From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Helen's Pre-Turkey Day Family Warning
One half of Bloggerland's most famous octogenarian duo lays down some rules:
Dear Family,
I’m not dead yet. Thanksgiving is still important to me. If being in my Last Will and Testament is important to you, then you might consider being with me for my favorite holiday.
Thanksgiving on a battleship with Margaret
and Helen. I can dream, can't I?
Dinner is at 2:00. Not 2:15. Not 2:05. Two. Arrive late and you get what’s leftover.
Last year, that moron Marshall fried a turkey in one of those contraptions and practically burned the deck off the house. This year, the only peanut oil used to make the meal will be from the secret scoop of peanut butter I add to the carrot soup.
Jonathan, your last new wife was an idiot. You don’t arrive at someone’s house on Thanksgiving needing to use the oven and the stove. Honest to God I thought you might have learned after two wives---date them longer and save us all the agony of another divorce.
Now, the house rules are slightly different this year because I have decided that 47% of you don’t know how to take care of nice things. Paper plates and red Solo cups might be bad for the environment, but I’ll be gone soon and that will be your problem to deal with. […]
The election is over so I’ll watch what I say and you will do the same. If we all stick to that, we’ll have a good time. If not, I’ll still have a good time but it will be at your expense.
When she says rules, she means it as
both a noun and a verb. Too bad there won’t be any livestreaming.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Note: I used to think robots would eventually take over the planet. Now I'm leaning towards dungbeetles.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the end of Atlantic hurricane season: 10
Days 'til the Christmas Prelude tree lighting in Kennebunkport, Maine: 10
Number of named storms predicted earlier this year by NOAA and Colorado State forecasters, respectively: 9-to-15 / 13
Actual number of named storms this year: 19
(Source: USA Today)
Number of "Blue Dog" Democrats in the House in January, 2011: 54
Number of "Blue Dog" Democrats in the House in January, 2013: 14
(Source: The Atlantic)
Number of mashed-potato servings you get from a 5-pound bag of potatoes: 12
(Source: AP)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
Ok, today is the day to start throwing bricks at Barry’s glass house. The bad guys won but there is no reason to let them enjoy their victory. As you prepare for the holidays, know that the O-bots are gleefully waiting to taunt conservatives. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Go on the offense and burst their bubble immediately. Fighting back feels good, so give it a try (and report back after the holidays).
---"BlackRednecks" at RedState
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Just a teeeeensy weensy little taste…
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Allen West shows how
many terms he served
before getting the boot.
CHEERS to sweet surrender. Congressman Allen West has been forced to do the most disgusting, unthinkable and un-American thing a whackadoodle tea party extremist can do: face reality. This morning, after two weeks of legal wrangling and finger pointing at Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy, Allen West---yes, the same Allen West who accused the House Progressive Caucus of being card-carrying communists---
raised the white flag after one measly term. He says he'll now spend more time with his family. His family says they'll now spend more time finding him another job.
CHEERS to the scrapper from Scranton. Happy Birthday (and many blessings on your camels) to America's freshly re-elected 47th Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, whose way with words---intentional and otherwise---is a joy to behold:
"Happy birthday, Joe."
"Thanks, man."
"Thumb wrestle?"
"Two outta three?"
"I should start with an apology to Rudy Giuliani. I said every sentence Rudy utters has a noun, a verb, and 9/11 in it. I was wrong. He called me to tell me after Pat Robertson's endorsement, there's an Amen in every sentence he says too."
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"A man I'm proud to call my friend. A man who will be the next President of the United States---Barack America!"
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"If your kitchen table is like mine, you sit there at night before you put the kids to bed and you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you are worried about being able to pay the bills. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not a worry John McCain has to worry about. It's a pretty hard experience. He'll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at."
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“Don't tell me what you value---show me your budget and I'll tell you what you value.”
Good ol' Joe turns 70 today---and that's no malarkey. But I hope he blows out the candles on his cake before they trip the alarm and the fire department shows up. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!! That never gets old.
