From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
Warning Labels: Right-Wing Edition
Hey, if cigarette makers have to do it...
Warning: Benghazi scandal implosion area. Watch for falling conspiracy theories.
Warning: The Republican governor in this state has been re-elected.
Warning: This Texas community may have a chemical manufacturer nearby that could explode at any moment. Or it may not. We don’t know because our AG won’t let us find out anymore. But try knocking on all the doors in your neighborhood and asking whoever answers if they're a chemical manufacturer that could explode at any moment. That might work.
Warning: Republicans behind
wheel of Legislative Branch.
Warning: Objects in Republicans' rear-view mirror are closer than they appear because they're driving in reverse.
Warning: Kirk Cameron Christmas movie now playing in theatres
Warning: This Republican supports making you work on Thanksgiving.
Warning: Watching Republicans change their views based on who's in the White House may give you whiplash.
Warning: In case of government tyranny, use pistol in Senator-elect Joni Ernst's purse to overthrow government.
Warning: House Speaker chain-smokes Camel Ultra Lights. The Surgeon General has determined that secondhand smoke can kill you. Therefore this House Speaker may kill you.
Warning: This "small-government conservative" wants the government to install a usage meter inside every woman's vagina and a spycam inside every adult's bedroom.
WARNING!!!!! Michele Bachmann still sits on the House Intelligence Committee for another 41 days.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, November 24, 2014
Note: You're just in time for the first annual C&J glopping of the canned cranberry sauce: [Glop.] Hey, that was fun.
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Truman lights the tree in 1945
By the Numbers:
Days 'til 2015:
38
Days 'til the
lighting of the National Happyholidays Tree:
10
Number of Top 30 U.S. corporations who pay their CEOs more than they do in taxes:
7
(Source:
The Guardian)
Guinness Book rank of the late
Duchess of Alba among most titled people:
#1
Number of duchess, marchioness and countess titles she had, respectively, when she died at 88 last week:
5, 18, 18
Calories the typical guy consumes in an entire day:
2,679
Calories he'll consume during Thanksgiving dinner alone:
3,000
(Source: Men's Health)
Totally Random NFL Score
New England Patriots 34 Detroit Lions 9
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Your Monday Robin Williams Moment
"Everyone has these two visions when they hold their child for the first time. The first is your child as an adult saying 'I want to thank the Nobel Committee for this award.' The other is 'You want fries with that?'"
After winning his Oscar for Good Will Hunting: "Most of all, I want to thank my father, up there, the man who when I said I wanted to be an actor, he said, 'Wonderful. Just have a back-up profession like welding'."
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Puppy Pic of the Day: No wonder our dog Haley keeps changing the locks on us…
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CHEERS to short workweeks. Only three days for most Americans this week---hopefully you're among them. Then it's turkey, gravy, spuds and a whole lotta nothin' else. Except, of course, our usual 14 hours of daily blogging. ("Pass the stuffing, dear. And the screen shammy...")
JEERS to the silence of the screechers. Ever since the 2012 attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Republicans have been screaming about the INCOMPTENCE! The COVERUP! The CONSPIRACY! The BLOOD ON HILLARY'S HANDS! The IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES COMMITTED BY OBAMA! But last Friday a new GOP-approved House investigative report---which was released with a teeny tiny little squeak and garnered a whopping 30 seconds of airtime on Fox News---concluded that the real guilty party in Benghazigate is the Republican spin machine that exploited the tragedy for political gain:
(Via the Madd Asshatter)
A two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees.
Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.
To the mouth-breathers on the right, the conclusion is inescapable: anti-Christ Obama used his spinny-wheely hypnotism eyes to put the House Intelligence Committee into a trance and write down the words he sent them via mind-meld from his command lair in Kenya which is connected to the White House by a secret tunnel. And they DEMAND HEARINGS TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF IT!
CHEERS and JEERS to Ma Nature's 2014/2015 playbook. Last year, the NOAA's Climate Prediction Center was WILDLY off the mark when it predicted a warmer-than-average winter for Maine---it was soul-numbingly cold. Now they're back with their latest forecast, and I'll be taking it with a grain of road salt:
Below average temperatures are favored in parts of the south-central and southeastern United States, while above-average temperatures are most likely in the western U.S., Alaska, Hawaii and New England,
The Precipitation Outlook favors above-average precipitation across the southern tier, from the southern half of California, across the Southwest, South-central, and Gulf Coast states, Florida, and along the eastern seaboard to Maine. Above-average precipitation also is favored in southern Alaska and the Alaskan panhandle. Below-average precipitation is favored in Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest.
