From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Headlines You Won’t Read Today:
"Wheeeeeee!!!" It's a
roller coaster for paper!
• Republicans win fight to block CFPB head Cordray confirmation
• In wake of Zimmerman trial, prosecuting attorneys hospitalized for overexertion
• Colorado secession movement praised for intellectual, emotional maturity
• GOP senate primary in Wyoming to be calm, uneventful
• Middle child gets all the attention
• NSA to hold open house, bake sale Saturday
• Cleanup crews evacuate area and surround waterways with boom to contain wind spill
• Speaker Boehner introduces federal jobs bill
• Man opens bag of Cracker Jack, finds peanuts evenly spread throughout
• William and Kate welcome twins Yerp and Derp
• Gay rights movement grinds to a halt as ex-gay rally draws thousands
• Coat hanger industry weighs in on abortion fight
• Sequester inconveniences congressman
• Rich Lowry makes a good point
• More Democrats than Republicans booked on Sunday morning shows
• Cows admit role in global warming, form climate task force
• Snowden praises Moscow airport food
• Portland, Maine blogger adjusting well to heat, humidity
Cheers and Jeers melts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Note: The National Emergency Ant Preservation Service has issued an Evil Children Walking Around With Magnifying Glasses Warning. Federal and local authorities urge you to stay in your hill until the threat passes. Sometime around September, we guess. Please keep your antennae tuned to the NEAPS for further updates and a variety of light conga classics. Thank you.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the 4th
Milwaukee Brewfest:
10
Days 'til the
Sherwood Robin Hood Festival in Sherwood, Oregon:
2
Year in which the Arctic is expected to be ice-free, according to a new study published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:
2054
Percent chance that Stevie Wonder is
boycotting Florida until the state's "Stand Your Ground" law is repealed:
100%
Cost of the new Datsun
Go when it goes on sale next year…but only in India:
$6,680
(Source:
CNN Money)
New York City Democrats who believe financial impropriety is a worse offense for an elected official than sexual misconduct:
69%
(Source: Quinnipiac poll via
Digby)
High temperature in Portland, Maine yesterday:
197 F
Major League All-Star Game
American League 3 National League 0
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 184 (including 4 famines and 1 Vomit Button). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Courtesy this morning of Gun Dog Magazine
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Admiral Harry Reid
inspects the crew.
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CHEERS to setting Democratic phasers on Stun. After two years of pointless Ferenghi obstruction in the Senate, Admiral Harry Reid finally stopped blinking long enough to use his Vulcan mind meld and
get an Obama nominee released from its tractor beam. Captain Richard Cordray is now Starfleet's Commander of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It's ongoing mission: to seek out new bamboozlers and new rip-off schemes---to boldly level the playing field for consumers where it's never been leveled before. Their happy ending achieved, everyone retired to the holodeck for a round of golf. And in other news, I watch too much TV.
JEERS to…[Experiencing Technical Difficulties…Please Stand By…] And speaking of space, yesterday NASA aborted a space walk at the International Space Station. In response, every Republican-controlled state legislature immediately called a special session and passed laws banning all future abortions in space. (North Carolina, of course, buried theirs inside the "2013 Freedom For Sparkle Ponies Act" so as not to arouse suspicion.)
CHEERS to the gift of gall. They were the best of friends. Through good times and bad. The junkets, the rodeos, the fishing trips…nothing could keep them apart. Life was one big happy no-bid defense contract. And then…the patriarch stabbed his best friend in the back so his daughter could carry on the Dynasty (emphasis on "nasty"). Yup…the Cheney pack smells blood, and they've begun to circle their prey:
A self-evident truth.
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Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, will challenge veteran Sen. Mike Enzi in a blockbuster battle for the Republican Senate nomination in Wyoming next year. Cheney will wage a primary bid against Enzi, who was first elected in 1996 and is the 11th-most senior Republican in the Senate. …
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Enzi said that Cheney had told him that she didn't intend to run if he decided to seek re-election. "I thought we were friends," he said.
Dick Cheney says he'll be spending a lot of time in Wyoming helping his daughter hunt for voters. Officials are warning residents to stay in their homes until November of 2014.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Pat Robertson asks: What is it with the Obama administration?
Competence.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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CHEERS to the new Senator from Massachusetts. And now, a cruel thought experiment to remind us how elections have consequences:
Senator Gomez!
[Republican] Gabriel Gomez is now a U.S. Senator. He took the oath of office Tuesday in Washington DC. …
Three weeks after winning a special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat of now Secretary of State John Kerry, private equity investor Gabriel Gomez was on the Senate floor Tuesday morning for his swearing in, presided over by Vice President Joe Biden.
Nah, just kidding…
it's Ed Markey. Breath into a paper sack for a few minutes and you'll feel better.
CHEERS to merry meetings. Thirty-eight years ago today, on July 17, 1975 (12:08pm ET to be exact), an Apollo crew docked with the Soyuz 19 spacecraft in orbit. (Because, if memory serves, Denny's was too crowded.) It was the first time the world's foremost cold warriors hooked up in space for procreative purposes. A floppy-haired Peter Jennings anchored the event on ABC News:
Yes, those are model spaceships hanging on strings behind him. Ed Wood shoulda sued the network for stealing his idea.
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Five years ago in C&J: July 17, 2008
JEERS to moving in the wrong direction. So if we're winning the war on terrorism (just humor me, okay?), shouldn't the terror watch list be getting smaller? That's what I thought, too. Well, it says here that the list of suspects---which may or may not still include Ted Kennedy---is growing faster than calories on a plate in the Country Buffet line:
Mandela and Kennedy
were both once on the
DHS terrorist watch list.
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The American Civil Liberties Union [announced] at the National Press Club that the U.S. government's terrorist watch list has added its 1 millionth name. The estimate stems from a Justice Department inspector general's report last year that put the watch list roster---four years after its creation---at more than 720,000 in April 2007, and growing by 20,000 records a month.
Would the last American not designated a terrorist please turn out the lights? Thanks.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to vintage Sam. Handy little guide we like to pull out every now and agin' to help us understand what the hell the hardcore Republican Christians say versus what they mean. From Sam Seder and Stephen Sherrill's' book, FUBAR. Enjoy:
"Bless your heart" All-purpose phrase that can mean many things, most of them bad. Especially handy when speaking to or about a nonbeliever. When the nonbeliever identifies him- or herself as a nonbeliever, you say, "Bless your heart." Which means, "Bless your heart, because you are going to hell."
Sam Seder: aka Liberal Yoda.
"I'll pray for you" "You are going to Hell."
"Hate the sin, not the sinner" This is what you say about a non-Christian person you disapprove of. ... It's nice, because it lets you get out your hate but still sound Christian. What it means is: "I hate the sin, and the sinner."
Family values---As in, "I believe in family values." This can mean a variety of things. For example:
"I don't like to pay taxes for government services."
"I'm afraid of homosexuals."
"I'm afraid of black people."
"I'm afraid of foreigners."
"I believe Rush [Limbaugh] just had a bad-back problem."
"I think the fifties was the best time in U.S. history."
"I'm white."
"God bless America" "My political speech is over."
They should create a Rosetta Stone DVD. It would be very helpful.
If you have a Wednesday, leave a Wednesday. If you need a Wednesday, take a Wednesday too bad---someone stole 'em all. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Nobody's given Bill in Portland Maine a spanking yet. And the way we spank him is we do it through Cheers and Jeers. We're the ones who say, 'No, you can't eat paste.' What's wrong with us?"
---Michele Bachmann
7/15/13
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