From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Toy Time!
I never had a See 'n Say as a kid. But I spun the crap out of my friend Ed's See 'n Say. And now that the statute of limitations has expired, I can finally admit that I opened it up and rigged it so each animal was off by one, and to this day Ed thinks chickens go "Moo."
Using the latest corkscrew and super-glue technology, I've created my own political versions of the See 'n Say. Here, lemme pull the string and I'll let you hear a sample of the right-wing version:
[Zzzzzzzhip!]
The Speaker of the House says: "Six more weeks of vacation!"
This is the senior senator from South Carolina: "We're all gonna die!!!"
The slut-shaming radio host goes: "Oink!"
The Washington Post columnist with no lips says: "Danger---the earth is cooling."
What does the mansplainer say? "Now don’t get your fallopian tubes in a twist, little lady."
The Kansas Secretary of State goes: "A Democrat on the senate race ballot! A Democrat on the senate race ballot! My kingdom for a Democrat on the senate race ballot!"
This is the brawling former half-term Alaska governor: "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM??!!!"
The loofah-loving loudmouth from Levittown says: "Fuck it! We'll do it LIVE!!!"
Listen to the teabagger: "Keep your government hands off my Medicare!"
Here's the Sunday morning network TV host: "Coming up next: John McCain."
The Fox News chyron says, "Benghazi Bombshell!!!"
I think I'll call it
See 'n Spew.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, September 25, 2014
Note: Due to a failed cloture vote, today's note has been kicked back to committee where it will be morphed into a rider to an amendment. We regret any immaturity on your part as you deal with the inconvenience. ---Mgt.
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3 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the midterm elections:
40
Days 'til Maine's
Fryeburg Fair, the first of which was in 1851:
3
Number of animals that'll be at the fair this year:
3,000
Percent of women who have been raped, according to the CDC:
19.3%
Percent of stock trades handled by the New York Stock Exchange ten years ago and today, respectively:
80%, 20%
(Source:
The Wall Street Journal)
Estimated average ticket price for Derek Jeter's last home game tonight:
$380
(Source:
FiveThirtyEight)
Worldwide gross of the stage version of
The Lion King, which is now the #1 box office success of any work in any media at any time:
$6.2 billion
(Source: AP)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Oh dear. I'm sure he didn't mean it. In Illinois' 6th Congressional District, long represented by Henry Hyde, Republican candidate Peter Roskam accused his Democratic opponent Tammy Duckworth of planning to "cut and run" on Iraq.
Duckworth is a former Army major and chopper pilot, who lost both legs in Iraq after her helicopter got hit by an RPG. "I just could not believe he would say that to me," said Duckworth, who walks on artificial legs and uses a cane. Every election cycle produces some wincers, but how do you apologize for that one?
---September, 2006
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Saved!!!
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CHEERS to general assemblage. President Obama gave his United Nations General Assembly address yesterday (I forget where). Along with the State of the Union, this is one of the gravitas maximus speeches presidents give each year. (Conversely, the White House Correspondents dinner is categorized as gravitas minimus sed hilarius.) Here's the grand finale:
He called out Russia for bullying Ukraine, rallied the world to fight ISIS and other groups who kidnap religion and use it to justify their terror sprees, told the kids to straighten up and fly right, listed all 3,900,652 problems the world is now facing, and ended with people people, can't we all get along? Given that three-quarters of the assembly who bet he'd break into a few bars of Al Green lost money and/or gold bars, I'd say the answer is no.
CHEERS to joining the crowd. NASA got its accolades Monday for putting a spacecraft into Mars' orbit. Now it's India's turn:
Mars, meet MOM. MOM, meet Mars.
India created history on Wednesday, becoming the first country to successfully get a spacecraft into the Martian orbit on its maiden attempt. Indian Space Research Organisation's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) spacecraft started orbiting the red planet at 7.47am, but it was only 12 minutes later---because of a time delay in radio signals travelling the 680 million km---that scientists at Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network in Bangalore, could erupt in joy as Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood
a happy witness.
Congratulations, India. Now if you could just make my customer service calls go as smoothly.
