From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
"Hey. Love yer sig…"
Every now and agin' C&J drops in on random posts looking for signature lines (links, quotes, or other words of wisdom that automatically appear when you post a comment---you can create a "sig" at your user profile page) from all y'alls. It's fun because it gives me a chance to explore posts I might not otherwise visit. And it's addictive because I'm a quoteaholic. Enjoy some brain candy…
We are not powerless!! "Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet." --Alice Walker (nocynicism)
Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.
~ J. Garcia (DeadHead)
It always seems impossible until it's done. ---Nelson Mandela (chuckvw)
"If you have a sig leave a sig.
If you need a sig take a sig."
---Last words of Genghis Khan
Republicans are like alligators. All mouth and no ears. (Ohiodem1)
Don’t argue with idiots because they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. --Greg King (Pinto Pony)
“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” --Charles Darwin (ivorybill)
There's no such thing as a Free Information Kit. There is, however, advertising. (lotac)
When the rich have tripled their share of the income and wealth yet again, Republicans will still blame the poor and 3rd Way Democrats
will still negotiate. (Words in Action)
"Bob Johnson doesn't have special privileges, because really, why would I entrust that guy with ANYTHING?" --kos, November 9, 2013 (Bob Johnson)
Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies, We were roaring drunk on petroleum --Kurt Vonnegut (Anthony Page aka SecondComing)
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." --George Carlin (Most Awesome Nana)
And this round's winner, from jwinIL14, and we'll find out if it's true in 17 days...
Only Punxsutawney Phil can save us now.
As always, I bow to your superior sigging ability.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, January 16, 2014
Note: You may notice a very strong licorice smell in C&J this morning. Please don't get near it. It's a jar of licorice and it's MINE!!!
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9 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the next Democratic president is inaugurated:
1,100
Days 'til the
Big Bay Whale Festival in San Diego:
9
Number of peer-reviewed articles submitted on the subject of climate change between November, 2012 and December, 2013:
2,258
Number of them that rejected the notion of man-made global warming:
1
(Source:
Meteor Blades)
Growth in GM's sales in 2013:
4%
Obamacare sign-ups in Maine through December 28, keeping in mind that our governor did not approve an expansion Medicaid expansion:
13,700
(Source: DHHS via
The Portland Press Herald)
Number of centenarians who have gotten a crossword puzzle published in
The New York Times:
1 (
Bernice Gordon, yesterday)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
As anyone who is involved in raising money for a non-profit organization these days knows, the flying bombs that hit on Sept. 11 also landed on every helping organization in America with a huge impact. Budgets, staff, services, facilities -- all slashed. And at the top, those with the power, those who make the decisions, are too far away to even see what is happening in the streets, insulated by multiplying multiples of their incomes.
After six years as governor of Texas, George W. Bush was infuriated by a federal report ranking Texas No. 1 in hunger. "You'd think the governor would have heard if there are pockets of hunger in Texas," he said. Well, Texas had been No. 1 in hunger since the feds started keeping count in the 1960s -- it's a permanent condition here, but the governor had never seen it.
---January, 2002
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Tastefully nudietoons
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CHEERS to walkin' the walk. You wanna talk about contrast between the parties? While John Boehner and Mitch McConnell announced a new Republican campaign to win the hearts of Latinos by reading pro-Latino talking points off of Power Point slides, President Obama was busy nominating Maria Contreras-Sweet as head of the Small Business Administration:
President Obama nominates Maria Contreras-Sweet (l)
as head of the SBA yesterday at the White House.
"As Secretary of the California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, Maria was the driving force behind major job creation and major public investments in infrastructure and in housing. As a consultant, she helped companies expand into the Latino market. She’s a champion of women-owned and family-owned businesses. When she started her [ProAmérica Bank], she said she wanted the bank to be a place where families would come for help, “because when family businesses thrive”---and I’m quoting -- “the community thrives and the economy thrives.” And as someone who moved to California from Mexico as a young girl, and whose mother worked long hours to support Maria and her five siblings, she knows firsthand the challenges that working families and recent immigrants are facing. "
She'll now match wits in confirmation hearings with a bunch of ancient Republicans who think she'll drive the country toward socialism. Or as I like to call it:
Sweet vs. Sour.
CHEERS to a big Okie "okey dokey!" Okay, marriage-equality movement, now you're just showing off. On the heels of a judge's favorable ruling in reddest-state Utah comes another judge's decision that, assuming the appeals process works as expected, gay marriage will soon be perfectly legal in freakin' Oklahoma:
Senior U.S. District Judge Terrence C. Kern…said the ban discriminated against same-sex couples for no rational reason. After dissecting the arguments supporters voiced to justify the ban, Kern said that “moral disapproval of homosexuals as a class, or same-sex marriage as a practice, is not a permissible justification.”
