From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Oh! More Things I Know:
> There's been more fashion coverage during Pope-a-palooza at the Vatican than there was at the Oscars and Grammys combined.
"What? The internet says Krugman's bankrupt?
Quick! Get that up on Breitbart.com!"
> Justice Scalia also argues that exfoliants are unconstitutional on the grounds that they're just a facial entitlement.
> St. Patrick's Day is Sunday. According to Time magazine it comes in second among the drunkest holidays to Cinco de Mayo. And, if memory serves, third to National Bring Your Child To Work Day.
> Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) accuses congressmembers of being communist infiltrators to hide the fact that he's the real communist infiltrator. I know this because I read it on the internet one sentence ago.
> John Kerry said, "In America you have a right to be stupid." Too bad so many in America treat it as a responsibility.
> The winningest journamalism tweet I've seen all week reads: "Were you at Justin Bieber's concert in London tonight? The AP would like to talk to you." We hear selected respondents were sent to their rooms without supper.
> Unlike the pearl-clutchers on the right, we on the left never criticized George W. Bush for playing golf. We criticized him for saying really stupid things while playing golf.
> The only inconvenient thing about cleaning my guns is they always shoot my underwear full of holes during the spin cycle.
> Someone should make an air freshener called "New Puppy Smell."
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Note: Due to the sequester, the two scoops of raisins in Kellogg's Raisin Bran have been reduced to three raisins, a peach pit and part of a hubcap.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Earth Day 2013: 40
Days 'til the National Cherry Blossom Festival in D.C.: 7
Cost of imprisonment per inmate in 2000: $21,603
Cost of imprisonment per inmate in 2012: $29,027
(Source: Bureau of Prisons)
Last year that the pope's ring was used as a signet to seal official papal documents: 1842
Number of nuns who take care of the pope's laundry: 5
(Source: How To Be Pope by Piers Marchant)
Number of years that marshmallow Peeps have been made as of this year, and the record number expected to be made this year: 60 / 1 billion
(Source: AP)
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 186 (including 4 Beast Governments and 1 zombie swiffer pootie). Soul Protection Factor 9 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Brought to you this morning by the Dept. of Hokey Headlines.
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CHEERS to pedaling your message…literally. Big, big kudos this morning to the members of Team 26, who began their cycling trek in Connecticut and finished yesterday in D.C.:
The 26 riders, one for each victim of the Sandy Hook shootings, left Newtown Saturday morning wearing jerseys of white and green, the elementary school’s colors.
A few teachers, a Vietnam veteran and several parents and a police officer from Newtown were among the riders. Along the road, the riders were greeted by cheering crowds, honking horns and messages of support. …
Just before arriving in the District, Team 26 stopped in College Park, where they were joined by three members of the Virginia Tech Victims Cycling team. Tommy Fadoul, 27, helped form the team with Omar Samaha, whose sister Reema was killed in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre.
“To ride this last stage with them was really meaningful,” [Tommy] Fadoul said. “I think the main thing is about collaboration. It’s bringing people together for a common good, and that’s what we tried to symbolize with our participation today.”
Meanwhile, the NRA spent the day doing what it does best:
backpedaling.
Bring this guy back.
He was pretty good.
JEERS to Saint Billy the Obnoxious. I think I got the
New Pope Fever. This was me yesterday following our local Catholic bishop down Congress Street:
[Tap Tap!] Did they elect a new pope yet? [Tap Tap!] Did they elect a pope yet? [Tap Tap!] Does it bother you when I do this? [Tap Tap!] Does it bother you when I do this? [Tap Tap!] Did they elect a new pope yet? [Tap Tap!]
So now you have two ways to know when they've settled on the new guy: 1) white smoke from the Sistine Chapel and 2) the lifting of the bishop's restraining order against me. Either way: exciting.
CHEERS to great inventions. On this date in 1877, Chester Greenwood of Farmington, Maine got his patent for a new device called "earmufflers". Normal people wear them to keep out the cold. Conservatives wear them to keep out the truth.
In Byron, Maine, sanity prevails.
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CHEERS to leaving the clown car parked in the garage. Twas not meant to be. Monday morning in C&J I previewed a town hall meeting in Byron, Maine during which a vote would be held on whether or not to force residents there to keep a weapon and ammo at home. The purpose of the measure was apparently to send a message to Washington, D.C. that tyranny would not be tolerated, and they were ready to blast away when the feds came for their guns. Well, the vote was unanimous, and
the measure failed. Tyranny reigns. If we get to it later today, we'll all try and muster enough energy for a shrug.
CHEERS to the little planet that tried but couldn't. On March 13, 1930, astronomers informed the world they had discovered Pluto. Unable to handle the fame that followed, the ball of rock and ice with the eccentric (read: emotionally unstable) orbit ended up on the drunken-party circuit and was publicly canned:
Earth SUCKS!
Pluto ROCKS!
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Pluto and its moon Charon, which would both have been planets under the initial definition proposed Aug. 16, now get demoted because they are part of a sea of other objects that occupy the same region of space. Earth and the other eight large planets have, on the other hand, cleared broad swaths of space of any other large objects.
"Pluto is a dwarf planet by the ... definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category of trans-Neptunian objects," states the approved resolution. Dwarf planets are not planets under the definition, however.
And speaking of places where the air is thin and the atmosphere's cold and rocky, only
two days 'til the CPAC convention.
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Five years ago in C&J: March 13, 2008
CHEERS to the great disappearing pundit act. Woo hoo! Well, it only took several years of sucky ratings and thoughtless comments for MSNBC to finally give Tucker Carlson the boot. He'll be replaced Monday by NBC White House correspondent David Gregory, who recently performed as an on-stage embarrassment with Karl Rove. Thanks, but I'll stick to my normal 6-7pm routine of stabbing myself in the neck with pencils. It hurts less.
P.S. John Gibson's TV show on Fox News has also been cancelled, which means he'll be spending more time around the house. Our sympathies to the missus.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to crazy cool amazing stuff you can do with paper. Hey, wanna see some crazy cool amazing stuff you can do with paper? Me too…
Paper. It's PAPER!
That's the paper art of Vincent Tomczyk, and you can give your eyes more poppery
at thisiscollossal.com:
Tomczyk tells me that he doesn’t do much sketching before he embarks on each artwork, but spends his time formulating ideas in his head and developing a list of needed materials and measurements. The objects are carefully crafted by hand, all of the colors you see are hand-painted and he never relies on any sort of digital printing. Translation: these take a lot of time.
Here endeth your Moment Having Nothing To Do With Politics. Thought we could use one.
Have a nice Wednesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
In the final months of the race, it was a standard line of attack: the president was recklessly using our money, Romney said, to "pick losers." Obama was so irresponsible, he even invested in Cheers and Jeers.
---Steve Benen
The Maddow Blog
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