As usual, some predictions are harder to make than others. For example, there's a zero-percent chance of knowing actual snowfall amounts this far out, but there's a 100 percent chance of knowing that climate-change deniers will scream "Global cooling!" every time a flake sticks to the pavement. (See: Buffalo) C&J recommends you start assembling your winter management kit: shovel, ice-melting pellets, blankets, candles, and earplugs.
CHEERS to common sense backed by science. On today's date in 1859, Darwin's The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was published. As proof that the theory works in reverse, more Americans believe in creationism today than evolution. Even the one-celled amoeba's are rolling their eyes.
JEERS to History Channel'ing history class. The esteemed Republican opinionators on the Texas School Board gave their final Judeo-Christian approval to the state's new history textbooks, and you'll never guess: they're a little fictiony:
The new, approved Mount Rushmore.
One textbook claims that "the roots of democratic government" date back "thousands of years to Old Testament texts and Biblical figures such as Moses and Solomon." Such a claim is absurd - the forms of government mentioned in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament are monarchy and theocracy.
Another text teaches students that "the biblical idea of a covenant"---one between people and God---"contributed to our constitutional structure." But the historical truth is that the American founders were inspired by the very different Lockean social contract---a voluntary agreement among "We the People" to create a government for ourselves. Such a government would protect the rights of all---including, importantly, religious liberty.
In fairness, Democrats on the board (who are outnumbered two-to-one) were able to extract a few concessions. For example, Barack Obama is no longer referred to as the "Muslim Tyrant in Chief," and the chapter on the "Great Gay Marriage Locust Plague of 2014" will be shelved until it technically happens.
CHEERS to "Old Rough 'n Ready." And Happy birthday to "#12" Zachary Taylor, who became president in 1849. Odd fellow:
Look up "grizzled"
in the dictionary...
Taylor was one strange-looking dude. Given his thick trunk, long, spindly arms, and a face like shoe leather, he bore an unsettling resemblance to an orangutan. Old Rough and Ready may have been at home in the saddle, but he needed help getting into it---his legs were too short and bow-shaped to do it alone. His hat of choice was a broad-rimmed, floppy thing woven of palmetto leaves, which---along with a mismatched set of rags that he frequently passed off as clothes---led some people to mistake their president for a farmer.
---From Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents by Cormac O'Brien
He ruled the roost for a whopping 1 year and 126 days until he became "Old Gastroenteritis" and died from either a) tainted water, b) tainted cherries, or c) tainted iced milk. You know the drill...
pay your respects and move along. Taint nice to stare at dead folks.
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Five years ago in C&J: November 24, 2009
CHEERS to tears in space. Yesterday astronauts Robert Satcher Jr. and Randy Bresnik completed NASA's 230th space walk. Among other things, they re-directed an antenna so now the folks on the International Space Station will be able to watch Hotel Erotica on Cinemax again. Meanwhile, Mission Specialist Bresnik found out after a spacewalk yesterday that he's a dad:
"I got to see my little girl for the first time yesterday. And I know that many myriad of people across a lot of disciplines at JSC and the hospital staff that worked to make that happen. ... So thank you to my wonderful wife for bringing her into the world. That is the most wonderful thing I've seen since I left Earth."
The coolest part? He cut the umbilical cord from space with a laser.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a tactical defeat for Team Baby Jesus. Just as holiday advertising keeps starting earlier and earlier, so too are the opening salvos in the War on Christmas. While conservatives continue their annual finger-wagging campaign against stores that have the communist audacity to say "Happy holidays," the folks behind the cult favorite "Robot Chicken" TV show are airing a special on December 7th with the best title ever:
The Robot Chicken Lots of Holidays (But Don't
Worry Christmas is Still in There Too So Pull the
Stick Out of Your Ass Fox News) Special
Never gonna happen. It's the lynchpin to Murdoch's entire operation.
Oh, and today is Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day. Or as I like to call it, "Short-Sheet the Beds Down at the Nursing Home Day." Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Now Fox & Friends Is Upset That Obama Is Quoting Bill in Portland Maine
---Media Matters
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