From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Olympic Events for Republicans
Coming soon to an alternate universe near you:
Fiscal cliff diving
Synchronized voter suppression
Car-top dog crate hosedown
Shooting stuff
Backwards rowing
Electrified fencing
Football (the American kind, not the yurpian commie kind!)
More shooting stuff
Atlas shrugging
Aspirin-between-the-knees relay
Caribbean tax-haven-to-tax-haven regatta
Logic leaping
Super PAC donor fluffing
Shooting stuff you already shot
Gay servicemember booing
Individual and team pearl clutching
Protest sign spelling bee (canceled, since everyone was disqualified during the qualifying round)
Climate science reality hurdles
Pin the shame on the libertine
Shooting stuff again (bazooka finals)
Economic theory gymnastics
Retroactive retiring
Everybody gets a score of 9-9-9. And their uniforms come from China because, fuck it, it's a buck cheaper.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Note: Due to paving, the internet will be down to one lane today. We regret the incon…[Buffering].…[Buffering].…[Buffering]….venience.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Round 1 of the British Open at the Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club: 2
Days 'til the Lumberjack World Championships in Hayward, Wisconsin: 10
Number of new 737s United has ordered from Boeing: 150
(Source: USA Today)
Percent of Mainers who believe the federal government should fund wind and other renewable energy efforts: 68% vs. 26% who say no.
(Source: Critical Insights poll via The Portland Press Herald)
Percent of Americans who say the 2012 election season has thus far been too long and dull: 56%
(Source: Pew poll)
Average number of calories in a chain-restaurant appetizer: 813
Calories in Red Lobster's crispy calamari and vegetables appetizer: 1,520
(Source: Details)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
Marie Antoinette said "let them eat cake." I say to Obama, let him go to George "Sugar Daddy" Soros, Wall Street, Abortions-R-Us and Hollywood for more checks. Return to the swamp from whence he came.
---Rcurtis at the Powerline blog
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: NOM told us this would happen if New York legalized gay marriage. Told us, they did!!!
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CHEERS to the passing of the gavel. Today's the day, and I hope you dressed for the occasion (if not, I can loan you a pair of my Partridge Family cutoffs). Today the Wisconsin State Senate is officially being turned over to Democratic leadership. And even though all the seats are up for grabs in November, it's nice knowing that Governor Walker will have little to do for the rest of the year but scare children off his lawn by threatening to feed them to the Kochs. So congrats, Dems. And, uh, feel free to continue chanting "Shame! Shame!" at your Republican colleagues. They're still earning it.
JEERS to losing to the losers. Back in January of 2011, Harry Reid had a chance to change the Senate rules to prevent Republicans from filibustering everything including potty breaks. He instead chose to make a "handshake deal" with Mitch McConnell, who set upon breaking it at his earliest convenience. Yesterday he did it again, filibustering (or, more precisely, "cloture invoking") the absolutely non-controversial and popular-among-the-populace DISCLOSE Act. It would've thrown some light on America's biggest Super PAC donors. But, no---that would be too small-d democratic. So Citizens United remains a cloak of invisibility for the creepy toupee-sporting (or should that be creepy-toupee sporting?) millionaires who want to control elections without you knowing it. Feel free to protest y'all…but have your photo ID handy for the proper authorities. They're kinda picky about transparency among the rabble.
CHEERS to letters from the BiPM mailbag. Just sent via mysterious courier:
Dear al Qaeda,
Hello, assholes! How ya doin'?
Hey, we just got some fresh pics back from the Fotomat and thought of you. In light of the stunning, humiliating and relentless setbacks you've encountered over the last few years, I thought you might like to see how your arch-nemesis, who vanquished your boss and all those #2s, is doing. As you can see, they've got him completely surrounded. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!
Hugs to the mountain goats,
Billy
As always, we added little hearts over the i's.
CHEERS to merry meetings. Thirty seven years ago today, on July 17, 1975, an Apollo crew docked with the Soyuz 19 spacecraft in orbit. (Because, if memory serves, Denny's was full.) It was the first time the world's foremost cold warriors hooked up in space for procreative purposes:
Hard-dock was achieved July 17 at 12:12 p.m. as the two craft soared above the Atlantic Ocean. A global audience watched on television as the historic event unfolded. Hatches between the vehicles were opened at 3:17 p.m. and the two space crews warmly greeted each other, officially beginning joint activities. The astronauts and cosmonauts took congratulatory calls from Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Gerald Ford, exchanged commemorative gifts and shared a meal before closing the hatch for the day.
You can watch a floppy-haired Peter Jennings
anchoring the big event on ABC News here. And yes, those are model spaceships hanging on strings behind him, Ed Wood-style. The nostalgia…it burns.
CHEERS to tuneful tut-tuts. In response to the Obama campaign's viral ad starring crooner Mitt Romney (which will start running in nine swing states), the Romney campaign threw together an ad using Obama's sultry version of Al Greene's Let's Stay Together---and promptly got busted for copyright abuse. How typical---Republican moochers lookin' for a free musical handout! But in the interest of public service, I'd like to help out the Romney campaign by pointing out that, if they're thinking of using President Obama's Monday rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" in an ad, the song is also copyright-protected. By AOL Time Warner. They break violators' legs. You're welcome.
JEERS to swelter skelter. With temps hovering near 90 here, this is the "occasional heat wave" we tell the rest of you about when you ask how hot it gets up here in the summer. Thankfully, we Mainers have a handbook on how to deal with the sultriness. Step 1: put long johns in the freezer overnight. Step 2: affix ice cubes to earmuffs with rubber bands. Step 3: Drink 'til you pass out and pray a cold front moves through while you're unconscious. If anyone asks what the sweetest sound in the English language is today, my answer is: "September."
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Five years ago in C&J: July 17, 2007
CHEERS to declarations of independence. Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, having apparently smoked a bit of the wacky tobaccy, came out and assured President Bush that the Iraqi military could take over from here. The U.S. responded by saying, "We'll be the judge of that, not you." I mean, who do they think they are, a sovereign nation???
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And just one more…
JEERS to "I" tunes. Now playing on Mitt's iPod:
O beautiful for specious ties
One hundred grand from Bain
For retroactive fare thee wells
That I cannot explain
America! America!
For profit I bled thee
And though I should (and most folks would)
My tax forms you won’t see!
Pass the tissues. That tune always makes me weepy.
Have a great Tuesday. And, if I may say: retroactive "Gesundheit." Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Mainers love their loon, Bill in Portland Maine. We watch him swim across our lakes and ponds. We get angry when we see boaters stray too close to him. And we love to hear his plaintive wail.
---John Holyoke
Bangor Daily News
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