From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Oh! More Things I Know:
> The Netroots Nation annual online auction starts one week from today, and it won't be as good as it can be if you don't add something to the auction block.
> I was a lock to buy the Washington Post from the Grahams until that Amazon.com guy topped my bid by 249,999,999 dollars.
Something else I know:
Excellent covers, Ebony.
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> When people say, "I hope you managed to get through [difficult, traumatic or annoying life event] without too much trouble...", they're saying they hope you did, in fact, have a little trouble getting through it.
> Since Obama dismantled the color-coded terror alert system, whenever I feel anxious about evildoer plots I run down to the paint store and curl up next to the Pantone samples.
> Next year's high school graduates will likely have no recollection of the attacks of 9/11 because they were too young at the time to remember them. I bring this up to make you feel old.
> It's hard to know whether to mock or pity conservatives who want to turn Atlas Shrugged into U.S. government policy, but studies show you're safer coming down on the side of mockery.
> Unlike Jeff Bezos, I'm not working on a 10,000 year clock. I am, however, working on a 10,000 minute snooze button.
> I'm so old I remember when Mitch Daniels was a shoo-in to be president. All he had to do was say yes and then...magic GOP happytime.
> If you're boycotting Russian vodka, you can't go wrong with Cold River Blueberry Vodka from Maine.
> If dreams are a preview of the afterlife, I'm going to be spending a lot of time falling off cliffs, missing tests and getting fired.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, August 8, 2013
Note: THIS NOTE WAS WRITTEN UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF CONTROLLED FONT-ENHANCING SUBSTANCES!!!!!!
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8 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Bill Clinton's 67th birthday:
11
Days 'til
Seattle Hempfest:
8
Drop in the U.S. trade gap between May and June:
22%
The last time the trade gap was that narrow:
10/09
(Source: Commerce Dept. via AP)
Increase in sales of
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth after author Reza Aslan was badgered in a Fox News interview that then went viral:
35%
(Source: Time)
Rank of Alabama, Ohio State and Oregon in the
USA Today College Football Coaches Football Poll:
#1, #2, #3
Number of times the average pair of human lungs expand and contact over the course of a day:
20,000
(Source:
Jeopardy!)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Just FYI, of the many allies the Bush White House managed to gratuitously insult on the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, we miffed the Canadians by blowing off their last-minute attempt to work out a deal for continued inspections under a strict timeframe -- we not only blew it off, we went to the trouble of being rude and arrogant about it. Among its other unpleasant traits, bad manners rank quite high on this administration's list of failings. In addition, some right-wingers weighed in with juvenile taunts along the intellectually brilliant lines of "nyah-nyah-nyah."
The National Review published a cover story headlined "Wimps!" Bill O'Reilly of Fox News got all huffy over something a Toronto columnist wrote and decided to appoint himself our national spokesman. Diplomacy is not O'Reilly's forte (he called Canadians "dishonest pinheads"). Of the many stupid things our country has done lately, alienating the best neighbor any country ever had ranks fairly high on the All Time Stupid list.
---August, 2004
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Adoption squeeeeeeee!
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CHEERS to storytime. Once upon a time, there was a pig in Cleveland who lived in a house of sticks. Then cops came and found out that the pig had kidnapped three young women and held them captive for ten years. After they booked the pig, the city huffed and puffed and blew his house down. Now the pig in Cleveland is living in a house of brick. For the rest of his pig life.
JEERS to a hunka hunka burnin' planet. How hot was it last year? It was hotter than John Boehner's nipples in a tanning booth. It was hotter than the steam coming out of Liz Cheney's ears when Fishinglicensegate hit the papers. It was so hot that street protesters have shifted tactics so they can occupy the dairy case at Kroger. It was so hot that Pat Robertson began telling his flock that unrepentant sinners would start being re-routed to fry for eternity in Oklahoma. Yeah…it was that hot:
2013 is on track to fill the record books with more awful heat. Even worse, more awful metaphors.
