From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
"Name that loon! Name that loon!"
Last week C&J noticed that Maine's Biodiversity Research Institute started a program in which you can sponsor a loon, male or female, from one of seven states. Since Daily Kos sorely lacks a loon contingent, I decided to sponsor one on our behalf. You voted to adopt one from Minnesota, we gathered name suggestions, and today it's time to pick the winner.
While you're mulling the candidates, here's an example of the kind of project the BRI is working on in that state:
Loon sponsorship proceeds help fund
Biodiversity Research Institute projects.
If the five loon chicks moved to this Elysian-area lake by Maine researchers return here to breed in several years, the bird's distinctive call may return to southern Minnesota lakes. Working with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the Biodiversity Research Institute is leading an effort to reintroduce the loon to its former range. They once lived as far south as northern Iowa, but habitat loss has limited them to the northern two-thirds of Minnesota.
Even so, southern Minnesota still has lakes that experts believe could harbor loons. The DNR helped search for a lake with a healthy fish population, clear water and plenty of shoreland vegetation for nesting. They found a match in Fish Lake, about two miles north of Elysian.
I should mention that, while some of the names below are a bit, um, loony, all the loons under consideration are in on the joke and are thrilled at the prospect of being sponsored by environment-protecting liberals. They like us. They really, really like us.
Vote now and help us feather our Great Orange Nest with our own Gavia immer.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, December 11, 2014
Note: Arson charges pending after Jeanette and Isabella admit to bringing a torch to a duplex on Riverside Drive during a drinking binge. Film at 11.
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Starts tomorrow!
By the Numbers:
Weeks 'til 2015:
3
Days 'til
Christmas in Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard:
1
Percent of Americans who work from home:
4.3%
(Source: Census Bureau)
Year by which Pope Francis wants to free the estimated 35 million enslaved people around the world:
2020
(Source: AP)
Number of the last 15 warmest years on record that have occurred during the 21st century:
14
Number of people around the world who gained access to an improved source of drinking water between 1990 and 2012:
2.3 billion
(Source: Bloomberg)
Winning bid for
a slice of Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding cake:
$7,500
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
This is the same pattern we have seen with Bush when it came to the Geneva Conventions for handling prisoners and to using torture. Not only does he consider himself above the law, he has surrounded himself with people who keep inventing perverse readings of the Constitution to justify him. Makes it especially nice to hear him go on about the importance of bringing democracy to Iraq.
Bush defended his actions Monday by saying it was part of "connecting the dots." A painful moment, since the 9-11 Commission just finished giving this administration grades of D and F in terms of preventing another terrorist attack---and it has jack-all to do with wiretapping. This administration has cried wolf so many times using the national security excuse it has lost all credibility.
Bush just could not resist that especially nasty little fillip at the end: blaming the people who reported the problem. As though the sin were telling the people of this country what is happening, what is being done in our name with our money, as though we have no right to know.
---December 2005
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Puppy Pic of the Day: When bath time and sleepy time intersect
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JEERS to the CIA's new buddies-in-inhumanity. Let's check in with some of the other empires we share the planet with and get their reviews on the revelations in the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report:
And thumbs-up from these guys.
Russia: "Hey, welcome to our world!"
North Korea: "Mind if we borrow that rectal technique? That's a new one on us. Love it!"
Egypt: "That meat hook maneuver is an instant classic!"
Iran: "Perhaps we and you share more common ground than we thought."
Syria: "The feel-good report of the year!"
China: "We're shocked! Shocked! [Wink! Wink!]"
Teabagistan: "Torture is awesome and so is America!"
And this just in: The CIA has been unanimously inducted into the International Power Drill Hall of Fame. The plaque will look lovely next to their "World's Best Sleep Depriver" trophy.
CHEERS to the opposite of torture. Yesterday the yins to the CIA's yang were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014. Sharing the award with child-rights campaigner Kailash Satyarthi of India was 17 year-old Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan:
More like them, please.