CHEERS to Great Moments in Democracy. On September 25, 1789---back when everything was still in black and white---Congress adopted twelve amendments to the Constitution and FedEx'd them to all 50 states for ratification. Ten of those amendments became the Bill of Rights. Had this same event occurred in 2014, the Republicans would've re-written them to please ALEC, Grover Norquist and the Koch brothers, threatened a filibuster and waited for the Democrats to "meet in the middle." But my point is: Ha Ha! They wore funny grampa socks back then!
JEERS to the internet robber barons. The ISPs are lickin' their chops over the prospect of creating fast lanes (for corporations and people---pardon the redundancy---rich enough to pay for access to them) and slow lanes (for the rest of us). But one rather significant figure wants the FCC to hear loud and clear that he, Tim Berners-Lee, inventer of the World Wide Web, Thinks the idea sucks:
Berners-Lee would prefer
an open internet, please.
"We need rules," said Berners-Lee. "If businesses are to move here and start here rather than start in Europe or Brazil or Australia---they're going to look around and make sure, 'Oh, does the power stay up?' And they'll look for other things. 'Is the Internet open?' Will they have to effectively bribe their ISPs to start a new service? That's what it looks like from the outside. It's bribery." […]
"[The technical aspect of the internet] is something normal people in the street aren't going to understand---and they shouldn't have to! If you have to start understanding what's happening inside, then the Internet has failed already."
The
Washington Post reports that the FCC got nearly
four million submissions during its open comment period,
"more than the FCC has gotten on any debate in its 80-year history," and you can bet the vast majority are in Berners-Lee's corner. No word on when the FCC's town crier will reveal their decision. Apparently they're taking the slow lane, and in this instance…that's a good thing.
CHEERS to the giant, throbbing C&J Translator Machine. When crackpot Massachusetts governor candidate Scott Lively says "God is my campaign manager,", he really means: "I have no money and if I did, no one here on earth would touch my campaign with a ten-foot pole, so I'm going with the invisible guy in the sky because he's really, really cheap." Don’t try plugging that phrase into the Rosetta Stone site. It'll freeze ya right up.
Wild guess: you have a Microsoft spellchecker.
CHEERS to a double date from the Bay State. On September 25, 1690
Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick, the first newspaper to appear in the Americas, was published for the first time in Boston. It was also published for the last time and I think I can see why: with spelling like that it would seem the publisher got hit with the "dome stick."
Ha Ha Ha Ha! And speaking of Boston, today is also the anniversary of the September 25, 1911 groundbreaking for
Fenway Park, home---for one more precious month---of the current World Series Champs. [
Sigh]
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Five years ago in C&J: September 25, 2009
JEERS to falling in love with the sound of your own tweet. Well, here's a shocker: a new report says members of Congress use Twitter primarily for shameless self-promotion. See also: primary uses by members of Congress of TV, radio, telephone, snail mail, MySpace, Facebook, smoke signals, semaphore, morse code, Braille, walkie-talkies, bus signs and cave drawings.
JEERS to high-profile corrections. C&J winced at this headline prominently displayed for too long at CNN.com yesterday: "Dalai Lama greated with fist bump, bad joke." Whoever wrote that is a looser.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Great Moments in Extreme Jealousy. I really, really wanted to jeer this, but it's just too awesome:
"Don't I give you three hours off
on Christmas? Now back to work!"
Tired of only two weeks of vacation a year? Perhaps you should work for Virgin---where boss Richard Branson believes employees should be allowed to take off as much time as they want. The self-made billionaire laid out Virgin's vacation policy on the company's website in a blog post on Wednesday entitled "Why we're letting Virgin staff take as much holiday as they want."
"Flexible working has revolutionized how, where and when we all do our jobs. So, if working nine to five no longer applies, then why should strict annual leave
(vacation) policies?" Branson said in the post that was
excerpted from his book "The Virgin Way."
But letting employees determine how much vacation they take, and when they take it, would lead to happier, healthier, more well-adjusted humans who experience more of what life has to offer with less stress and more personal freedom. Y'know, we have a word for that in this country: un-American. Quick---somebody put Richard Branson on the terror watch list. He's dangerous, that one. Everyone else get back to work and don’t forget to take a Dixie cup for your in-cubicle potty breaks.
Have a crisp fall Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Do you really want Bill in Portland Maine to be running around the world responsible for a band of desperados?"
---Charles Krauthammer
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