CHEERS to chest-thumping. "Hey, Putin! Can you hear us now??!!! Put your fuckin' shirt back on and grow up." Okay, okay…President Obama was slightly more polite than that, but by canceling his summit with the Russian president, the message was loud and clear: tut tut. Probably nothing to worry about in the big picture. But, just to be safe, "duck and cover" drills will be incorporated into all Pilates classes today.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. "Nathaniel" asks Pat Robertson: What do you think the Bible has to say about video games?
Seriously??!!!
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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CHEERS to dune buggy's first year. The Mars rover Curiosity has been roving over the red planet's hills and dales for one year as of this week, and all is going according to plan:
This is where the
Mars Walmart will go.
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The 1-ton robot has achieved a great deal in its 12 months on Mars, discovering an ancient streambed and gathering enough evidence for mission scientists to declare that the planet could have supported microbial life billions of years ago.
And more big finds could be in the offing, as Curiosity is now trekking toward its ultimate science destination: the foothills of a huge and mysterious mountain that preserves, in its many layers, a history of Mars' changing environmental conditions.
One day, long after we're gone, a rover from some distant galaxy will land here and probe our own history of Earth's changing environmental conditions and conclude that intelligent life never could've lived here. But the parasites walked on two legs---fascinating.
JEERS to stupid Republican tricks. Forty years ago today, on August 8, 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew called accusations that he took kickbacks as governor of Maryland "damned lies." He maintained his innocence until October 10, when he issued another statement: "Oh, you meant thoooose kickbacks! Why didn't you say so? I quit. Goodbye!" Meanwhile, on this date in 1974, Agnew's boss Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace. Watch him yuk it up as he prepares to deliver his resignation speech.
They made such a lovely couple.
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Five years ago in C&J: August 8, 2008
CHEERS to Thomas Friedman. There lieth a danger in dismissing certain dead-tree-press columnists because they sometimes say stupid things like "Suck on this" and "the next six months will be the most critical six months until at least six months from now." Namely, sometimes they're right:
The "mustache
of understanding."
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[M]y trip with Denmark’s minister of climate and energy, Connie Hedegaard, to see the effects of climate change on Greenland’s ice sheet leaves me with a very strong opinion: Our kids are going to be so angry with us one day.
We’ve charged their future on our Visa cards. We’ve added so many greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, for our generation’s growth, that our kids are likely going to spend a good part of their adulthood, maybe all of it, just dealing with the climate implications of our profligacy. And now our leaders are telling them the way out is "offshore drilling" for more climate-changing fossil fuels. Madness. Sheer madness.
But as Dick Cheney would remind us, at least it's good old-fashioned, red, white and blue
American madness. So suck on our tailpipe, Danes.
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And just one more…
JEERS to fear-based marketing: the annual update. Two years ago the conservative media outlet "NewsMax" posted an ad that caught my eye on Facebook. The ad still shows up occasionally on right-wing conspiracy sites, and this was the copy they posted to get people to click on it:
Obama's Coming Depression
50% unemployment,
90% stock market collapse,
100% inflation.
See the evidence.
Shocked and horrified, I clicked as fast as I could so I could "see the evidence." It turns out they're---
surprise!---feasting on ignorant people's fear and paranoia to sell shitty investments. I actually read the fine print, and here's what it said, in part (and, yes, in all caps):
NO GUARANTEE OF ANY KIND IS IMPLIED OR POSSIBLE WHERE PROJECTIONS OF FUTURE CONDITIONS ARE ATTEMPTED. IN NO EVENT SHOULD THE CONTENT OF THIS REPORT BE CONSTRUED AS AN EXPRESS OR IMPLIED PROMISE, GUARANTEE OR IMPLICATION BY OR FROM THE SERVICES, NEWSMAX OR ANY OF ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AFFILIATES OR OTHER AGENTS THAT YOU WILL PROFIT OR THAT LOSSES CAN OR WILL BE LIMITED IN ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER.
Two years later, a fact-check is in order: unemployment is nowhere near 50 percent, the stock market is in record-high territory, and inflation is
1.8 percent. So I say,
buy buy buy! (Disclaimer: By that I mean buy anything but what NewsMax is selling.)
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Cheers and Jeers mystifies experts; "It’s crazy pants," one says
---McClatchy News
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