From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Dear President Obama,
Cllick here please:
"Let's lay it to rest once and for all … Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit. Social Security is totally funded by the payroll tax levied on employer and employee. If you reduce the outgo of Social Security, that money would not go into the general fund to reduce the deficit, it would go into the Social Security trust fund. So Social Security has nothing to do with balancing a budget or erasing or lowering the deficit."
Please don’t make me school you using that guy as my source again. It just feels icky.
Also please let us know at your earliest convenience what kind of support you think you'll need from your base for a happy outcome in the 2014 midterms, and if you'll need that support before or after you cut our Social Security benefits. Thanks.
Best to the family and the pooch,
Billy
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Note: If you haven’t cleaned up this filthy planet by the time Earth Day gets here in 13 days, we are so sending you to your room without supper or your iPhone. Don't test us. ---Mom & Dad
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Atari game Pong gets displayed on the Cira Centre in Philadelphia (and yes, people will be able to play it from the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as part of Philly Tech Week): 10
Days 'til the Scrabble Fest in Auburn, Maine: 12
Megawatts of capacity added last year to America's wind-energy output: 13,123
Number of homes that could power: 3.5 million
(Source: American Wind Energy Association)
Years Roger Ebert spent at the Chicago Sun-Times: 46
Rank of the Louvre, Metropolitan Museum of Art and British Museum among the world's most-visited art museums: #1, #2, #3
(Source: The Art Newspaper via Time)
Number of seconds after which this message will self-destruct: 5
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
I believe incest is still against the law. Fathers having sex with sons would be incest. It's illegal for mothers to marry sons, fathers to marry daughters, brothers to marry sisters. So, it would definitely be illegal for a father to marry a son. Of course, all homos would have to do is legalize incest. Here in Washington state, one gay rights group has said their next goal is to legalize pedophilia. So, why not incest? If it's perverted and immoral they, along with the left, will go for it. What about sex with animals? That can't be far off.
---Commenter holsen
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: One tough son of a bitch
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CHEERS to the evolution of evolving. And one more sees the light:
Thanks, Tim!
Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), one of the last remaining Democratic holdouts to oppose same-sex marriage, announced Monday that he now supports gay nuptials. "After lengthy consideration, my views have evolved sufficiently to support marriage equality legislation," Johnson said in a statement.
"This position doesn't require any religious denomination to alter any of its tenets; it simply forbids government from discrimination regarding who can marry whom."
By my count, that's 54 senators in favor of gay marriage, with Democrats Joe Manchin (WV), Mark Pryor (AR) and Mary Landrieu (LA) still acting like they don’t support it when their natural proclivity is totally the opposite. Pretty soon the closet's gonna be filled with nobody with straight people in denial. And I promise to support their right to get married.
Thatcher (I think.)
TA TA LUV to Margaret Thatcher. Always tricky business when people I don’t really like pass on (
she was 86). You want to be sensitive to the family and friends, of course. So I'll just say this: Margaret Thatcher was the Margaret Thatcheriest Margaret Thatcher of them all. That's if you don’t count Meryl Streep's Margaret Thatcher, which was even more Margaret Thatchery than Margaret Thatcher's Margaret Thatcher, but only by a hair's breadth of thatch. I believe I have just threaded a needle with skill and dexterity. And now that that's done:
Mum, put the kettle on!
P.S. The "Rule of Threes" strikes again: Roger Ebert, Annette Funicello and Margaret Thatcher. That's just eerie.
CHEERS to hoops hopes. Congrats to the Louisville Cardinals, the NCAA men's basketball champs (82-76 over Michigan) for the first time since 1986! Tonight the women wrap up the Madness d' March with a board-stompin' rematch of the 2009 dustup between Louisville and UConn. My head says the Cardinals (matching His & Her trophies would look nice on Louisville's mantle), but my gut's cheerin' for the Huskies because our new puppy says she's part husky and if we don’t root 'em on she'll pee in our slippers. Ya gotta be scientific about these things.