CHEERS to gettin' outta Dodge. Thanksgiving is less than 48 hours away, and the airlines predict that 24 million travelers will scream, curse and smell kinda gamey between now and next Tuesday. (Planes are expected to be 90 percent full, which would be a record, so prepare for lots of seat-back kicking.) Meanwhile Triple-A says more of us will also be on the roads, with nearly 44 million expected to venture at least 50 miles from home. If you'll be among them, keep in mind proper driving etiquette: the right hand is for texting and the left hand is for flipping the bird.
CHEERS to gettin' waaaay outta Dodge. After buzzing over Myanmar while spelling out "S-U-R-R-E-N-D-E-R D-O-R-O-T-H-Y H-A H-A J-U-S-T K-I-D-D-I-N-G" in green smoke, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton executed a perfect one-point landing, delicately balancing Air Force One on its nose wheel before the real pilots wriggled out of their shackles and kicked them out of the cockpit. The terrible twosome then greeted the leaders of the now-less-asshole'ish nation, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. A couple pictures from the president's trip, courtesy of the White House:
President Obama purchases a souvenir for Sasha in Thailand's duty-free shop
Obama and Myanmar pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi work together to make a gesture
that will give Republicans in the U.S. heart attacks and make Drudge's blinky light explode.
Then the president jetted off to Cambodia, but not before activating Air Force One's cloaking device and giving the Klingon warship that had just entered our atmosphere one helluva surprise with a couple photon torpedoes. He's a multitasker, that one.
JEERS to the not-so-sanctity of life. All eyes are fixated on the latest Israel-Gaza flare-up that is now in its second week. As Hamas fires rockets toward Israeli cities, Israeli planes are pounding Gaza as tanks and troops stand poised for invasion. The death toll is ridiculous---stomach-turning, actually. It's been six full days since the escalation, and in that time 204 people---men, women and children---have been killed by gun violence. The toll on the families alone is enough to make one want to put a fist through a wall. The world should rightly be horrified by that number and demand action to stop it. And I probably should've mentioned that the 204 deaths I'm talking about happened here in America in the last six days. There will be another 34 deaths today and another 34 deaths tomorrow and the next day and the next. Perhaps when things cool off overseas---as they will because they always do---the world can focus on our little self-inflicted orgy of violence here to the tune of 12,000 in 2012 alone. Assuming we're done with Saint Petraeus's sex life, that is.
P.S. The above is not meant to minimize the deaths across the pond. At least 114 dead so far, with many hundreds injured. As I'm fond of saying: this is why beings from other planets stay the hell away from the craziest planet from the sun.
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Four years ago in C&J: November 20, 2008
WHOOPS! to the understatement of the week. "Oh, great." And with those words astronaut Heide McButterfingers, in the process of making repairs on the International Space Station, watched her tool kit float off into space. Not only did it have valuable tools inside, but the bag also contained the only key to the mini bar. Let's just say it's a little tense at the breakfast table this morning.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Deep Thoughts. While Jack Handy avoids the political (after all, the thoughts are deep), there are some parallels to certain pressing issues of the day...
Stand back---Mr. Hat
might have a revolving
cannon in his you-know-what.
The Environment: People need to realize that every time they talk about how "fragile" our planet is, it's just like asking outer space aliens to come invade us.
The modern military: I think that a hat that has a little cannon that fires then goes back inside the hat is at least a decade away.
Health Care: The next time you go to the doctor, go ahead and bring in a stool sample. They might need it. Better go ahead and bring some for the dentist, too.
Sex Ed: I remember one day I was at Grandpa's farm and I asked him about sex. He sort of smiled and said, "Maybe instead of telling you what sex is, why don't we go out to the horse pasture and I'll show you." So we did, and there on the ground were my parents having sex.
International Diplomacy: In some countries, what I did would be considered polite, especially Fartland.
Or at my house.
Have a nice Tuesday. Start buildin' up your appetite. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
I've got a suggestion for cutting short the GOP angst: Bill in Portland Maine for president in 2016. You think I'm joking? Think again.
---Charlotte Allen
11/18/12
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