Moreover, he said, protecting the sanctity of marriage wasn't a valid reason for the ban, given Oklahoma's high divorce rate of opposite-sex couples, and encouraging procreation wasn't logical either since opposite-sex couples aren't required to say they'll produce offspring in order to get a marriage license.
Don’t worry your pretty little heads, Oklahoma right-wingers. You may be in the process of losing your irrational war on gays, but you'll still have your irrational wars on climate change science, women's health, the United Nations and Sharia law to fume over. Quick---to the crazy trenches!
JEERS to living down to your reputation. The media---social, network, cable and dead-tree---are swarming like flies over the latest congressional approval poll. Behold what the people in the most exceptional country in the world think about the leaders of the most exceptional form of government in the universe ever invented:
On the upside, cockroaches are back to
being a bit less Popular than Congress.
Thirty-four percent approve of the performance of congressional Democrats, stable since last spring… As for the Republicans in Congress, 25 percent approve… Painfully, congressional Republicans get only a 51 percent approval rating from Republicans themselves, highlighting the party’s popularity problems---including internal rifts over its Tea Party component---among its own core supporters.
The Democrats in Congress, by contrast, get a much better rating, 64 percent, from self-identified Democrats in this poll.
The stabilized numbers mean that our D.C. overlords are no longer less popular than cockroaches, airline seating and used baby wipes. And if that doesn't look great on a resume, I don't know what does.
JEERS to messing with The Precious. On January 16, 1919, the tenacious temperance twits in Wyoming became the last ones necessary to ratify Prohibition, which went into effect on January 16, 1920:
"...from my cold---really cold---dead hand."
Many Prohibition groups, called “dries”, were church-based, mainly Protestant denominations. The anti-Prohibition groups, or “wets”, tended to be mostly Roman Catholic, Episcopalian and Lutherans from Germany. Both major political parties had wet and dry factions. [W]hen Congress convened in January, 1917, the mandate was clear: regardless of party, dries outnumbered wets in Congress by 2-to-1.
The result: a huge spike in organized crime. The stock market crash of 1929 led to the eventual repeal of the 18th amendment on the premise that reviving the legit liquor industry would create jobs. So you might say that in a weird way the banksters toppled the gangsters. Then again, that's the way they topple everything.
JEERS to unpleasant encounters. During a Senate committee hearing on drone policy yesterday afternoon, Senator Dianne Feinstein said she was minding her own business when she suddenly found herself being stared at by a drone. Also yesterday afternoon, during a hearing on human policy, a drone said it was minding its own business when it suddenly found itself being stared at by a Dianne Feinstein. Conclusion: laws are needed.
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Five years ago in C&J: January 16, 2009
The Bush legacy.
JEERS to a big waste of TV time. Speaking to the nation by himself would have made him look too pathetic, so George W. Bush---looking older at 62 than his 84 year-old dad---had to
fill a room with cronies and people props (a marine! A firefighter! A prison inmate who will one day share a cell with him!) last night as he said one last
HehHehHeh to America. I just kept saying "Shut up, shut up, please just shut up." Thirteen minutes later, he did shut up! I wish I could've been that influential on him eight years ago.
P.S. Keith Olbermann observes: "He didn't say the words Americans wanted to hear most: 'Sorry' and 'Goodbye.'" Or, I would add, "It was all just a bad dream."
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And just one more…
CHEERS to naked men dipped in gold. The Oscar nominations are being announced in about ten minutes. (We'll update this space momentarily.) were announced this morning. Here are the bigguns:
True Fact: Oscar spends
three hours at the gym each
day to maintain his 6" waist.
Best Picture:
American Hustle
Nebraska
Captain Phillips
Philomena
12 Years a Slave
Gravity
The Wolf of Wall Street
Dallas Buyers Club
Her
Best Actor:
Christian Bale---American Hustle
Bruce Dern---Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio---Wolf of Wall Street
Chiwetel Ejiofor---12 Years A Slave
Matthew McConaughey---Dallas Buyers Club
Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett---Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock---Gravity
Judy Dench---Philomena
Meryl Streep---August: Osage County
Amy Adams---American Hustle
Best Supporting Actor:
Barkhad Abdi---Captain Phillips
Jonah Hill---Wolf of Wall Street
Jared Leto---Dallas Buyers Club
Michael Fassbender---12 Years a Slave
Bradley Cooper---American Hustle
Best Supporting Actress:
Sally Hawkins---Blue Jasmine
Julia Roberts---August: Osage County
June Squibb---Nebraska
Lupita Nyong'o---12 Years A Slave
Jennifer Lawrence---American Hustle
And there's one sure-bet that is so sure I'm writing this on Wednesday night because it's so in the bag: 81 year-old John Williams will see his music for
The Book Thief honored with a nod. It's his 49th nomination since 1967. It'd be more but he's trying to pace himself.
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:
Justin Bieber Allegedly Throws Eggs At Bill in Portland Maine Causing $20,000 In Damage
---Huffington Post
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