CHEERS to a civil end to a most uncivil war. On April 9, 1865---148 years ago today---Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, effectively ending the War Between the States. The event holds significance for us here in Maine because of an honor that was bestowed by Grant on our own General Joshua Chamberlain, whose 20th Regiment fended off the Confederates at Gettysburg and helped turn the tide of the war:
"Woo hoo!!!"
So it happened that this VOLUNTEER OFFICER, was chosen by General Grant himself, out of all the officers (volunteer AND Regular army) in the Army of the Potomac, to receive the "arms and colors" of the Army of Northern Virginia. ... Upon hearing this news, Chamberlain asked the new Fifth Corps commander one thing: he wanted to be given the First Division's Third Brigade---which included the 20th Maine---because he had shared so many battles with them, and wanted them beside him, in this historic hour. ... The ceremony took place three days later, on April 12, 1865---four years to the day since the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
Meanwhile, this month some folks in the South will be "celebrating" the 152nd anniversary of the
start of the Civil War, clinging to the notion that the treasonous war was fought over some generic notion of "states rights," not slavery. After all these years, they still
can't face the truth. Methinks someone is taking
"Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land" a bit too literally.
CHEERS to strange munchies-fellows. Last week there was a charity auction here in Maine, and one of the items on the block was dinner with our foul-mouthed, insult-prone, Puritanical tea party governor, Paul LePage. Amazingly, somebody bid on it. And the winner is: a pro-marijuana lobbyist. I can't say I'm surprised. The only way a normal person could ever get through dinner with that guy is if you're totally high.
CHEERS and JEERS to the topple seen 'round the world. Remember all the hullabaloo when that Baghdad statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down shortly after we shocked 'n awed Iraq? Believe it or not, that was ten years ago today. I remember wincing when a U.S. soldier, unfamiliar with the concept of "How Things Look from the Liberated Folks' Perspective," tried to tie an American flag around Saddam's head, and drumming my fingers on my desk as the Iraqis took for-freakin'-ever to try and yank the statue down by hand. They finally decided to let our troops attach a rope from Saddam's finger to a tank, which pulled it down in mere seconds as the crowd made crude fart noises (proving that, no matter what country you're from, that gag never gets old). They then beat it with shoes as it was dragged around the square like a cat toy. But, as with so many aspects of that war (like the reason for starting it), things weren't exactly as they seemed. The press made it look like the entire city was there celebrating. In reality, it looked more like the size of the tea party caucus at a MENSA meeting:
If you're hyperventilating from the shock of being misled by the media, breathe into a paper sack for a few minutes. It'll pass.
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Five years ago in C&J: April 9, 2008
JEERS to the cost of staying the course. By remaining full-strength in Iraq through next July, the families of---[Pulls out calculator, multiplies 80 x 10]---at least 800 American soldiers will attend their loved ones' funerals. You and I will cough up another---[Pulls out calculator, multiplies 3 billion x 10]---300 billion dollars to keep it going. Having carefully weighed the pluses and minuses---[Throws calculator against the wall, throws computer against the wall, throws lamp against the wall, lifts house off of foundation and throws against the wall.]---I'm still a bit skeptical.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the beastmaster. Jim Fowler, the guy who always---so the myth goes---had to do the dirty work on Wild Kingdom while Marlin Perkins sat in the truck drinking whiskey sours turns a year older today. Fowler was a childhood icon of mine, and I can still hear the "Ka-chunk ka-chunk" of the TV channel changer on Sunday evenings. He's a smart guy:
"Almost all of the social tragedies occurring around the world today are caused by ignoring the basic biological laws of nature ... The quicker we humans learn that saving open space and wildlife is critical to our welfare and quality of life, maybe we'll start thinking of doing something about it."
And though he aimed to save and protect animals, he killed in one arena. Namely, Carson's comedy sanctuary:
Happy 81st birthday, Jim. And blessings on your camels or whatever creature you happen to be wrangling at the moment.
The rest of ya have a nice Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Bill in Portland Maine reminds me of the clowns at the circus. They get the most attention. That's what he's paid to do."
---Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy
4/7/13
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