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During a powerful speech at the Nobel peace prize ceremony in Oslo, she said: “Why is it that countries which we call strong are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy, but giving books is so hard?” … She joked that although she was only 5ft 2in tall---in heels---she was not a lone voice. “I am many [...] I am those 66 million girls who are deprived of education---and today I am not raising my voice, it is the voice of those 66 million girls,” she said.
It was fitting that they received their Nobels on International Human Rights Day. As usual, the day passed with plenty of humans, not enough rights.
CHEERS to the crossroads of America. On December 11, 1816, Indiana (or, as we say in Maine, "Indianer") became America's 19th state. I grew up next door in Ohio, so naturally I look down my designer reading glasses at you "Hoosier types." But I'll give you this: any state that produces David Letterman, Kurt Vonnegut and Florence Henderson---and knows when to recoil in horror at a Republican Senate candidate like Richard Mourdock---can't be all bad. Permission to celebrate granted---but be in bed by 8.
CHEERS to winning a squeaker for Team Dem. We had a bit of post-election ugliness here in our neck of the woods involving a state senate race which, for a change, had some Democrats crying "election fraud" and Republicans crying "you're crazy, election fraud doesn’t happen in Maine." But all's well that ends well:
Cathy Breen won...then lost...
then won...all in one election.
On Election Day, unofficial results showed that Democrat Cathy Breen led Republican Cathy Manchester, 10,930 to 10,898. During a recount requested by Republicans and Manchester, 21 new ballots were found. All were from Long Island, all for Manchester. Combined with several other ballots that were challenged, Manchester took the lead, 10,927 to 10,916. … The 21 ballots were apparently left on the counting table and the next bundle was plopped down on top of it, resulting in the 21 Manchester votes getting counted twice.
So Democrat Breen wins the seat, and instead of a seven-seat advantage in the state Senate, Republicans will only have a five seat advantage. And once again the specter of election fraud in Maine remains where it belongs: in the
Big Book of Mythology.
CHEERS to great moments in feeling good. On December 11, 1844, laughing gas was used by a dentist for the first time. They don’t use it as much these days. They achieved better results by putting TVs on the ceiling tuned to Fox News.
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Five years ago in C&J: December 11, 2009
CHEERS to a new trinket for the future Barack H. Obama Presidential Library. #44 traveled to Norway yesterday to accept the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. His overall message: speaking softly is preferable, but sometimes, goddammit, you gotta use the big stick. To illustrate his point, he reached down and patted a puppy with his left hand and the "nuclear football" with his right. I understand you could've heard a pin drop.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to blowing this popsicle stand. Hey, want to send some of your DNA on its own moon shot? Now you can:
A' digging they will go...
For as little as $15, Lunar Mission One gives the public a chance to buy space on memory discs that will be buried in a hole drilled into the lunar surface.
The public will be invited to leave music, photos and videos on the disc---helping creating a chronicle of the people of Earth. Those offering more funding will leave more data, including DNA in form of a strand of hair.
“Governments are finding it increasingly difficult to fund space exploration that is solely for the advancement of human knowledge and understanding as opposed to commercial return,” said British engineer and city financier David Iron, who came up with the plan. “The world class team of advisers and supporters we have assembled will address this issue and crucially anyone from around the world can get involved for as little as a few pounds.”
Here's my plan: I'll send a strand of my hair to the moon. Eventually the moon will get hit by an asteroid, freeing my hair strand and sending it to the surface of an earth-like planet in a galaxy far, far away. Then a bunch of Neil deGrassi Tyson
Cosmos science shit will happen and the hair will evolve into a one-celled Billymoeba. Then I'll form arms and legs, upright posture, an advanced brain, and legendary mass-procreation abilities. Then: the discovery of fire and crude tools. Civilizations get formed and knowledge spreads. Then technology! Then we become prisoners of a police state run by an unholy alliance between big industry, big religion and big politics. But on my planet everybody gets free cable.
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:
A NASA Cheers and Jeers probe has photographed a strange kiddie pool form that resembles a freshly baked pie.
---Christian Science Monitor
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