process. The four liberal judicial activists in dissent---led by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who maintains that the Constitution even requires taxpayer-funded abortion---sought to impose their own extremist agenda.
They never miss a beat.
JEERS to the state of Maine. Next week the New Hampshire legislature will pass a civil unions law and Governor John Lynch will sign it. That'll make my state the last in New England without either civil unions or outright marriage for same-sex couples. As goes Maine so goes the nation, my ass...grumblegrumble... [4/20/12 Update: Five years later, Maine gears up for a marriage vote after losing one in 2009. Second time's the charm?]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to home vegetation. Here's the haps on the tube this weekend. On HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher talks with environmentalist Lynn Henning, NYT columnist Ross Douthat, economist Todd Buchholz, Thomas Frank and Reuters' Chrystia Freeland. New DVD releases include Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and not much else. The baseball schedule is here. On 60 Minutes: Treasure!!! And Sunday at 9, Julia Louise Dreyfuss (swoon) stars in a new series called Veep. No word on whether she shoots any lawyers in the face or calls anything a "big fuckin' deal" in the premiere---but we can dream!
Tomorrow morning on Up! With Chris Hayes: the media blackout on climate change stories, plus GOP abuse of the poor and income inequality. Guests include former EPA Director Christine Todd Whitman, meteorologist Paul Douglas, Sam Seder, Bob Herbert, Antonia Juhasz and Victoria DeFrancesco Soto. Not sure who's on with Melissa Harris-Perry, but she should have the list here soon. And on Bill Moyers & Company: How Christianity and liberalism have gone stray in America with Ross Douthat and Eric Alterman.
And here's your Sunday morning lineup. In light of the new report showing that conservatives are waaaaaay overrepresented on the establishment gabfests, let's pull out the Lefty/Neutral/Righty Index and see how they stack up this weekend:
Meet the Press: David Axelrod; Rep. Darrel Issa, Rep. Peter King; roundtable with E.J. Dionne, David Brooks, Chuck Todd and Helene Cooper. Lefty/Neutral/Righty Index: 2/2/3
CNN's State of the Union: David Axelrod; Sen. Marco Rubio; Rep. Elijah Cummings. Lefty/Neutral/Righty Index: 2/0/1
This Week: Sen. Susan Collins; Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee; roundtable with the usuals: George Will, Donna Brazile, Peggy Noonan, Matthew Dowd and…um…um…Olbermann??? Yup---Olbermann. Lefty/Neutral/Righty Index: 3/0/4
Face the Nation: Former Secret Service Director Ralph Basham; Sens. Joe Lieberman and Tom Coburn; Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Elijah Cummings; Deputy Campaign Manager for Obama '12 Stephanie Cutter and Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom. Lefty/Neutral/Righty Index: 3/0/4
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Joe Lieberman; Mitch Daniels; Lefty/Neutral/Righty Index: 0/0/2
Final count: 10 lefties, 2 neutrals and 14 righties. Believe it or not, that's better than usual. Happy viewing!
Have a nice weekend. Oh, and today George Takei turns 75, and you know what that means: Happy Dance!!! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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